Here is a a link to the poem: http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/ginsberg-is-about.html
In “Is About” by Allen Ginsberg, the speaker’s thoughts, opinions and descriptions of people, places and things are explained. The thoughts are referred to as “concepts.” The poem explains the idea of concepts: “A concept is about how to looking at the earth from the moon without ever getting there” (Ginsberg 9). This entails that in order to explain what something is, one must emotionally and mentally remove oneself and look at said something from a distance. By removing oneself, one loses the ability to truly understand and ultimately, the concepts we create about the world around us belittle and devalue it and everything within it.
Being that a concept is a way of understanding something by observing it from a hypothetical distance, the generalizations that evolve are, in some cases, straightforward and simple, but at the same time, shallow and meager: “America is about being a big Country full of Cowboys Indians Jews Negroes & Americans / Orientals Chicanos Factories skyscrapers Niagara Falls Steel Mills radios homeless Conservatives” (5-6). This is a concept of America and what it is about, but it does America injustice in explaining it. The concept is basic and something a young child can come up with. America is much more than a big country full of people and things. In fact, it’s a wide array of many things and ideas, and the speaker’s indifferent concept of America is belittling and does it offense.
But upon close examination, a different understanding is reached: America is about “Cowboys Indians.” These are outdated ideas of America. Cowboys and Indians are both what America was first perceived as. Also, Ginsberg uses the words “Negros” and “Orientals” to describe some of the people in America. These words are also outdated terms. By using these old and outdated words to describe what America is, the speaker is showing that America is a country that lives in the past, not really ready for change or the unforeseeable future; henceforth, ending the line with “Conservatives.” America wants to stick with what it’s always been and always known.
Throughout the poem, the speaker explains things in ways that forces the reader to agree with him, but simultaneously, the reader feel that whatever the speaker describes isn’t completely described and that there’s much more to say about it. The descriptions of what things are true, but they are also inadequate.
Inaccurate generalizations are the concepts the speaker explains which differ greatly from their actual meaning. They can either be an accidental misinterpretation of the actual person, place or thing, or simply a purposeful and blatant misinterpretation. “Everything is about something if you’re a thin movie producer chain-smoking muggles” (11). In the entertainment and movie industry where anything can happen and anyone or anything has hypothetical potential, meanings and ideas are drawn out of things. Also, a “thin movie producer-chain smoking muggles” is possibly a new-to-the-scene movie producer trying to fit in and stand out. People in those situations are often desperate for anything, which results in the many unexplainable meanings they tend to draw.
Another way in which Ginsberg, belittles things in this world is by explaining what they’re about from one definite perspective. “The world is about overpopulation, Imperial invasions, Biocide Genocide, Fratricidal Wars, Starvation, Holocaust, mass injury & murder, high technology” (12). The speaker’s entire view of the world is a negative one from someone who doesn’t think highly or well of the world’s history and the things that happened. Although all of this is true and all of the aforementioned are all things that are either in the world now or have happened in recent history, this is still a strictly negative view of the world.
In the poem, the speaker is purposefully describing things in a manner that devalues them, that is, excluding the line “Universe is about Universe” (15). This is the only line in the poem that doesn’t define something by putting it into a smaller category. The speaker understands and acknowledges how infinite and indescribable the universe is and that the only word that could do the universe justice is no word at all, and out of understanding and respect, settles with describing it as “Universe,” the word itself. By not breaking the idea of the universe into smaller pieces to reach an understanding, the speaker’s explanation of the universe neither devalues nor belittles it. The universe remains with the infinite unexplainable reputation it started at.
“Is About” ends with the lines “Who cares what it’s all about? / I do! Edgar Allan Poe cares! Shelley cares! Beethoven & Dylan care. / Do you care? What are you about / or are you a human being with 10 fingers and two eyes?” (19-22). Things are more than they seem, more than we think they are and more than we were taught to see them as. Initially, this quote is asking the reader if he/she is willing to know and understand what things are truly about, followed by examples of people who actually do care “what it’s all about.” Then the speaker addresses the reader and asks if he/she cares at all and if he/she doesn’t, then he/she is nothing more than “a human being with 10 fingers and two eyes,” a belittling and almost objectifying idea of a person.
Thoughts of Mai 