Howl and Other Poems

by Allen Ginsberg

"Howl" is a poem written by Allen Ginsberg in 1955, published as part of his 1956 collection of poetry titled "Howl and Other Poems." Ginsberg began work on "Howl" as early as 1954. "Howl" is considered to be one of the great works of American literature. It came to be associated with the group of writers known as the Beat Generation, which included Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs. There is no foundation to the myth that "Howl" was written as a performance piece and later published by poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti of City Lights Books. This myth was perpetuated by Ferlinghetti as part of the defense's case during the poem's obscenity trial, as detailed below. Upon the poem's release, Ferlinghetti and the bookstore's manager, Shigeyoshi Murao, were charged with disseminating obscene literature, and both were arrested. On October 3, 1957, Judge Clayton W. Horn ruled that the poem was not obscene. Poems include: Howl -- Footnote To Howl -- A Supermarket in California -- Transcription of Organ Music -- Sunflower Sutra -- America -- In the Baggage Room at Greyhound ; Earlier Poems: An Asphodel -- Song -- Wild Orphan -- In Back of the Real.

Genres: Poetry, Classics, Fiction, Queer, American, Literature, LGBT

44 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 1, 1956

About the author

Allen Ginsberg was a groundbreaking American poet and activist best known for his central role in the Beat Generation and for writing the landmark poem Howl. Born in 1926 in Newark, New Jersey, to Jewish parents, Ginsberg grew up in a household shaped by both intellectualism and psychological struggle. His father, Louis Ginsberg, was a published poet and a schoolteacher, while his mother, Naomi, suffered from severe mental illness, which deeply affected Ginsberg and later influenced his writing—most notably in his poem Kaddish.
As a young man, Ginsberg attended Columbia University, where he befriended other future Beat luminaries such as Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs, and Neal Cassady. These relationships formed the core of what became known as the Beat Generation—a loose-knit group of writers and artists who rejected mainstream American values in favor of personal liberation, spontaneity, spiritual exploration, and radical politics.
Ginsberg rose to national prominence in 1956 with the publication of Howl and Other Poems, released by City Lights Books in San Francisco. Howl, an emotionally charged and stylistically experimental poem, offered an unfiltered vision of America’s underbelly. It included candid references to homosexuality, drug use, and mental illness—subjects considered taboo at the time. The poem led to an obscenity trial, which ultimately concluded in Ginsberg’s favor, setting a precedent for freedom of speech in literature.
His work consistently challenged social norms and addressed themes of personal freedom, sexual identity, spirituality, and political dissent. Ginsberg was openly gay at a time when homosexuality was still criminalized in much of the United States, and he became a vocal advocate for LGBTQ+ rights throughout his life. His poetry often intertwined the personal with the political, blending confessional intimacy with a broader critique of American society.
Beyond his literary achievements, Ginsberg was also a dedicated activist. He protested against the Vietnam War, nuclear proliferation, and later, U.S. foreign policy in Latin America. He was present at many pivotal cultural and political moments of the 1960s and 1970s, including the 1968 Democratic National Convention and various countercultural gatherings. His spiritual journey led him to Buddhism, which deeply influenced his writing and worldview. He studied under Tibetan teacher Chögyam Trungpa and helped establish the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado.
Ginsberg’s later years were marked by continued literary output and collaborations with musicians such as Bob Dylan and The Clash. His poetry collections, including Reality Sandwiches, Planet News, and The Fall of America, were widely read and respected. He received numerous honors for his work, including the National Book Award for Poetry in 1974.
He died of liver cancer in 1997 at the age of 70. Today, Allen Ginsberg is remembered not only as a pioneering poet, but also as a courageous voice for free expression, social justice, and spiritual inquiry. His influence on American literature and culture remains profound and enduring.

Reviews

[anabanana]

if only i had my very own jess to put some notes in the margins for me

[Bill Kerwin · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.)

[R. · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Lisa of Troy · Rating 2 out of 5]

On YouTube, there is a recording of Ginsberg (the author) reading Howl. Whenever he says something controversial, the sound of his smile/snickering can be heard. While Ginsberg might consider himself as very clever and funny, the tone is inauthentic.

This poem suffers from repetition, and the material is stale after On the Road by Jack Kerouac. Dean (Neal Cassidy) is one of the literature’s worst characters, and yet he reappears in Howl. We also hear once again about Denver, cold-water flats, jazz, and Mexico.

The positive: This book is short.

The Green Light at the End of the Dock (How much I spent):
Softcover Text – $7.66 on eBay
Audio Recording – Free on YouTube

Connect With Me!
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[Flo · Rating 2 out of 5]

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.

[Flo · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of poetry has the power to liberate your gay soul.

[Brent Legault · Rating 1 out of 5]

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?

[Steven Godin · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[TAP · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ginsberg takes you there.

[Thomas · Rating 2 out of 5]

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.

[Theo Logos · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[[Name Redacted] · Rating 1 out of 5]

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.

[Rakhi Dalal · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had goosebumps while reading Howl. It's like nothing I have ever read!

[Tom Quinn · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Duane Parker · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Scarlet Cameo · Rating 4 out of 5]

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: aquí 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.

[Erin · Rating 2 out of 5]

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

[Carolyn Marie · Rating 4 out of 5]

*Review and final rating to come*
First book in a 24 hour RoryGilmoreReadathon!

[Roy Lotz · Rating 3 out of 5]

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.

[Rania Attafi · Rating 5 out of 5]

mind blowing! i can't wait to read more of his poetry

[anna · Rating 1 out of 5]

i would say "suck my dick" but even that's too much respect for a boring pedophile

[Scott · Rating 2 out of 5]

"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.

[Fede · Rating 3 out of 5]

Uneven collection. "Howl" is good, while the rest is crap.

[پیمان عَلُو · Rating 5 out of 5]

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

[Praveen · Rating 4 out of 5]

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!

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!

[André · Rating 4 out of 5]

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

[Alan]

I 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

[Glire · Rating 3 out of 5]

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.

“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.”

Leído para el reto 12 months-12 classic: Julio.

[Brodolomi · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ae, mrš.

[Robert Hobkirk · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ginsberg spent years, hunched over his typewriter, working at poetry, sending out poems with little validation for his talent from the gatekeepers of poetry, poetry magazines and literary journals. Then around 1956 City Lights published this little, very little book Howl. A year later Ginsberg got lucky when a plain-clothes SF cop came into the City Lights book Store and bought a copy of Howl, arresting the store manager and subsequently the publisher for dealing in obscene material. Bingo! With that Ginsberg was pushed into the limelight when the trial made the news. The copy I had said that almost a million copies were in print. I'm sure most readers were looking for what was so obscene - disappointed no doubt.

I've listened to it many times on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkNp5...

Howl, the first poem, has a wonderful rhythm and cadence to it. In the book Ginsberg said he got the title from Kerouac and some of the phrases.
I don't understand all of it, for instance, what does "negro streets" mean, if anything? But I don't have to understand everything to enjoy poetry. After all, it's poetry not an essay. Different parts of the poem were written at different times, like the footnotes and part 2, which didn't seem like they fit with part one.

There's a few other wonderful poems in the book. Like I said, it's a small book.