"Homework" (Poem by Allen Ginsberg) Summary

"Homework" by Allen Ginsberg

Allen Ginsberg was a famous American writer, born in 1926. He was the founder of the Beat Generation. His poet usually discusses the problems in the society. The poem "Homework" begins with a homage to Kenneth Koch, another contemporary famous writer. This poem is about the cleansing of the world and to make the entire planet pollution- free. The poet uses 'washing' metaphor and puts forth his opinions about the cleansing of the world.

The poet begins by washing the dirty Iran and the United States as there is always war between the two countries. He wants to soap and scrub Africa and restore the animals and bats back into the jungle. He wants to wash the Amazon river in South America and clean the oil spills from Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico. These two places have several oil rigs; hence the pollution of water due to oil spills.

He moves to the North Pole to rub the smog out of it. The poet focuses on the pollution of air water and land resources next. He talks about cleaning the oil circulating pipelines in Alaska. Rocky Flats was the place where the spare parts for nuclear bombs were made; Atom bomb was created in Los Alamos. The poet wants to cleanse these places from nuclear pollution and atomic wastes; Caesium is a sparkly gold colour liquid-metal which was disposed in large quantity by a chemical factory in love canal Niagara Falls.

The Greek Goddess Athena's temple is in Parthenon, Greece. Due to the acid rain, the heritage site is losing its beauty just like the Sphinx in Egypt. Sewage wastes have been directed into different Oceans and Ponds all over the world polluting the water bodies. The poet wants to cleanse the Mediterranean basin and colour the sky blue over river Rhine. He talks about cleansing river Hudson, Thames and Neckar and Lake Erie all of which were dangerously polluted due to human activities.

            Then he wants to throw the whole of Asia into the washing machine and clean the Agent Orange sprayed in Vietnam during the Vietnam War by the US soldiers. The poet moves on to throw Russia and China in the wringer. He also talks about the atrocities of US Central American police state. He lays stress on the cleansing of the planet and so, he says that it he wishes to put the whole planet inside the dryer for 20 minutes or for a thousand years until it comes out clean. Thus, the poet discusses about the cleansing of the world, by strongly putting forth the political problems and pollution associated with the places.