Golden Flower

I am choosing to write about the poem, "Sunflower Sutra," by Allen Ginsberg because I agree with his view of the flower. The sunflower has unusual power that is shown through its awkward beauty and strength that is strange to the usual daintyness that is common for flowers. Ginsberg compares an old dead flower that he found in San Francisco with American people. He does use this comparison as a means to describe the population in the United States as weak or gone but as a way to see that as a nation although we are stained we have power like the sunflower. Ginsberg states, "We're not our skin of grime, we're not dread bleak dusty imageless/ locomotives, we're golden sunflowers inside..." which refers to our hard dirty exterior as humans but that we must look within in order to see our true selves (24-25). This poem was written in a time of great American struggle that seemed to touch every facet of life, I believe that it is Ginsberg's calling to the population to remember the beauty that lives within them.