With all this talk of anger and rage, I should also mention that Ginsberg's sense of joy is a component of his poetry that too many critics either fail to mention or ignore all together. Whatever you may think of his talent, it is obvious that Ginsberg loved poetry and found his greatest happiness through the discovery of new forms of poetic expressions. For all of its apocalyptic ragings, Howl never grows shrill because one can sense the fact that Ginsberg had a lot of fun composing (and performing) the poem. A few years before his own death, I was lucky enough to attend one of Allen Ginsberg's readings. Though he read mostly from Kaddish and his shorter poems (perhaps, understandably, trying to make sure we understood he actually had written other poems beyond the one everyone kept citing), he also read a bit from Howl. He proved to be an amazing reader, going over these words he must have seen over a million times past, with an almost childlike enthusiasm and joy. As he did this, I looked out at the others in the audience and basically, I saw rows and rows of identical looking "intellectuals," all posessing the same dead-serious expression on their face, nodding at each relavent point as if to make sure everyone understood that they understood genius. Contrasting their forced seriousness with Ginsberg's uninhibited joy, I realized that there was only one true tragesy as far as Allen Ginsberg was concerned and that was the fact that his self-appointed acolytes always took him for more seriously then he did himself. To consider Howl and Ginsberg without joy is like considering language without words.


Read and Understand   December 4, 2003
 13 out of 18 found this review helpful

I used to think that people didn't read things like "Howl" because they didn't understand. But as I have grown older I've come to the realization that is has much more to do with their NOT wanting to understand. It is easy to read, but not easy to understand. It causes one to think -- no, to have to think. One has to think about "Howl" if one reads it. It is one of those weird things you still think about years later on some lame Tuesday afternoon while paying bills. So, most people avoid it so they don't have to try and come to grips with the affects it can have on their minds. Football and movies are easier for people to deal with most of the time.

I don't know if this is a bad thing anymore. People want to live comfortable lives, and if one thinks uncomfortable thoughts, then life can become uncomfortable. One is forced into action to try and help right the wrongs of this world, and that is not easy. Wrongs stay in place in large measure because people don't know how to fix them. Sure, we can quote RFK and say, "some see things that never were and ask why not", but saying things like that is the easy part.

Reading, "Howl" changes a person. Makes them uncomfortable, but it means to do that. It is a great piece of writing. It is probably the best piece of poetry written in the last half of the 20th century in the United States.

But beware; because it causes one of think of change. Change can be good, and it can be bad. I like to think "Howl" is good because it opened my eyes to ugly thoughts. True, ugly can be beautiful. But remember the hardest thing about change -- it is.


Howl: Drug induced head-trip into the void...   December 10, 2002
 10 out of 12 found this review helpful

Howl and Other Poems by Allen Ginsberg is quite possibly one of the greatest American epics ever written. With its nightmarish violent and sexual imagery this will last forever. Let me just tell you if your new to Ginsberg (which I am not)I would recommend reading Reality Sandwiches or Kaddish first; if the overtly homosexual imagery in Howl doesn't bother you. Reality Sandwiches is a bit more toned down than Howl although in my opinion not better. Ginsberg's epic is a psychological drug induced (Ginsberg wrote Howl while under marijuana's influence) head trip into the minds of his fellow fallen hipsters and junkies. It is about a howl of defeat and a stench of death. If you are a beginning writer and\or wish to write w\more freedom I highly recommend picking this up not only for enjoyment but also for a style book of sorts because Howl shows how to free onesself in the literary sense (trust me I'm a published poet and have been reading Ginsberg for awhile he is one of my main influences). The first part (the actual poem Howl is divided into 3 not including holy, holy)is one long sentence never utilizing a period until the end. I could write a whole essay on Ginsberg but I'll leave you with the man, the myth, the legend; just pick up his work if poetry interests you and definently pick up Howl if you are not too sensitized.

"...the mad man bum and angel beat in time; unknown, yet putting down what might be left to say in time come after death..."


overrated   January 5, 1998
 8 out of 16 found this review helpful

Even critics who are sympathetic to Ginsberg, such as David Perkins in his "History of Modern Poetry," admit that he was a one-hit wonder. T. S. Eliot pointed out, speaking of Milton, that a poet can be great but still exercise a bad influence on those who follow him. I myself, speaking of "Howl," would use words very similar to those Tennyson used in describing "Sordello" -- I liked only the first line of it. There are better free verse poets than Ginsberg, just as there are better critics of America than Ginsberg.


Poets see hell through the eyes of angels   June 30, 2003
 8 out of 9 found this review helpful

I reread this little book before attempting to review it. I remembered that it was a mad mantra of transcendent power from the heart of hell, but I didn't remember how nondated it was. This work is fresher and more relevant than 99% of what passes for poetry today. How can something last nearly 50 years without going stale or becoming trite? How can it be even more real now? Maybe it is because Ginsberg ripped it live, screaming, and bleeding from a place beyond time and beyond space. He tore it from the living bowels of MOLOCH itself and showed it to HIM. After all, what does divine madness know of time?

This poem is transcendence itself. It demonstrates that when you plunge into the deepest pit of hell it either kills you, or perhaps it burns out your insides so that you become a soulless zombie, OR you transcend it and rise howling to become a Mad Poet Saint who can truely encompass the Sacred in the Profane.

Read this poem, and the others like America, A Supermarket in California, Sunflower Sutra, Wild Orphan, and In Back of the Real. It's almost frightening how relevant to daily life it is. If you didn't know it, you would never guess that it was written in the 50's. Of course Ginsberg does invoke, holy eternity in time holy the clocks in space the fourth dimension, in the Footnote. Maybe that's why it's timeless. As Cassady used to say, we know time, yes, we know time....

I wish I would have been there for that first public reading in San Fran with Kerouac running around the audience passing the wine jug. On all the planes, the Gods themselves must have jumped back in shock as a flaming monkeywrench of living poetry was jammed through the spokes of the great quivering meat wheel of conception....