Poets of the Cities: New York and San Francisco, 1950-1965 Page: 21
This book is part of the collection entitled: Dallas Museum of Art Exhibition Records and was provided to The Portal to Texas History by the Dallas Museum of Art.
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Abstract Expressionists, particularly Jackson Pollock. He has shared with Pollock the
commitment to spontaneous action, rapidity, and raw, open, and direct spirit. Projected
from unconscious and automatic levels of the self the work reveals in all its complexity an
unvarnished view of the individual psyche; a very personal expression. This, opposed to
the finely wrought tradition of literature, diminishes protective psychological distance
which the reader has from the work.
Although a form of protest is evident in virtually all of the Beat poets, it constitutes neither
a programmatic assault upon contemporary civilization nor a call for the removal of the
technological artifacts which are the symptoms of society's strangulation. Ginsberg does
not seek a Rousseauian return to nature-he does not immerse himself in the old left
ideological revolutionary sloganeering. He is concerned instead with the "ecstatic
radicalism of Blake"-a visionary transformation built upon the destruction of the
bourgeois myth.
Like the romantic realists of the 20's and 30's, Ginsberg recognizes the ironic
juxtaposition of the American dream, the dream of science, with the actual sordidness of
human relationships and the environmental realities of his time. No doubt, it was the
observable failure of a society whose goals had been, in fact, largely achieved that
served as the shock of recognition that the underpinnings of those goals must be
deprived (or depraved) themselves. After all, American technological improvement was
rampant, affluence was widespread, and social welfare had already been significantly
extended. Acknowledgment of failure in such a circumstance indicates a root problem.
Obviously when faced with this sort of disenchantment the two avenues usually adopted
by the individual are 1) a pretense that everything is O.K. and a consequent obscuring of
the self with a concommitant reentry into the societal-structure unquestioned, or 2) an
attempt at symptomatic transformation of society, e.g., development of a new social
ideology of the sort of old left wing socialism. Ginsberg importantly does neither:
The way out of this corner was to arrive at a vision of sordidness and futility that
made of them 'spiritual facts' in their own right. The world might then be redeemed
by a willingness to take it for what it is and to find its enchanting promise within the
seemingly despiritualized waste.10
Thus, although there may have been (and there certainly has been) political involvement
of the Beats, the basic thrust is other than social and political criticism and action.
Frequently, the junk, assemblage, combine and Pop artists are distinguished from the
Beat poets in the following manner: "They (the junk artists) do not incorporate artifacts
simply because they are remnants of a debased technological milieu." In the light of the21
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Poets of the Cities: New York and San Francisco , 1950-65 [Brochure] (Text)
Brochure from the exhibition, "Poets of the Cities: New York and San Francisco 1950–65," November 20–December 29, 1974, held at the Dallas Museum of Art.
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Dallas Museum of Fine Arts. Poets of the Cities: New York and San Francisco, 1950-1965, book, 1974; [New York]. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth176526/m1/25/?rotate=270: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Dallas Museum of Art.