Kennedyvsaid: "I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth." Many of his dreams came true, and this was not an exception. On 20 July 1969, Apollo 11 landed in the moon, fulfilling the American goal of that decade. These two events were crucial for the history of America, and we can assume there were many groups fascinated about the space, and technology. This changes were blossoms of new possibilities for the future. However, there was a different type of people; those who expressed a struggle towards these changes through literature, such as Richard Brautigan in one of his many poems called: "all watched over by machines of loving grace.".
In 1950, Richard Brautigan was part of a movement started in San Francisco, called "The Beat Generation". In a book published in 2003 called "The Beat generation in San Francisco, a literary tour" by Bill Morgan, the people from these movements are described as "Stone Age hippies, in that they anticipated and articulated many of themes[] pacifism, Buddhism, the first voicings of an ecological consciousness." (12) And this gave the chance to shine to a new generation of radicals innovators and a place for many poets, dreamers, visionaries and wanderers to express their struggles. In the poem previously mentioned by Richard Brautigan, I will show my analysis and I will explain the impact the context have in the meaning of the final message, although it can mean the opposite depending on the readers point of view. After reading some articles about the Beat Generation and the fast changes in technology after Kennedy's speech, I believe this is a template of an dystopia or even a struggle for the cause and effect that happens if our society keeps building more technology. .
"All watched over by machines of loving grace" was a poem written in 1969, according to Brautigan's official website.