What is the work to be done? Commentary on the poems of Alan Ginsberg

Authors Avatar by hulahula0 (student)

Sai Paranthaman

Mr. Moe

Eighth Grade English

23 April 2010

What is the work to be done?

        What work is left for us to be done on the earth? Many people have been wondering about this of what can we do to help the earth. There was one significant poet by the name of Allen Ginsberg who has wrote many poems about giving work for us to do. Do you do your homework to just get an A on it or do you do it because you are a human being? As you can see a lion in the jungle has too live by eating food. He has to catch prey cause he wants too and needs to. The lion hunts prey because he is   an animal. Many people just do work because they want to get the good grade. Allen Ginsberg in his poems “Homework” and “America” tells us to do the work that he has given through the poems so we do it as a human being. He won't give a grade on it. Ginsberg just wants us to do it and complete as a human being would do. “Homework”  has a focus on cleaning up the earth. Ginsberg tells everyone that they should pitch in and do something to make the earth a cleaner place to live. In “America” Ginsberg addresses the country it's flaws to stop the human war also known as the Cold War. Ginsberg tells America that she needs to end this war so there can be peace throughout the whole world or else we'll never come together and destroy ourselves. I'm going to prove that Ginsberg addresses us with varied issues in his poems ,and wants us to do something for the earth.

        Have you ever thought about the earth? Have you thought of if it is well or not? Are we human beings treating the earth as it deserves or do we treat is disrespectfully? Allen Ginsberg tells in his poem “Homework” that we have to clean up the earth. The first line itself starts the uncleanness of the earth. “If I were doing my laundry I'd wash my dirty Iran.” In this line of the poem he clearly shows that the country of Iran is dirty and has many problems that it has to clean up. The 2nd also supports the same idea from the first line.

        “I'd throw in my United States, and pour on the ivory soap, scrub up Africa, put all the birds and elephants back in the jungle.” This clearly shows that he wants to clean up the united States of all of its dirt and pour on the ivory soap. Ivory is the bone that is from the tusks of an elephant. He uses that to scrub up Africa. It says at the end of the line that he needs to put all the birds and the elephants back in the jungle. In Africa a lot of animals are being captured and put into zoos. Here Ginsberg clearly states that he wants all of the animals to be put back in the jungle. Even the endangered species. Africa though is not the only place to clean up. In the next few lines Allen Ginsberg tells us more places of where we have to clean.

        “I'd wash the Amazon river and clean the oily Carib & Gulf of Mexico, Rub that smog off the         North Pole, wipe up all the pipelines in Alaska, Rub a dub dub for Rocky Flats and Los Alamos,         Flush that sparkly Cesium out of Love Canal. Rinse down the Acid Rain over the Parthenon &         Sphinx, Drain the Sludge out of the Mediterranean basin & make it azure again.”

Join now!

First is says that he wants to clean up the Amazon river, the Carib, and the Gulf of Mexico. All of these waters are polluted with many wastes that us humans have been throwing away. In the line it says “oily Carib” The Caribbean sea have had oil spills that we have to clean up. Next it explains that we have to clean the north pole and the pipelines of Alaska. A lot of trash may have been floated all the way up to the north pole so we have to clean those up. The pipelines in Alaska which ...

This is a preview of the whole essay