Floral Poetics as Spiritual Vision and Ecological Conscience in Beat Poems: Allen Ginsberg’s “Sunflower Sutra” and Lenore Kandel’s “Rose/Vision”

Flowers are natural organisms that have multipurpose values. Since they embody aesthetic and emotional overtones, they become pivotal images in any literary work such as poetry. Ecopetry is one field of environmental humanities that often depicts trees and flowers both as metaphorical and ecological images. As the latter imageries, the portrayal of trees and flowers often presents some issues about anthropogenic massive activities that cause havocs to the natural environment and any living creature that inhabits the environment. This article discusses floral poetics in Beat poems of Allen Ginsberg’s “Sunflower Sutra” and Lenore Kandel’s “Rose/Vision” in which both poets use ‘sunflower’ and ‘rose’ as metaphors for a spiritual vision and for raising one’s ecological conscience about the flowers and the physical environment in general contextualized in this present anthropocene era. Through some poetic techniques inspired by frenetic modern jazz and Buddhist teachings about immaterialism, both poets found their self-identity within the flowers and the spirit of the flowers within their selfhood. This symbiosis between themselves and the flowers signify interdependent relationship and therefore evokes one’s ecological conscience to live in harmony with other life forms in sharing the natural life of the biotic community.