Kaddish: A Glimpse into Naomi Ginsberg's Life Anonymous 11th Grade

A Kaddish is a traditional Jewish funeral prayer which has five sections. In his poem “Kaddish,” Allen Ginsberg retells the true horrors of Naomi Ginsberg’s life, descension into psychotic collapse, and death but slowly begins to find a sense of ease in the questioning of death while in the presence of these memories. Ginsberg’s act of writing and sharing “Kaddish,” as well as his feeling of emotions of guilt, fear, and anger due to his perception of his reception of a sick family member as inexpressibly unjust coincide with the occurrence of the traumatic phenomena that prompted the genesis of “Kaddish,” events which include the actual incident of the death of Naomi Ginsberg as well as his subsequent sentiments of alienation from Judaism. Ginsberg clearly intertwines his real life with “Kaddish” via his distillment of the qualities he summoned to persist through such trauma as thematic choices in this poem.

The third section of “Kaddish” is a spiritual hymn directed toward the creation of the person which the Kaddish celebrates. In section three of “Kaddish,” Ginsberg highlights his own exaltation which he harbors toward his mother in a somber but lovingly bittersweet reconciliation between anguish and a relaxed brand of...