Studying Ginsberg

I'm not very well versed in The Beats. Which seems at odds with my personality. A rambling, boisterous and affected girl -- I'm surprised that I don't know them better. Growing up, like-minded friends revered The Beats, and would visually molest the words of Ginsberg, Boroughs and Kerouac. Hands groping, fingers tracing, need searching for something in the stream of consciousness and expressed angst.  Escape from repression that was born in another era, but whispered back empathy for today. Ah, The Beats. And the beat goes on. I understand the tangibility of the words now. The musical chords that each sentence strikes, punctuates and reclaims as its own. At the hands of these poets, wordsmiths and renegade souls. The first round of literary gangsters to penetrate the written form. The kind of language assassins that draw out expression like teeth tugging a lower lip before the smile. An effort that is demanded and seductive simply by taking the time to be itself. I am basking in the rhythm of the words and the words of the dance. Because that is all expression really is. A dance that turns into a march, a run, a slide or a wake. Because we're all trying to matter. To celebrate what matters to us. So I am studying Ginsberg. I'm tripping over my own feet trying to circle around and keep up, but I am so very happy. To give into my desire, to revel in the way the sound moves my mouth, sways my hips and curves my lips. I am home.


"America why are your libraries full of tears?" 


Asks the poet, his words remain - the lingering shadow of the ghost. I stared at that line in Ginsberg's poem, America, zeroing in on its relevancy in a new way. Surprised by how the fibers of time and life are intricately sewn.As a reader, I have been observing the uncertainty of the fate of our great libraries. Wary and fearful of the loss that may await us all. Knowing the eBooks bring a change that could lead us away from these matriarchs and patriarchs - taking from us the gathering places for story and companionship. These homes of words and the halls of their potential. I can't predict the future, or save them with the wave of my hand. But I can find solace in the words, in the question and the knowing. Knowing that the words, no matter where they spring from, no matter how they are stored, the words will never be lost.  There has always been uncertainty, and always will be. But if we use our voices, we can (at the very least) always be heard. And with our words, we can bring the changes we desire and save the things we hold most dear.


Today's word is: athenaeum