Sign Inventory, Week 9

My Sad Self
Allen Ginsberg

*The poem is dedicated to Frank O'Hara, who is another beat poet at the same time.

*Interesting that the speaker goes up to the RCA building (now the GE building) to get a look at the city. It actually has better views, but most people flock to the Empire State Building.

*The fact that Ginsberg makes reference to his birth place of New Jersey where the sun is going down, while Brooklyn is bathed in light.

*The boroughs continue to play important part as they all places where he recounts love.

*He moves from the tops of the building down to street level to get a look at people.

*There is a movement from positive memories on top of the building to deeper thought of despair and loss as he walks home.

*The city changes towards the end of this draft. My once fabulous amours in the Bronx becomes "avenues stalked by tall buildings.


*It's the countryside that is painful, while the city is filled with beautiful suits.

*In terms of the structure, the first stanza is relatively close together, where in the second stanzas and later there are more disjointed lines.

*The narration of the speaker leaves towards the end of the draft. There is no reference to I in Stanzas three, four or five.