The Acts of Youth – John Wieners “l try to write the most embarrassing thing I can think of. ” Says American born beat poet, John Wieners. John was born in 1934 in Milton who expressed his misunderstood mind through poetry that combined sexual and drug related experimentation. His lyrical structure of writing was often heavily Jazz influenced. John moved to San Francisco at 24, and then later back to Boston where he was admitted into a physical hospital. Within a year he was released, only to be institutionalized again in 1969.
Fifteen years later, ‘The Acts of Youth’ was published peaking of the life in which he had lived. The Acts of Youth speaks about a very acute and sharp fear of going into an uncertain future. The poem is an extended metaphor for the fear he has about his life that is an endless cycle of pain and suffering. “And with great fear I inhabit the middle of the night. What wrecks of the mind await me. What drugs to dull the senses what little I have left, what more can be taken away? ‘ The first line of the poem creates an image of the pain and suffering he knows is inevitable in his life.
It continues to reflect upon events that have already appended in a way that a person would look over a dark time in their life with pessimistic views suggesting that by this time in his life, everything he had once loved had been already taken. He had nothing left to live for other than the drugs he continued to use to numb himself from the pain of the world. The second stanza furthers into the poets mind expressing his views on the way he sees himself in the world. “l must get away from this place” Place meaning life. “And see that that there is no fear without me. Meaning he feels like a threat to the public ND in his depressed state of mind and aimless future he feels as if he leaves, the fear he carries and burden he bears will be follow. In stanza three, John reflects on the time he spent in the hospital describing himself as a total wreck. He goes on to write “If I could Just get out of the country. Some place where one can eat the lotus in piece. ” Country is used in this poem as a metaphor for his life in which he wishes to end and enter a place with tranquility and calamity. The lotus is often used as a symbol of purity that John links with the peace he seeks.
Stanza four introduces the idea that John Wieners was a believer in spirituality and religion referencing God in the last line. This is further shown in the 9th stanza with the lines “Give me the strength to bear it, to enter those places where the great animals and caged and we can live at peace by their side. A bride to his burden that no God imposes but knows we have the meaner to sustain its force unto the end of our days. For that is what we are made for; for that we are created. ” Throughout the bible, the unity of all creatures being able to coexist is expressed.
Caged’ could refer to the way rather curbs his boundaries rather than an actual physical cage. Contradictory, John also speaks of his fear how God could also be the ‘one of Justice’ and Wreck vengeance’ upon people like himself who have committed guilty crimes in their youth. The fifth stanza really taps into your senses with a description of an empty abyss inside his mind and a ringing in his ears. Your ears ‘ring’ in periods of silence suggesting a state nothingness within Wieners own head. Personification is the act of giving human qualities to something inanimate.
This is shown in the alas t line of this stanza, “Roaring of the winter wind. ” Giving the feeling of a cold, lifeless atmosphere. The sixth stanza provokes a comparison between the homeless and criminals. “Woe to those homeless who are out on this night. Woe to those crimes committed from which we can walk away unharmed. ” John isn’t heartless and is saying he does feel bad for people that are down on hard times but believe that it would be better for these people to die then to live with the chain of suffering they must deal with having understood the pain himself.
The last stanza in this poem is by far my favorite because of the moral and reality of it. “Until the dark hours are done. And we rise again in the dawn. Infinite particles of the divine sun, now worshipped in the pitches of the night. ” We appreciate good things in the dark or more literally, the sun shines brightest in the darkness. This concept is true but morbid. The darker it is the little things we see more brighter. We have to have dark to appreciate the sun.
I love this poem because it allows you into the mind of someone who was in the ensue of the word, crazy, but still manages to put thoughts together into words so emotive you cant help but feel every emotion that is provoked. It has wonderful examples of literary techniques, particularly metaphorical language that really makes your mind think about the hidden messages written in the words about his life. I would recommend this poem to anyone and everyone as it really gives you a grasp on the way a human being can be so twisted by their mind, something a lot of people don’t tend to understand.
