Site for the poem "Howl"

[Gideon]

members.tripod.com/~Sprayberry/poems/howl.txt

This poem was written in the mid-1950s by Allen Ginsberg (the guy in my avatar.) I've read it, and I really like it, so if anyone else likes poetry, there's the link.

Bear in mind that it was written in the 1950s and some of the language may be out of date. He does mention drugs and the like, so if anyone is offended by stuff like that, then I'm telling you in advance. Personally, I don't think there's anything bad in this poem, and I think it's a very good one.

It's also not a conventional poem, as it is written in the free verse style and doesn't really rhyme, but I personally like the style, although it may not be for everyone. Allen Ginsberg was part of the "Beat Generation", a group of friends that formed mainly in the 1940s and were writers in the 1950s. They included Allen, Jack Kerouac (a novelist), William Burroughs (a novelist) and Lawrence Ferlinghetti (a poet.) I don't know if anyone here lives in the San Francisco area, but Ferlinghetti, along with a guy named Peter D. Martin, started the bookshop City Lights in 1953, which is still there today (in San Francisco) and sells a lot of Beat Generation literature.

Anyway (long ramble out of the way! ), as I said, I said, I enjoy it, and my main purpose in posting this here was to advertise this poem by Allen Ginsberg.

Edit: I also found a link to an added footnote to "Howl" that Allen wrote. If anyone liked "Howl", then...

www.plagiarist.com/poetry/?wid=3744

[Kat]

Gideon I enjoyed this poem... I truly enjoy poetry and I love the socialistic style it took. I love things that provoke the times and really show politics, sex and war and stuff in that way. Its cool.. it reminds me of the avant garde theatre movement that Brecht and those guys took part in establishing... it was really good.

I had a bit trouble with words and stuff but lucky my mother of a dictionary I have helped... yay, glad I bought that dictionary... thanks for sharing

[Gideon]

I'm glad you enjoyed it, Kaytee. Allen himself was very much involved in political matters, involved in such things as the Gay Liberation Movement. He was also a friend of groups such as the Beatles and Bob Dylan. I'm currenty reading a biography of him, that I'm really enjoying.

[Kat]

That's cool - ya, don't know much about him... he obviously wrote from the heart which is what I liked about his poem. umm, thats it!

[Gideon]

Yeah, the guy he mentions in "Howl" a few times - Carl Solomon - was an actual person, a friend of his, and some of the events he describes in the poem happened to Carl - Carl once threw potato salad at CCNY lecturers and went to a psychiatric hospital asking that they give him a lobotomy - which made them admit him. In fact, it was in a psychiatric hospital that Allen Ginsberg and Carl Solomon met. Allen knew about mental illness from a young age, because his mother, Naomi Ginsberg, suffered from schizophrenia. From what I've read so far, Allen seems to have been a real sensitive, emotional guy, who could emphasise with mentally ill people and eccentric people. One story I liked in the book was about how he was kicked out of Columbia University (for something relatively minor.) He eventually re-applied and was accepted, though. And then in about May of 1948, just as he was coming up to 22 (he was born on 3rd June 1926) he had a series of visions - he heard the voice of the poet William Blake, who had been dead for a long time by then, reading poetry to him across time. He also saw "inside" the people all around him in the streets and in the bookshop; saw that they were scared and frightened and suffering inside, and felt very sorry for them. He seemed to regard this as a sort of epiphany and believed it to be a real experience.

[Kat]

That's really interesting and awesome Gideon... I really like reading biographies and non-fiction so that sounds really interesting to me. Right now I'm a bit busy with like 3 books on my reading list - i'm actually surprised i am doing reading outside school curriculum... but ya... sounds cool!

[bathtubsvvicecream]

That is one long poem!