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Howl and Other Poems
A beat movement icon and visionary poet, Allen Ginsberg broke boundaries with his fearless, pyrotechnic verse. The apocalyptic "Howl" became the subject of an obscenity trial when it was first published in 1956 -- its vindication was a watershed moment in twentieth-century history. Dark, ecstatic and rhapsodic, "Howl" shows why Ginsberg was one of the most influential poets of the twentieth century.
Howl and Other Poems is a collection of Ginsberg's finest work, including "Howl," one of the principal works of the Beat Generation as well as "A Supermarket in California," "Transcription of Organ Music," "Sunflower Sutra," "America," "In the Baggage Room at Greyhound," and some of his earlier works.
Howl and Other Poems is a collection of Ginsberg's finest work, including "Howl," one of the principal works of the Beat Generation as well as "A Supermarket in California," "Transcription of Organ Music," "Sunflower Sutra," "America," "In the Baggage Room at Greyhound," and some of his earlier works.
56 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1956
About the author
Allen Ginsberg
409 books3,697 followersLong incantatory works and books of known American poet Irwin Allen Ginsberg, a leading figure of the Beat Generation, include
Howl
(1956) and
Kaddish
(1961).
Naomi Ginsberg bore Irwin Allen Ginsberg, a son, to Louis Ginsberg, a Jewish member of the New York literary counterculture of the 1920s. They reared Ginsberg among several progressive political perspectives. Mental health of Naomi Ginsberg, a nudist, who supported the Communist party, concerned people throughout the childhood of the poet. According to biographer Barry Miles, "Naomi's illness gave Allen an enormous empathy and tolerance for madness, neurosis, and psychosis."
As an adolescent, Ginsberg savored Walt Whitman, though in 1939, when Ginsberg graduated high school, he considered Edgar Allan Poe his favorite poet. Eager to follow a childhood hero who had received a scholarship to Columbia University, Ginsberg made a vow that if he got into the school he would devote his life to helping the working class, a cause he took seriously over the course of the next several years.
He was admitted to Columbia University, and as a student there in the 1940s, he began close friendships with William S. Burroughs, Neal Cassady, and Jack Kerouac, all of whom later became leading figures of the Beat movement. The group led Ginsberg to a "New Vision," which he defined in his journal: "Since art is merely and ultimately self-expressive, we conclude that the fullest art, the most individual, uninfluenced, unrepressed, uninhibited expression of art is true expression and the true art."
Around this time, Ginsberg also had what he referred to as his "Blake vision," an auditory hallucination of William Blake reading his poems "Ah Sunflower," "The Sick Rose," and "Little Girl Lost." Ginsberg noted the occurrence several times as a pivotal moment for him in his comprehension of the universe, affecting fundamental beliefs about his life and his work. While Ginsberg claimed that no drugs were involved, he later stated that he used various drugs in an attempt to recapture the feelings inspired by the vision.
In 1954, Ginsberg moved to San Francisco. His mentor, William Carlos Williams, introduced him to key figures in the San Francisco poetry scene, including Kenneth Rexroth. He also met Michael McClure, who handed off the duties of curating a reading for the newly-established "6" Gallery. With the help of Rexroth, the result was "The '6' Gallery Reading" which took place on October 7, 1955. The event has been hailed as the birth of the Beat Generation, in no small part because it was also the first public reading of Ginsberg's "Howl," a poem which garnered world-wide attention for him and the poets he associated with.
Shortly after Howl and Other Poems was published in 1956 by City Lights Bookstore, it was banned for obscenity. The work overcame censorship trials, however, and became one of the most widely read poems of the century, translated into more than twenty-two languages.
In the 1960s and 70s, Ginsberg studied under gurus and Zen masters. As the leading icon of the Beats, Ginsberg was involved in countless political activities, including protests against the Vietnam War, and he spoke openly about issues that concerned him, such as free speech and gay rights agendas.
Ginsberg went on publish numerous collections of poetry, including Kaddish and Other Poems (1961), Planet News (1968), and The Fall of America: Poems of These States (1973), which won the National Book Award.
In 1993, Ginsberg received the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres (the Order of Arts and Letters) from the French Minister of Culture. He also co-founded and directed the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at the Naropa Institute in Colorado. In his later years, Ginsberg became a Distinguished Professor at Brooklyn College.
On April 5, 1997, in New York City, he died from complications of hepatitis.
Naomi Ginsberg bore Irwin Allen Ginsberg, a son, to Louis Ginsberg, a Jewish member of the New York literary counterculture of the 1920s. They reared Ginsberg among several progressive political perspectives. Mental health of Naomi Ginsberg, a nudist, who supported the Communist party, concerned people throughout the childhood of the poet. According to biographer Barry Miles, "Naomi's illness gave Allen an enormous empathy and tolerance for madness, neurosis, and psychosis."
As an adolescent, Ginsberg savored Walt Whitman, though in 1939, when Ginsberg graduated high school, he considered Edgar Allan Poe his favorite poet. Eager to follow a childhood hero who had received a scholarship to Columbia University, Ginsberg made a vow that if he got into the school he would devote his life to helping the working class, a cause he took seriously over the course of the next several years.
He was admitted to Columbia University, and as a student there in the 1940s, he began close friendships with William S. Burroughs, Neal Cassady, and Jack Kerouac, all of whom later became leading figures of the Beat movement. The group led Ginsberg to a "New Vision," which he defined in his journal: "Since art is merely and ultimately self-expressive, we conclude that the fullest art, the most individual, uninfluenced, unrepressed, uninhibited expression of art is true expression and the true art."
Around this time, Ginsberg also had what he referred to as his "Blake vision," an auditory hallucination of William Blake reading his poems "Ah Sunflower," "The Sick Rose," and "Little Girl Lost." Ginsberg noted the occurrence several times as a pivotal moment for him in his comprehension of the universe, affecting fundamental beliefs about his life and his work. While Ginsberg claimed that no drugs were involved, he later stated that he used various drugs in an attempt to recapture the feelings inspired by the vision.
In 1954, Ginsberg moved to San Francisco. His mentor, William Carlos Williams, introduced him to key figures in the San Francisco poetry scene, including Kenneth Rexroth. He also met Michael McClure, who handed off the duties of curating a reading for the newly-established "6" Gallery. With the help of Rexroth, the result was "The '6' Gallery Reading" which took place on October 7, 1955. The event has been hailed as the birth of the Beat Generation, in no small part because it was also the first public reading of Ginsberg's "Howl," a poem which garnered world-wide attention for him and the poets he associated with.
Shortly after Howl and Other Poems was published in 1956 by City Lights Bookstore, it was banned for obscenity. The work overcame censorship trials, however, and became one of the most widely read poems of the century, translated into more than twenty-two languages.
In the 1960s and 70s, Ginsberg studied under gurus and Zen masters. As the leading icon of the Beats, Ginsberg was involved in countless political activities, including protests against the Vietnam War, and he spoke openly about issues that concerned him, such as free speech and gay rights agendas.
Ginsberg went on publish numerous collections of poetry, including Kaddish and Other Poems (1961), Planet News (1968), and The Fall of America: Poems of These States (1973), which won the National Book Award.
In 1993, Ginsberg received the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres (the Order of Arts and Letters) from the French Minister of Culture. He also co-founded and directed the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at the Naropa Institute in Colorado. In his later years, Ginsberg became a Distinguished Professor at Brooklyn College.
On April 5, 1997, in New York City, he died from complications of hepatitis.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 2,865 reviews
March 7, 2020
Easy to overestimate Allen Ginsberg. Easy to underestimate him too.
There are—if you leave out the political, religious and major historical figures—only about two dozen or so 20th century cultural icons, and Ginsberg is one of them—right up there with Einstein, Bogart, James Dean, and Marilyn Monroe. In the 60's, his face was ubiquitous, and the Ginsberg poster you picked out for yourself showed the kind of Ginsberg you aspired to be: Ginsberg in Uncle Sam hat, naked Ginsberg embracing naked Peter Orlovsky, psychedelic “Moses” Ginsberg holding up two stone tablets of the Law of “Who to be Kind to,” or Ginsberg protesting in the snow and wearing a big sign that says “Pot is Fun.” He was a hipster, a hedonist and a holy man, standing up for every form of free expression you could imagine, smiling from the walls of every coffeehouse, every bookstore, every other two room apartment that you knew. And it was hard to get past all those posters and just sit down and read the poetry.
But if you got past all that, it was still hard to separate the political from the poetic. His most famous poem "Howl" was the center of a notorious free speech fight, and many of the later poems, from “America” to “Wichita Vortex Sutra” and beyond, could not be fully understood without some knowledge of the protest movements of the time. However, if you did actually sit down and read some of his poetry--away from the context, away from the intoxicating counter-cultural atmosphere--you might begin to suspect that Ginsberg the Poetry Icon was superior to Irwin Allen Ginsberg from Newark, New Jersey, the guy who actually sat down and wrote what is often—frankly--mediocre verse.
Part of the problem stems from the length of Ginsberg's free verse line: it is indeed a very long line, habitually a few beats longer than a dactylic hexameter. (Even when he breaks a line into W.C.Williams “triads,” it still seems to be long.) Most poets who choose such a line as their vehicle (Kit Smart, Martin Tupper, Whitman, Fearing, Jeffers, Ginsberg) come off sounding biblical and orotund in long passages which lack lyricism and are often indistinguishable from mediocre prose. (C.K. Williams--perhaps because of his narrative drive--is the notable exception here). When you add to this the fact that Ginsberg delights in improvisation, and once embraced as his model the “no revisions necessary” Kerouac prose style, it is little wonder that many of his lines fail to sing.
But, as I said, it is easy to underestimate him too, particularly if we “just sit down and read” his poetry, divorcing it from the world of cultural influences and public performance that he loved. For example, if you sit down to read “Howl,” and it seems too ponderous, too much like the prophet Jeremiah wailing for all the pitiful beatnik dead, just stop for a minute and go download some early 50's jazz--Herbie Nichols maybe, or Lee Konitz or the MJQ—and play it quietly in the background while you stand up and recite the poem aloud to yourself—swaying a little, perhaps even snapping your fingers. You may begin to discover unexpected deposits of gentle humor, the occasional pocket of sick humor, and even a little slapstick from time to time, and also sense--knitting the four movements of this magnificent performance piece together—an overarching, self-conscious hipster irony which refuses for even one second to take Ginsberg the Prophet or Ginsberg the Poetry Icon completely seriously.
As you probably can tell, I love “Howl.” I think it is a masterwork of American poetry, unique and irreplaceable. This collections also contains four shorter pieces almost as good: ”A Supermarket in California” (an encounter with Walt Whitman, who is “eyeing the grocery boys”), ”America” (a love letter to the USA and a protest poem at the same time, ending with the memorable line, “America I'm putting my queer shoulder to the wheel"), “Sunflower Sutra” (a conversation with Kerouac in Frisco about a gray dead sunflower which ends with a “sermon” proclaiming that “we are all beautiful golden sunflowers inside”), and “In the Baggage Room at Greyhound” (Irwin Allen Ginsberg's farewell to a job he obviously hated).
These five poems make up only 70% of this small 50 page collection, and the rest of the poems included here I don't think are worth reading at all. (But then I didn't experiment with jazz in the background. So I just might be underestimating Ginsberg once again.)
Want to read
September 2, 2021if only i had my very own jess to put some notes in the margins for me
July 16, 2007
Allen Ginsberg, a sad and lonely man, wrote this to impress Kerouac, another sad and lonely man.
Over the years, a lot of sad and lonely people haven't gotten over the how much that first fucking line resonates with them.
The whole best minds/generation/destroyed/madness line.
Ten years ago, this was a 5-star poem. Ten years from now, it will be a 3-star poem.
That's just called growing up, folks.
Over the years, a lot of sad and lonely people haven't gotten over the how much that first fucking line resonates with them.
The whole best minds/generation/destroyed/madness line.
Ten years ago, this was a 5-star poem. Ten years from now, it will be a 3-star poem.
That's just called growing up, folks.
January 15, 2018
You will not like this. Like we use to say, vengan de a uno.
So, “Howl”. My rating is based mostly on my experience with that long poem.
I admire any work filled with sincerity and lyrically intense lines (when found). Powerful, raw images that expose an unknown world. I understand this book's historical context and what it represented at the time; storming in with a breath of fresh air, breaking the mold and dealing with some themes and views I also agree with. Well, except for the endless references to drug abuse and alcohol, regarded, through the years, as a source of creativity and a way to express yourself against reigning social conventions; a dangerously infantile waste of a life in some cases. Debauchery, consumption of drugs and alcohol as a statement, a sort of protest against materialism and conformity. Mindless attitudes that make you different, that keep you safely away from anything mainstream and doesn't lead you to an unbearable feeling of emptiness... Sexual liberation—being free of any dogma, any prejudice, being able to enjoy complete freedom to love—understood as sleeping with whoever crosses your street and then writing yourself an ode celebrating those actions; trying to be so different that you end up being as ordinary as any other mortal. It was their times, of course. And this is simply an opinion.
Anyway, whereas I do appreciate the honesty and the experiences and sentiments that Ginsberg brought to these pages, I feel like many significant matters get lost in a haze of pretentiousness, self-indulgence and not an extraordinary writing (I take away the political context and there's not much to hold onto), in this particular case and from my perspective. A perspective that, needless to say, doesn't epitomize the absolute truth nor tries to. I was not expecting a bunch of puritan euphemisms and songs on a prairie, but it was simply too much and I struggled to finish the whole thing. Even though I always say to myself that literature does not have to be a source of misery so if I am not enjoying a book, I can leave it behind, I did try to finish this one because, well, it had less than 100 pages... don't be so lazy, girl.
A really short book that became too painful to finish. You can imagine. You can also say: "Two stars. Are you out of your mind? This is pure sentiment, pure poetry meant to stir your most hidden emotions." "Oh, grow up" with a Joan Rivers' kind of tone. And I will respect that. However, for me it was not and the only thing I stirred was some benevolent coffee that helped me throughout this arduous journey.
The rest of the poems were a little less painful; nothing more. I kind of liked “Transcription of Organ Music”. Some good lines, from time to time. “America” is a decent pearl containing the essence of the Beat generation. “Song” was a nice change of pace.
Beats and me just don't get along. I still have Naked Lunch to read. I wonder...
Nov 24, 2015
* Also on my blog.
So, “Howl”. My rating is based mostly on my experience with that long poem.
I admire any work filled with sincerity and lyrically intense lines (when found). Powerful, raw images that expose an unknown world. I understand this book's historical context and what it represented at the time; storming in with a breath of fresh air, breaking the mold and dealing with some themes and views I also agree with. Well, except for the endless references to drug abuse and alcohol, regarded, through the years, as a source of creativity and a way to express yourself against reigning social conventions; a dangerously infantile waste of a life in some cases. Debauchery, consumption of drugs and alcohol as a statement, a sort of protest against materialism and conformity. Mindless attitudes that make you different, that keep you safely away from anything mainstream and doesn't lead you to an unbearable feeling of emptiness... Sexual liberation—being free of any dogma, any prejudice, being able to enjoy complete freedom to love—understood as sleeping with whoever crosses your street and then writing yourself an ode celebrating those actions; trying to be so different that you end up being as ordinary as any other mortal. It was their times, of course. And this is simply an opinion.
Anyway, whereas I do appreciate the honesty and the experiences and sentiments that Ginsberg brought to these pages, I feel like many significant matters get lost in a haze of pretentiousness, self-indulgence and not an extraordinary writing (I take away the political context and there's not much to hold onto), in this particular case and from my perspective. A perspective that, needless to say, doesn't epitomize the absolute truth nor tries to. I was not expecting a bunch of puritan euphemisms and songs on a prairie, but it was simply too much and I struggled to finish the whole thing. Even though I always say to myself that literature does not have to be a source of misery so if I am not enjoying a book, I can leave it behind, I did try to finish this one because, well, it had less than 100 pages... don't be so lazy, girl.
A really short book that became too painful to finish. You can imagine. You can also say: "Two stars. Are you out of your mind? This is pure sentiment, pure poetry meant to stir your most hidden emotions." "Oh, grow up" with a Joan Rivers' kind of tone. And I will respect that. However, for me it was not and the only thing I stirred was some benevolent coffee that helped me throughout this arduous journey.
The rest of the poems were a little less painful; nothing more. I kind of liked “Transcription of Organ Music”. Some good lines, from time to time. “America” is a decent pearl containing the essence of the Beat generation. “Song” was a nice change of pace.
Beats and me just don't get along. I still have Naked Lunch to read. I wonder...
Nov 24, 2015
* Also on my blog.
November 23, 2010
Muddled, addled and overrated. In fact, any rating, even a single star or half-moon, is too much for this amateur-hour of a "poem." It might have played well when shouted out to a roomful of arrogant drunks, but on the page it droops, it teeters under the weight of all of those ungainly adjectivies and finally collapses in a fog of its own flatulance. I saw the best minds of my generation ignore this long, long limerick. Now, only nostalgists and know-naughts still cling to its pages of ill-repute. Why?
June 8, 2023
This collection of poetry has the power to liberate your gay soul.
February 8, 2017
Nothing like a bit of controversy to keep the establishment ticking over, and in "Howl" it's easy to see why as this was seen as a shocking and powerful piece of obscenity in the eyes of some, but for many more it's viewed as a celebrated manifesto of great importance for the beat Generation of the 1950s that helped to stick a big fat middle finger up to sexual repression and capitalism. This is a vital collection of Ginsberg's work that will always stand the test of time.
December 8, 2019
Ginsberg takes you there.
May 9, 2016
I feel similar ways about Allen Ginsberg and Adele. While I appreciate the skill behind both of their work, I find both of their material overwrought, contrary to popular opinion. Yes, I see how Ginsberg's poetry revolted against oppressive forces and mainstream, heteronormative America. Its lack of style and nuance still frustrates me. Props to him for lending fire to a revolution that uplifted marginalized voices, even if I myself find his writing unfulfilling and too frantic, despite the positive impact of its shock value.
March 26, 2023
Businessmen are serious. Movie producers are serious.
Everybody’s serious but me.
~America
It has always been fashionable for serious, academic literary people (and those who aren’t really, but wish to be viewed as such) to denigrate Allen Ginsberg in general, and his magnum opus, Howl, in particular. When first published, Howl was attacked by this set as grotesque and obscene filth, the ramblings of a immature and talentless pervert. Now, more than sixty years later, this same set sneer at it as passé, an overwrought and pretentious attempt to shock, dated into irrelevance.
But Ginsberg was not a serious person. He told us so. Instead, he was a Holy Fool, a prophet of divine madness. Just in case we missed that point in Howl, he gave us Footnote To Howl, commencing with “Holy!” repeated fifteen times.
If you read these poems seriously, ponderously, you’re missing the damn point. Their rhythms, their profanity, their excesses reveal and revel in the glorious Goof of the world. Universe may be full of pain and ugliness, America full of Puritanical repression, but chant, scream, growl the lines of Howl and all that dissolves into the Holy Goof. Serious people don’t get it. They can’t. They do not have ears to hear.
Everybody’s serious but me.
~America
It has always been fashionable for serious, academic literary people (and those who aren’t really, but wish to be viewed as such) to denigrate Allen Ginsberg in general, and his magnum opus, Howl, in particular. When first published, Howl was attacked by this set as grotesque and obscene filth, the ramblings of a immature and talentless pervert. Now, more than sixty years later, this same set sneer at it as passé, an overwrought and pretentious attempt to shock, dated into irrelevance.
But Ginsberg was not a serious person. He told us so. Instead, he was a Holy Fool, a prophet of divine madness. Just in case we missed that point in Howl, he gave us Footnote To Howl, commencing with “Holy!” repeated fifteen times.
If you read these poems seriously, ponderously, you’re missing the damn point. Their rhythms, their profanity, their excesses reveal and revel in the glorious Goof of the world. Universe may be full of pain and ugliness, America full of Puritanical repression, but chant, scream, growl the lines of Howl and all that dissolves into the Holy Goof. Serious people don’t get it. They can’t. They do not have ears to hear.
December 29, 2020
So: a mi no me gusta poetry. I really really hate poems. I get it, on an analytical level: they're like ideas pared down into short little quick-fix portrayals and for all the amazing good they do with imagery and sharing the core of humanity, I really just don't like them. They're over too fast, they're too seemingly simple. And all that said, that is why I love "Howl" and Allen Ginsberg in general. "Howl" as a poem is long, longer than average, and yet still full of beautiful/ugly imagery - it's something that seems both tossed off in a single draft and also refined over and over again for purification. Beyond just "Howl" there is a lot in this tiny little tome that I relate to, especially Whitman in a grocery store. Ginsberg gets me, or I guess more accurately I get him. It's got to be something about VOICE, that makes his poetry speak to me and makes so much other poetry NOT speak to me.
"Howl" is great, amazingly and blazingly American original, and that is what I love about it. Doesn't hurt that They Might Be Giants recorded a song based on it. The rest of this little book is gravy, but it's damn good gravy, and it's one of the only purchases I afforded myself after college—eight bucks that could have been spent towards a meal but instead went towards a tiny little thing that always hides behind the rest of my bookshelf and yet punches way more punch than anything else I've purchased in these many years developing a collection of literature.
5 stars out of 5. One of the only poems I will ever recommend.
"Howl" is great, amazingly and blazingly American original, and that is what I love about it. Doesn't hurt that They Might Be Giants recorded a song based on it. The rest of this little book is gravy, but it's damn good gravy, and it's one of the only purchases I afforded myself after college—eight bucks that could have been spent towards a meal but instead went towards a tiny little thing that always hides behind the rest of my bookshelf and yet punches way more punch than anything else I've purchased in these many years developing a collection of literature.
5 stars out of 5. One of the only poems I will ever recommend.
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February 5, 2015
I have a problem with Allen Ginsberg.
It goes beyond how overrated I think he is, how mediocre his poetry seems to me. The titular poem of this volume in particular.
It goes beyond his adolescent fixation on the prurient and the vulgar.
See, I know for a fact that he was a pedophile.
I studied under one of his friends, someone who admitted that Ginsberg was sexually attracted to little boys -- to the extent that Ginsberg's friends all refused to let the poet be alone (or, in some cases, even around) their small boys. He told us some of the things Ginsberg said about small boys. His support for N.A.M.B.L.A. was not grounded in concern over civil rights or freedom of speech; he had a personal stake in it.
I had already concluded that I didn't like his poetry when i found this out, but it also makes it impossible for me to look back and analyze his poetry or his impact on American popular culture without seeing the little "tells" and hints at his actual...inclinations.
So that's what I remember when I read this or hear people quoting it or read their discussions of it. A pedophile with a fondness for vulgarity, lionized.
It goes beyond how overrated I think he is, how mediocre his poetry seems to me. The titular poem of this volume in particular.
It goes beyond his adolescent fixation on the prurient and the vulgar.
See, I know for a fact that he was a pedophile.
I studied under one of his friends, someone who admitted that Ginsberg was sexually attracted to little boys -- to the extent that Ginsberg's friends all refused to let the poet be alone (or, in some cases, even around) their small boys. He told us some of the things Ginsberg said about small boys. His support for N.A.M.B.L.A. was not grounded in concern over civil rights or freedom of speech; he had a personal stake in it.
I had already concluded that I didn't like his poetry when i found this out, but it also makes it impossible for me to look back and analyze his poetry or his impact on American popular culture without seeing the little "tells" and hints at his actual...inclinations.
So that's what I remember when I read this or hear people quoting it or read their discussions of it. A pedophile with a fondness for vulgarity, lionized.
November 9, 2017
I had goosebumps while reading Howl. It's like nothing I have ever read!
November 9, 2015
Considered a masterpiece of the "beat generation" writers, it reads like the jumbled rambling of a drug crazed alcoholic, preoccupied with sex and spiritual enlightenment, while battling mental instability and depression. But I "get it", and I appreciate the significance of it's contribution to the history of the hipster generation, and how they and their writing influenced the culture of the 20th century.
September 28, 2016
Howl
“I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, draggin themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix, angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dinamo in the machinery of night.”
Me pregunto ¿Quién no habrá leído las primeras líneas de “Aullido”? Un poema que influenció ampliamente la poesía norteamericana del siglo XXI, creado y disfrutado más recitado que leído , pero que sobre todas las cosas es tremendamente egoísta y socialmente masiva. Para Allen todo se trata de su círculo, de aquellos con los que convivió y cuáles fueron sus experiencias, se alejó de la rítmica y se enfocó en el sentimiento, y es por ello que terminó marcando una época por la sensación de desazón que desprenden sus versos, de que el mundo te ha traicionado, pero que al final te da esperanza.
Dividido en cuatro partes, las tres primeras son sucias, apasionadas y tristes, la última sección lo deja claro: no están solos. Sin importar si están en el psiquiátrico o en las abandonas calles de la ciudad, en la locura o en la drogadicción se tienen a ellos mismos y su libertad para ser, hablar y estar.
Para mi Aullido es un poema directo y maravilloso, que muestra a los marginados y a los olvidados como sólo otro individuo marginado podría haberlo hecho.
...
A supermarket in California
Quien hayan leído algo acerca de Ginsberg sabe de la gran influencia que tuvo Walt Whitman sobre él, y este poema puede ser tanto una oda a su persona como una visión de la sociedad común, de las situaciones del día a día, y dela transformación del mundo para bien o para mal.
…
America
Este es especial. Personalmente creo que junto con Aullido fue mi favorito. Es una conversación directa con América, donde Allen expone su sensación de traición, de desasosiego, de haber dado y no recibir nada a cambio. Conforme leía mi cabeza no deja de pensar en “Born in the USA” de Bruce Springsteen, ambas tienen ese mismo mensaje expresado desde la singularidad a la colectividad, sólo que aquí no hay música audible que nos haga omitir la letra, aquí todo es directo.
”America when will you be angelic?”
…
Otros poemas de la colección son Transcripción de música de organo,Sutra de girasol y En la consigna de Greyhound. Todos ellos son buenos pero carezco de notas respecto a ellos debido a que los leí mientras iba de pie en el metro a las 8 de la mañana, por tanto no puedo reseñarlos de manera correcta sin que se me mezclen los mensajes de cada uno.
Esta colección incluye además algunos primeros poemas los cuales difieren considerablemente respecto a los anteriores por su estructura: aqu�� se mantiene la rítmica clásica, la longitudes más corta y hay un mayor uso del sentido figurado, no obstante el sentimiento triste y perdido esinamovible.
Al final esta es una colección que merece ser leída (al menos por Howl y America), ya sea que te guste o no la poesía, porque el trabajo de Ginsberg es distinto de la poesía clásica, más cercano a una buena conversación que a un compilado de versos que disfrutar en tu soledad.
June 24, 2019
It took awhile for me to finally determine where exactly Allan Ginsberg sits in my book reviewer rating scale.
Truth is, I was lured in by all the hoopla this collection received in 1956 when it was seized by U.S customs. It's just not easy for me to review poetry.
Do I understand why AG set the world on fire in 56? Totally!
Was it the type of writing that made me HOWL ? Mmmm ..maybe more like a whimper?
Goodreads Review 24/06/19
Truth is, I was lured in by all the hoopla this collection received in 1956 when it was seized by U.S customs. It's just not easy for me to review poetry.
Do I understand why AG set the world on fire in 56? Totally!
Was it the type of writing that made me HOWL ? Mmmm ..maybe more like a whimper?
Goodreads Review 24/06/19
June 30, 2020
*Review and final rating to come*
First book in a 24 hour RoryGilmoreReadathon!
First book in a 24 hour RoryGilmoreReadathon!
September 11, 2018
When can I go into the supermarket and buy what I need with my good looks?
On my recent trip to San Francisco I was obliged to buy a copy of this book from the City Lights bookstore. Well, that isn’t the whole story. I visited the store without knowing anything of its history, left with a copy of Galileo’s Sidereus Nuncius, and then shamefacedly returned to pick up this book when my mother informed me, five minutes later, that it is famous for the “Howl” trial. I had heard recordings of Ginsberg reciting “Howl” many times, but I had never actually owned a copy of this poem. Now, thanks to the timely intervention of my mom, I am bona fide hip.
Like so many obscene books of bygone ages, “Howl” seems remarkably tame nowadays, and it is hard to believe any institution would go through the bother of banning and confiscating it. As in so many other cases of censorship, the attempt to suppress the work backfired, helping to turn poem and poet into icons. In our present, enlightened age, we have realized that, when anything can be published, nothing can be shocking or subversive; so oversaturation accomplishes in a stroke what censorship failed to accomplish in generations. But I am getting rather off the track of this book review.
It is difficult to evaluate “Howl,” since everything innovative about it has been thoroughly absorbed into the culture: obscenity, drugs, jazz, eastern mantras, free-form poems that follow the breath, and so on. Ginsberg’s voice is still with us; and you can hear it for yourself if you go to the right college campus—to pick just one example, New Paltz, in upstate New York, has many psychedelic, socially conscious, very enlightened free-form poets. This is not to say that this poem is no longer enjoyable, only that its appeal is more as a fossil than as a revelation now.
But it is a delightful fossil. For with Ginsberg’s “Howl” I hear the first grumblings of a new phenomenon in society: a group of disaffected youths becoming self-aware as a loose movement—as a counter-culture. Now, there have always been disaffected people who have turned to alcohol, drugs, sex, foreign faiths, and in general that peculiar mix of mysticism and hedonism that gives solace to those who feel they do not have a place in their own society. Yet it was not until the Beats, I believe, that this now quintessential experience was turned into art that defined a whole generation. The irony, of course, is that as soon as a counter-culture becomes faddish, its harmless aspects are absorbed into society, and its radical aspects swept to the side, until the revolt loses its teeth.
In both Ginsberg’s “Howl” and Kerouac’s On the Road I see young men, profoundly disenchanted and disconnected with their world, deeply disgusted with the values of their society, but without much to offer in the way of replacement. Instead they wander “starving hysterical naked” across the country, in search of some sort of epiphany that will clarify their predicament—an elusive truth, to be pursued on highways, in bedrooms, and in the altered states of the mind. Yet until they reach this truth, all they have to offer in opposition to “Moloch” is hedonism—which is exactly the same dilemma unsuccessfully faced by Babbitt.
Needless to say I do not find either alternative convincing, but that does not mean I cannot enjoy Ginsberg’s poems. Now, I do think the book format does not do Ginsberg justice, since the lines are organized by his breath and demand to be read, preferably by him. I will always remember laying awake in my bed in high school, listening to Ginsberg reciting “Howl” and “America,” and feeling strange stirrings of literary rebellion that I could not hope to articulate. A literary triumph, perhaps not, but an essential landmark on the country’s and my own maturity.
November 8, 2017
mind blowing! i can't wait to read more of his poetry
August 21, 2019
"America stop pushing I know what I'm doing. America the plum blossoms are falling. I haven't read the newspaper for months, everyday someone goes on trial for murder . . ." -- 'America,' on page 31
I'm guessing Ginsberg's Howl was shocking or celebrated / venerated back in early 1956 with its then-provocative small doses of raw language and implied sexual imagery, but 63 years later it now seems overwrought or sometimes pretentious. Occasionally there's a sharp or well-constructed verse, and some of the shorter poems in the latter half of this volume are okay. But the title piece - which ran about twelve pages - had me thinking 'enough already' two minutes after starting in on it.
I'm guessing Ginsberg's Howl was shocking or celebrated / venerated back in early 1956 with its then-provocative small doses of raw language and implied sexual imagery, but 63 years later it now seems overwrought or sometimes pretentious. Occasionally there's a sharp or well-constructed verse, and some of the shorter poems in the latter half of this volume are okay. But the title piece - which ran about twelve pages - had me thinking 'enough already' two minutes after starting in on it.
May 11, 2020
Uneven collection. "Howl" is good, while the rest is crap.
June 21, 2023
I guess, I liked this one. Just a few words: Bizzare, Baffling, heartfelt, hot-blooded!
It reminded me of a day, two years back, When I bought a paperback of Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman, that day, after glancing inside, I wondered if it was a poem book or prose! This man gave me the same overflow of emotions in his long streaks of repeated words...
My forearm horripilate!
'William Carlos Williams' wrote at the beginning of this book that he used to know Allen Ginsberg when they were young. Allen was much disturbed by life after the first world war and Carlos never thought Allen would live to grow up and write a book of poems. 'His ability to survive, travel and go on writing astonishes me" Carlos said.
After reading the passionate verse in this book, I can understand what William Carlos Williams connotes by saying that!
It reminded me of a day, two years back, When I bought a paperback of Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman, that day, after glancing inside, I wondered if it was a poem book or prose! This man gave me the same overflow of emotions in his long streaks of repeated words...
My forearm horripilate!
Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!
The world is holy! The soul is holy! The skin is holy! The nose is holy!.......
Holy the groaning saxophone! Holy the bop apocalypse! Holy the jazzbands marijuana hipsters peace peyote pipes & drums!
Holy the solitudes of skyscrapers and pavements! Holy the cafeterias filled with the millions! Holy the mysterious rivers of tears under the streets!
Holy the lone juggernaut! Holy the vast lamb of the middleclass! Holy the crazy shepherds of rebellion! Who digs Los Angeles IS Los Angeles!
.......
'William Carlos Williams' wrote at the beginning of this book that he used to know Allen Ginsberg when they were young. Allen was much disturbed by life after the first world war and Carlos never thought Allen would live to grow up and write a book of poems. 'His ability to survive, travel and go on writing astonishes me" Carlos said.
After reading the passionate verse in this book, I can understand what William Carlos Williams connotes by saying that!
May 19, 2020
If Allen Ginsberg's poems were a music style, it would be a mixture of psychedelic rock and grunge rock.
The rants in his poems are rebellious. He unloads his frustrations, rejects the standard narrative values, and explores an alternative emancipation through spiritual enlightenment and drugs.
"Howl" is undoubtedly the voice of a generation anxious for sexual liberation and exploration of new lifestyles. Ginsberg's main poem is, moderately, a hymn to society's misfits, to the misunderstood artists who rumble in the streets. In addition to that, the nature of the poem about drugs, alcohol, and sexuality highlights a counter-culture movement that seeks (hedonistic) freedom.
"America" is another poem worth mentioning; An intimate conversation between the narrator and America. The poetic nature is highly sarcastic and political.
In "A Supermarket in California", Ginsberg presents an amusing poem about a dream (or psychedelic trip) he had where he encountered Walt Whitman in a supermarket. It's probably the best poem on the book, after "Howl".
In Ginsberg's poems, one can see a certain level of alienation on those young men, a beat generation disgusted with the world. It was, after all, this beat generation that made the 60s hippy culture thrive. Perhaps without them, we wouldn't have bands like The Doors and The Beatles.
Overall, the rawness and the sadness of Ginsberg's work is something remarkable. His poetic style had undoubtedly an important meaning when it was written.
“I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by
madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn
looking for an angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly
connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night,
who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat
up smoking in the supernatural darkness of
cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities
contemplating jazz,
who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and
saw Mohammedan angels staggering on tenement roofs illuminated,
who passed through universities with radiant cool eyes
hallucinating Arkansas and Blake-light tragedy
among the scholars of war, ”
Rating: 3,5/5 stars
The rants in his poems are rebellious. He unloads his frustrations, rejects the standard narrative values, and explores an alternative emancipation through spiritual enlightenment and drugs.
"Howl" is undoubtedly the voice of a generation anxious for sexual liberation and exploration of new lifestyles. Ginsberg's main poem is, moderately, a hymn to society's misfits, to the misunderstood artists who rumble in the streets. In addition to that, the nature of the poem about drugs, alcohol, and sexuality highlights a counter-culture movement that seeks (hedonistic) freedom.
"America" is another poem worth mentioning; An intimate conversation between the narrator and America. The poetic nature is highly sarcastic and political.
In "A Supermarket in California", Ginsberg presents an amusing poem about a dream (or psychedelic trip) he had where he encountered Walt Whitman in a supermarket. It's probably the best poem on the book, after "Howl".
In Ginsberg's poems, one can see a certain level of alienation on those young men, a beat generation disgusted with the world. It was, after all, this beat generation that made the 60s hippy culture thrive. Perhaps without them, we wouldn't have bands like The Doors and The Beatles.
Overall, the rawness and the sadness of Ginsberg's work is something remarkable. His poetic style had undoubtedly an important meaning when it was written.
“I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by
madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn
looking for an angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly
connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night,
who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat
up smoking in the supernatural darkness of
cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities
contemplating jazz,
who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and
saw Mohammedan angels staggering on tenement roofs illuminated,
who passed through universities with radiant cool eyes
hallucinating Arkansas and Blake-light tragedy
among the scholars of war, ”
Rating: 3,5/5 stars
March 19, 2019
لعنتی تموم بشو نبود....
هی میخوندم هی نمیفهمیدم هی میرفتم از اول جمله رو میخوندم...بار ها این داستان تکرار شد ...دستام داره میلرزه....آلن گینزبرگ یا همون بنظر من پدر معنوی شعر پست مدرن... فوق العاده بود...اما چند مدت دیگه ازش نمیخونم بشدت تحت تاثیر قرار میده فقط کافیه یه شعرش رو بخونید...
قضیه جالب برام این بود که چطور این شعرا رو مینوشت،آلن واقعا تن به یه رودخونه گنگ زده بود،تن به مصرف موادی زده بود که کسی اسمشو نمیدونست،آلن یه تنه جلوی ارتش نازی ایستاده بود،من این رو حس کردم...
آلن با اولین جمله کتاب باعث شد این کتاب رو سه روزه تموم کنم جمله اول( جنون بهترین ذهن های نسلم رو ویران کرد)
این جمله کافی بود تا توی دلم بگم خدای من قراره چه چیزی بخونم،شعرای آلن واقعا سختن،در طول کتاب هی داشتم از چند کتاب کمک میگرفتم،اما اینقدر بهتون بگم که یه جمله از کتاب برای جنون کافیه
آلن گینزبرگ رو کنار بوکوفسکی در قلبم نوشتم هرچند کفه سنگین ترازو دست آلن هست
هی میخوندم هی نمیفهمیدم هی میرفتم از اول جمله رو میخوندم...بار ها این داستان تکرار شد ...دستام داره میلرزه....آلن گینزبرگ یا همون بنظر من پدر معنوی شعر پست مدرن... فوق العاده بود...اما چند مدت دیگه ازش نمیخونم بشدت تحت تاثیر قرار میده فقط کافیه یه شعرش رو بخونید...
قضیه جالب برام این بود که چطور این شعرا رو مینوشت،آلن واقعا تن به یه رودخونه گنگ زده بود،تن به مصرف موادی زده بود که کسی اسمشو نمیدونست،آلن یه تنه جلوی ارتش نازی ایستاده بود،من این رو حس کردم...
آلن با اولین جمله کتاب باعث شد این کتاب رو سه روزه تموم کنم جمله اول( جنون بهترین ذهن های نسلم رو ویران کرد)
این جمله کافی بود تا توی دلم بگم خدای من قراره چه چیزی بخونم،شعرای آلن واقعا سختن،در طول کتاب هی داشتم از چند کتاب کمک میگرفتم،اما اینقدر بهتون بگم که یه جمله از کتاب برای جنون کافیه
آلن گینزبرگ رو کنار بوکوفسکی در قلبم نوشتم هرچند کفه سنگین ترازو دست آلن هست
Read
July 24, 2022I feel waves of a prickly emotion when I read Ginsberg’s poems. This was my first time reading this collection – each and every single one of the poems made its presence known to me. It’s not quite sadness, not quite anger, not quite fear. Certainly it isn��t anything close to elation and joy. But it is something. And that’s why I read poetry, to feel something.
Favourites in this collection were:
• Howl
• Sunflower Sutra
• America
• Song
Favourites in this collection were:
• Howl
• Sunflower Sutra
• America
• Song
April 6, 2019
i would say "suck my dick" but even that's too much respect for a boring pedophile
September 14, 2015
Many say that this is nothing more than an overrated, incomprehensible bunch of words about sex, alcohol and drugs. And they are right. But poetry is not about words, it's about the feeling they are capable of evoke. And Howl evoke a lot of feelings, at least for me. The eternal search of the meaning of life, the conflicted relation between the fear and mystification of death, the wonders and terrors of growing old.
If you want to change the world but don't know how, if you want to leave your mark but fear you can't, if you are afraid of waking up one day with your dreams and ideals long forgotten and trapped in the mundane routine of the world. Then, you can relate with this "overrated, incomprehensible bunch of words about sex, alcohol and drugs", and that's all that matters.
“I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, [...]
who threw their watches off the roof to cast their ballot for Eternity outside of Time, & alarm clocks fell on their heads every day for the next decade,
who cut their wrists three times successively unsuccessfully, gave up and were forced to open antique stores where they thought they were growing old and cried,
who were burned alive in their innocent flannel suits on Madison Avenue amid blasts of leaden verse & the tanked-up clatter of the iron regiments of fashion & the nitroglycerine shrieks of the fairies of advertising & the mustard gas of sinister intelligent editors, or were run down by the drunken taxicabs of Absolute Reality.”
If you want to change the world but don't know how, if you want to leave your mark but fear you can't, if you are afraid of waking up one day with your dreams and ideals long forgotten and trapped in the mundane routine of the world. Then, you can relate with this "overrated, incomprehensible bunch of words about sex, alcohol and drugs", and that's all that matters.
“We're not our skin of grime, we're not our dread bleak dusty imageless locomotive, we're all beautiful golden sunflowers inside,
we're blessed by our own seed & golden hairy naked accomplishment- bodies growing into mad black formal sunflowers in the sunset.”
February 6, 2022
Footnote to Ginsberg’s Footnote to Howl
Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!
The bodies are holy! The universe is holy! The sun is holy! The moon is holy! The stars holy!
You are holy! I am holy! They are holy! We are holy! Everything is holy!
Holy the paved asphalt! Holy the automobiles running on them! Holy the puddles! Holy the buildings! Holy the flies! Holy the worms! Holy the flesh! Holy the fish! Holy the love! Holy the friendships! Holy the relationships!
Holy the cigarettes! Holy the booze! Holy the sex! Holy the books and the pen bleeding through a porous paper! Holy the Kindle! Holy the eBooks! Holy Goodreads! Holy friends! Holy trolls! Holy the publishers! Holy the readers! Holy the reviewers!
Holy the musicians! Holy the writers! Holy the artists! Holy Ginsberg and his circle! Holy Janis Joplin! Holy Led Zeppelin! Holy Lamb of God! Holy our families!
Holy philosophy! Holy phi beta kappa! Holy love-of-learning-is-the-guide-of-life!
Holy Tibet Holy America Holy Peru Holy Liechtenstein Holy Australia Holy Tanzania Holy the people living there! Holy the people living everywhere!
Not Berkeley, 2022
Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!
The bodies are holy! The universe is holy! The sun is holy! The moon is holy! The stars holy!
You are holy! I am holy! They are holy! We are holy! Everything is holy!
Holy the paved asphalt! Holy the automobiles running on them! Holy the puddles! Holy the buildings! Holy the flies! Holy the worms! Holy the flesh! Holy the fish! Holy the love! Holy the friendships! Holy the relationships!
Holy the cigarettes! Holy the booze! Holy the sex! Holy the books and the pen bleeding through a porous paper! Holy the Kindle! Holy the eBooks! Holy Goodreads! Holy friends! Holy trolls! Holy the publishers! Holy the readers! Holy the reviewers!
Holy the musicians! Holy the writers! Holy the artists! Holy Ginsberg and his circle! Holy Janis Joplin! Holy Led Zeppelin! Holy Lamb of God! Holy our families!
Holy philosophy! Holy phi beta kappa! Holy love-of-learning-is-the-guide-of-life!
Holy Tibet Holy America Holy Peru Holy Liechtenstein Holy Australia Holy Tanzania Holy the people living there! Holy the people living everywhere!
Not Berkeley, 2022
January 1, 2019
It's been a fair few years since I read this, decided on a re-read because I'm going to read The Poetry and Politics of Allen Ginsberg soon, so thought it was best to have a refresh.
I read Howl and then listened to the main himself performing it, best way to do it. Everytime time he says "eli eli lamma lamma sabacthani saxophone cry that shivered the cities down to the last radio" it gives me goosebumps.
One thing I noticed this time is that his poetry still angers people, still getting thumb downs on YouTube. What a guy!
I read Howl and then listened to the main himself performing it, best way to do it. Everytime time he says "eli eli lamma lamma sabacthani saxophone cry that shivered the cities down to the last radio" it gives me goosebumps.
One thing I noticed this time is that his poetry still angers people, still getting thumb downs on YouTube. What a guy!
July 22, 2008
ah, ranty rants and beautiful language and a deep deep sense of the long poetic sentence. and madness writ large. and industrial dissolution. and that wasteland that is america.
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