personal tragedies and persecutions of his generation of seekers but alludes back to an earlier generation. "Ginsberg is preeminently and elegiac poet many of his great works are poems of loss, involving not anger but grief or sorrow and a composed acceptance," Foster 94)."Although Ginsberg said that it was probably Williams rather than Kerouac 'from whom I get the first touch of a natural prose poetry style,' Kerouac's spontaneous method was eventually the greater influence," (Foster 98).A critic Stephenson was quoted as saying, "Ginsberg's use of myth, rhythm, and prophetic vision, are the resolution of the problems associated with transcendence and the embodiment in verse of a new syncretic mode of spiritual awareness, a new social consciousness (58).Ginsberg's enthusiasm for such dissimilar poets as Walt Whitman and William Blake may be explained in part by the fact that both insisted on politics as am extension of the self, rather than as matters of compromise and concession or as something imposed from without. His enthusiasm for Whitman may have been strengthened by the fact of their sharing homosexuality. As a homosexual, Ginsberg was in a position to know very well how oppressive a society could be if one did not conform to "accepted" behavior.In Ginsbergs works we find explicit imitations of Whitman and Blake's styles. "For Ginsberg, invoking Whitman is more than a performative act of respect; it links Ginsberg with human presence in an impersonal commercial world." Ginsberg connects with Whitman on levels of poetics, sexuality, and ideology, and invoking him and his style in his own poetry. (Stephenson)Although his work is deeply spiritual, one of his greatest attributes as a poet has been his ability to arouse and inspire young people. His nonviolent protests at demonstrations and rallies were instrumental in raising America's consciousness above its predilection for war-mongering and environmental destruction. "Gins...
