June is the birth month of Allen Ginsberg (and my birth month as well), so I thought it would be an excellent idea to honor him and one of his poems this month. I don’t really need to talk about how important Ginsberg was (and still is). He was a counterculture leader and a significant American poet, helping the poetic consciousness shift away from stiff, formalist, academic verse and toward a poetics that was more in flow with nature and humanity. Along with Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Charles Bukowski, Allen Ginsberg wrote in a style that was more rhythmic and voice-driven, a type of poetry that was fueled by the senses and a deeper awareness of the self as raw and imperfect but still beautiful. I remember when Allen Ginsberg died; I was in seventh grade and just beginning to write poetry. I remember it being a big deal although I had never read him. It feels a little weird to say that I learned about who Ginsberg was through his death, but that’s how it happened. I didn’t read him until much later, though. I was a bigger fan of Bukowski, who is my favorite poet, but once I sat down and really started reading Ginsberg, I developed a good amount of respect for him and his work and what he was attempting to accomplish for the greater good through his poetry. His main goal was to help people become more enlightened and I do think he succeeded in that desire in many ways. I think the poetry world is a much different place without Ginsberg’s sensibility; it’s gone back to that stiff, academic mindset, unfortunately. Ginsberg represents a time when poetry began to be much freer and more organic, and if I could bring that sensibility back, I would.

The poem I’m going to discuss is “Wales Visitation” and it’s from Planet News (1968). He wrote the poem while on LSD and I do think that’s one of the reasons why it’s one of the most significant poems he’s ever written. As were most people who were deeply involved in the counterculture movement, Ginsberg was interested in mind expansion and achieving higher states of consciousness for artistic and spiritual purposes. Interestingly enough, I do think he achieved a higher consciousness while writing the poem. And although he used LSD to do it, I’m of the belief that, with practice, meditation can bring on the same effect, so I’m absolutely not advocating drug use by celebrating this poem. I’m an admirer of this poem, though, and what Ginsberg was able to do on a psychic level with language and consciousness. It’s a longer poem, so I won’t be able to discuss the entire thing, but I want to look at two stanzas in particular that appear next to each other in the middle part of the poem. Here they are:

All the Valley quivered, one extended motion, wind
undulating on mossy hills
a giant wash that sank white fog delicately down red runnels
on the mountainside
whose leaf-branch tendrils moved asway
in granitic undertow down—
and lifted the floating Nebulous upward, and lifted the arms of the trees
and lifted the grasses an instant in balance
and lifted the lambs to hold still
and lifted the green of the hill, in one solemn wave

A solid mass of Heaven, mist-infused, ebbs thru the vale,
a wavelet of Immensity, lapping gigantic through Llanthony Valley,
the length of all England, valley upon valley under Heaven’s ocean
tonned with cloud-hang,
—Heaven balanced on a grassblade
Roar of the mountain wind slow, sigh of the body,
One Being on the mountainside stirring gently
Exquisite scales trembling everywhere in balance,
one motion thru the cloudy sky-floor shifting on the million feet of daisies,
one Majesty the motion that stirred wet grass quivering
to the farthest tendril of white fog poured down
through shivering flowers on the mountain’s head—

There are two reasons why I chose this particular section to look at. The first reason is due to influences. In these two stanzas, there are three noticeable influences: William Blake, Walt Whitman, and the counterculture movement. These influences run all throughout the poem, but they are the most heightened here, where the poem is nothing but pure language and image. The particular images: lambs, grass, and daisies all make me think of the influences I mentioned. Lambs make me think of Blake; grass makes me think of Whitman; daisies make me think of hippies. But there is also Heaven, which makes me think of Blake, and valleys and mountains, which are strong nature images that help stimulate different levels of consciousness. Rhythmically, the poem also makes me think of Whitman, especially the repetition at the end of the first stanza above. Now, readers might ask: what makes the poem distinctly Ginsberg? This is the second reason why I chose these stanzas: Ginsberg employed a stream-of-consciousness vibe that was relatively new to poetry in the sixties. Stream-of-consciousness is about writing straight from the mind. Ginsberg, while visiting Wales, and being high on LSD after five hours, was able to pull this poem from his heightened consciousness—by simply writing down what came into his mind. And, if readers choose to access the entire poem, they will see that “Wales Visitation” is essentially one long, elaborate thought. There are dashes, there are stanza breaks, but there are no periods. No places for the reader to truly stop and think about what they’ve read. Because Ginsberg was writing from his mind, his influences naturally came spilling out. But so did his love for nature and voice and perspective. This is why I chose “Wales Visitation” to discuss; it’s essentially one long meditation on nature, aided by LSD.

At the end of a stanza following the ones above, Ginsberg does give readers something to latch onto, and it is the first time he brings the “I” perspective into the poem. The speaker says

I lay down mixing my beard with the wet hair of the mountainside,
smelling the brown vagina-moist ground, harmless,
tasting the violet thistle-hair, sweetness—

Although the poetic voice is a prominent feature of the poem, it’s really secondary to the nature descriptions, which are elaborate, and detailed, and breathtaking. But there, the speaker finally brings himself in, and he brings the masculine and the feminine with him: “my beard,” and “the brown vagina-moist ground.” He also brings in the end words “harmless” and “sweetness” which both feel sexually charged. It is difficult, especially at this point in the poem, to not feel stimulated on a sensual level, and here, Ginsberg gives readers permission to feel the masculine and the feminine through the “I” perspective. I almost want to say that this is probably the most important poem Ginsberg wrote, but I realize that might be a controversial statement. Still, I’m impressed at how he was able to use meditation paired with LSD, his experience in Wales, and his stream-of-consciousness sensibilities to write a poem of this caliber. It makes me wish poets were still trying to write in this style, and maybe someday they will again. But, here, Ginsberg really proved that his poetic experiments with mind altering states and sexual freedom do yield brilliant results.

The song I want to talk about this month is Black Sabbath’s “Into the Void.” It’s from the group’s third album Master of Reality (1971) and it’s one of my favorite Black Sabbath songs. When I was first teaching myself to play guitar a few years ago, I practiced the first part of the opening riff countless times. I was always aware of Black Sabbath, but didn’t start truly listening to their music until I was older. Obviously, I don’t need to explain why Black Sabbath is such an important band, but I will. The group created heavy metal. Tony Iommi invented the heavy metal sound; Ozzy Osbourne invented heavy metal vocals; Geezer Butler, who wrote the majority of the lyrics, invented heavy metal lyricism. I’m very confident in saying that heavy metal would not exist without Black Sabbath, who went on to influence just about every single metal band that came after them. Another reason why Black Sabbath is important is because they appealed to marijuana smokers who wanted something heavier to listen to. In the late sixties and early seventies, the counterculture movement was in full swing, and it began to become more nuanced and complex. Black Sabbath was playing a unique combination of blues, jazz, and rock music that was influenced by the environments they grew up in, which were not privileged. They were part of the UK working class and their music reflected that. So, it was more of an organic relationship that developed between Black Sabbath’s musical style and weed-smokers who were looking for something darker and heavier to satisfy their ears. Heavy metal formed out of that relationship. So, one could very easily come to the conclusion that heavy metal is an off-shoot of the counterculture movement. And that’s why I think Black Sabbath is important; they helped evolve the counterculture movement.

“Into the Void” is six minutes long, and a good portion of the song is purely instrumental. Lyrically, the song only consists of three verses and a bridge; it’s really a poem disguised as a song. It begins with a cool, but ominous-sounding riff, followed by drums and bass. The song is slow and heavy as Iommi repeats the riff multiple times. The riff shifts a little bit, bringing in a hint of melody, but then returns right back to the main riff. Then, the riff shifts again into something more rhythmic and energetic, but the pace is still steady, establishing a groove that is both hypnotic and dirty. Once that groove is established (about a minute and a half in), Ozzy comes in to sing in a rhythmic tone that matches the groove of the song. Here are the first two verses:

Rocket engines burning fuel so fast
Up into the night sky they blast
Through the universe the engines whine
Could it be the end of man and time?
Back on earth the flame of life burns low
Everywhere is misery and woe
Pollution kills the air, the land and sea
Man prepares to meet his destiny, yeah

Rocket engines burning fuel so fast
Up into the black sky so vast
Burning metal through the atmosphere
Earth remains in worry, hate and fear
With the hateful battles raging on
Rockets flying to the glowing sun
Through the empires of eternal void
Freedom from the final suicide

These two verses feel more like two stanzas of a poem that is dystopian and sci-fi influenced. And the way Ozzy sings it gives it even more of an ominous vibe. He sings the lyrics in a spoken-word rhythm that is both trippy and trance-inducing, and in between the stanzas there’s a nice guitar interlude that brings in some melody to help offset the dark rhythm and lyrical content of the song. That same melodic interlude returns before it shifts into the bridge, where the song speeds up a bit, but maintains its dark, rhythmic, bluesy edge. Ozzy matches the pace and rhythm of the song vocally:

Freedom fighters sent out to the sun
Escape from brainwashed minds and pollution
Leave the earth to all its sin and hate
Find another world where freedom waits, yeah

The bridge also helps to signal a shift in the lyrical narrative. The song is not merely about earth as a dystopian nightmare; it’s about a group of people who leave earth in order to seek a better existence elsewhere. It’s no surprise that the song becomes more energetic here; there is hope that utopia will be achieved somewhere else in the galaxy. The song stabilizes once more back into the trance-like rhythm of the first two verses and Ozzy sings the third verse:

Past the stars in fields of ancient void
Through the shields of darkness where they find
Love upon the land a world unknown
Where the sons of freedom make their home
Leave the earth of Satan and his slaves
Leave them to their future in their graves
Make a home where love is there to stay
Peace and happiness in every day

In this third verse, the song becomes incredibly utopian because the “freedom fighters” succeed in finding a better world. They are able to escape the corrupt earth to another land where love, peace, and happiness flourish. The rest of the song is all Tony Iommi, who interprets the lyrical content musically through an impressive, bluesy, groove-infused solo. However, he is mostly interpreting the third verse—the achievement of utopia—and so his solo feels strategically placed at the end so that listeners can sit back and enjoy the pleasure that comes from utopic bliss. Black Sabbath (for better or worse) developed a reputation for being satanic and evil in the seventies, but this song is incredibly positive in its message, and it’s actually more aligned with the principles of the counterculture, which was all about seeking better ways of living and experiencing enlightenment. “Into the Void” is a darker version of those principles, particularly because of the heavy sound of the guitar and Ozzy’s unconventional singing style—which isn’t sweet or melodic or uplifting, but dark and trance-like and earthy. I think this is what makes “Into the Void” a truly powerful heavy metal song; it’s an extension and reinterpretation of what the counterculture was trying to achieve: a revolution that would bring about utopia.

The first commonality that I see between Allen Ginsberg and Black Sabbath is the environments they wrote in. Ginsberg wrote “Wales Visitation” while visiting Wales; “Into the Void” is a reflection of what Black Sabbath experienced as a working band trying to survive in the UK. They did not have a romanticized view of their country of origin, and their music was really born of that grittier, rougher perspective. Another obvious commonality is the counterculture. Allen Ginsberg was one of the catalysts for the counterculture movement and Black Sabbath helped extend it into the seventies. But what I notice the most about the poet and the band are their utopian ideals. Ginsberg explored it through nature; Black Sabbath explored it through a need to escape a world that already felt very dystopian to them. Although Ginsberg was fighting dystopia as well, his influences were romantic in nature, whereas Black Sabbath was influenced by British working-class struggle. Tony Iommi lost two of his fingers while working in a sheet metal factory and had to make major adjustments to his guitar playing, which led to the signature Black Sabbath and heavy metal sound. Another commonality is Ginsberg’s LSD use and Black Sabbath’s appeal to marijuana smokers. Marijuana has the ability to open the mind much like LSD, so it would make perfect sense that Black Sabbath would resonate with the weed-smoking population who were seeking something more stimulating than what the average rock band was offering in the late sixties and early seventies. Black Sabbath, on a lyrical and musical level, inhabit a heightened consciousness, and “Into the Void” is a perfect example of their transcendent abilities. The same for “Wales Visitation” and Ginsberg’s ability to make use of his heightened consciousness to create a poem that is truly brilliant and born out of inspired stream-of-consciousness creative expression. Those who want to write from a freer mental space would find much to learn from Ginsberg and Black Sabbath in terms of how to create poetry and music not just from a liberated state, but from environments (both positive and negative) that can serve as springboards for seeking out a more empowered way of living and expressing oneself creatively.

June 5, 2023