Allen Ginsberg's ground-breaking poem "Howl," published in 1956, expressed the anger of a generation. It also shocked, provoked, and thrilled readers -- then and now.
"I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, ..."
So begins "Howl," one of the most controversial and important poems of the post-World War II generation. Allen Ginsberg's semi-autobiographical three-part poem cries against the wrongs he sees in 1950s America: apathy, poverty, commercialism, and corporate greed. He uses "in-your-face" and graphic language as well as a string of dependent clauses to express his urgency.
Ginsberg takes the reader to the seamy side of New York and other US cities, to the Bowery and the Bronx, to the rusty railroad yards of New Jersey. He uses references to his friends and familiar locales from his own life to personalize his lament.
Carl Solomon
"Howl" is dedicated to Carl Solomon, a Dadaist and prose poet whom Ginsberg met at Rockland Mental Hospital while visiting his mother there in the early 1950s. The third section of "Howl" is a show of support for his friend, still in Rockland suffering from depression and contemplating suicide. Ginsberg equates Solomon's battle with that of the average man trying to eke out a living in today's commercial society.
Obscenity Trial
"Howl" includes many words that aren't permitted to be said on the radio. It was this language combined with several sexual references that caused "Howl's" publisher, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, to be charged with obscenity in 1956. The San Francisco judge ultimately ruled in Ferlinghetti's -- and the book's -- favor.
The Beat Writers
The "Beat" writers were a group of unconventional writers that included Jack Kerouac (On the Road and Desolation Angels), Neal Cassady (a writer also, but best known as a character in On the Road), William Burroughs (Naked Lunch), and City Lights bookstore owner, Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Ginsberg, a New Jersey native, met up with this group in San Francisco.
About Allen Ginsberg
Allen Ginsberg (1926 - 1997) was the author of over a dozen collections of poems. "Howl" was his first published work and arguably his greatest. Ginsberg grew up in Paterson New Jersey, a suburb of New York City, the son of Jewish immigrant parents. His mother, a member of the Communist Party, struggled with depression and paranoia and was hospitalized for extended periods of time. Ginsberg graduated from Columbia and made his way out west, where he met Kerouac, Ferlinghetti, Cassady, and other "Beat" writers. Ginsberg was the most long-lived and prolific of the "Beats."
