The poem "Speak to Us" by Katie Ford, like "Howl" by Allen Ginsberg, degrades natural human tendencies and offers a “better” alternative on how to live. Ford laments human vulnerability, with "bodies growing disease like mushroom coral," and emotional attachment , "My beloved, he tires of me, and he should—my complaints the same, his recourse the same, invoking the broad, cool sheet suffering drapes over the living freeze of heart after heart." In both of these lines, Ford conveys these qualities as negative aspects of life, similar to how Ginsberg emphasizes that society, organized by the people in it, ruins everyone. For this, Ginsberg offers a simple solution: escape life, and don't rely on society. Instead, don’t conform to any social order, and stay sane by taking hallucinogenic drugs. Ginsberg advocates for individuality on an unhealthy level that borders isolation, defying human instinct to work and live together. Ford also offers an escape to her discontentment at life: death. To her, the only way to escape the flaws of the horrid human body that is clearly not suitable to live in is to get rid of it. Both poets believe that to improve one’s overall quality of life, avoiding life itself is the best approach.
-Courtney
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