Sunflower Sutra

E305337

Sunflower Sutra is a poem by Allen Ginsberg that blends vivid imagery and social critique to lament industrial decay while affirming a resilient, spiritual beauty in America.

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Label Occurrences
Sunflower Sutra canonical 1

Statements (49)

Predicate Object
instanceOf literary work
poem
addressedTo sunflower
associatedWith San Francisco Renaissance
author Allen Ginsberg
containsSocialCritiqueOf American consumerism
industrial society
countryOfOrigin United States of America
surface form: United States
dateWritten 1955
firstPublishedIn Howl
surface form: Howl and Other Poems
form free verse
genre Beat poetry
hasInfluenceOn American countercultural literature
later environmental poetry
imagery machinery
railroad tracks
smoke and soot
sunflower
language English
literaryDevice apostrophe
imagery
repetition
symbolism
literaryPeriod 20th century American poetry
meter irregular
movement Beat Generation
notableLine "Poor dead flower? when did you forget you were a flower?"
"we're not our skin of grime"
partOf Allen Ginsberg's early poetic oeuvre
placeWritten Richmond, California
publisher City Lights Publishers
surface form: City Lights Books
relatedWorkByAuthor America
Howl
rhymeScheme none
setting railroad yard in Richmond, California
symbol sunflower as corrupted natural beauty
sunflower as resilient spiritual core
theme American identity
critique of materialism
environmental degradation
hope
industrial decay
redemption
spiritual beauty
urban and industrial blight
tone lamenting
prophetic
ultimately affirmative
yearOfPublication 1956

Referenced by (1)

Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.

Allen Ginsberg notableWork Sunflower Sutra