Alora Young

Allen Ginsberg: Poetry vs. Poetic Statement

In ‘Notes for Howl and Other Poems’, Ginsberg summarises his style of poetry in terms of “breath”, “Hebraic-Melvillan bardic breath.” Ginsberg’s poetry was intended to be physical, spoken, a communal experience as was the rest of the Beat movement. He says, “Ideally each line of Howl is a single breath unit… one physical-mental inspiration of thought contained in the elastic of a breath”, and in reading part I of Howl, we can certainly see that this is true. Each “who” is not only “depended on” “to keep the beat”, but to start a new thought, to “return to and take off from again” the poem’s opening about “the best minds of [his] generation”.

He writes that his intention was not to “write a poem”, but to “just write what [he] wanted to without fear”, to “sum up [his] life”. Howl and the rest of his poetry is full of references, abstract of otherwise, to Ginsberg’s life, to his friends and fellow artists, to Whitman, to his opinions and frustrations. It is easy to see from this that, yes, Ginsberg “scribble[d] magic lines from [his] real mind”, and then left them that way. He writes, “Let it be raw, there is beauty”, and the two elements he discusses in ‘Notes on Howl and Other Poems’ – “breath” and the idea of his poetry being deeply personal and uncensored, allowing whatever comes out to land where it may on the page – are certainly defined by this statement. “I’m not in control”, he writes, and we can tell that this is true: he writes what he feels he needs to.

Even if I don't have any experiential knowledge of Ginsberg's experiences, and even if I don't share some of his beliefs, there's something in the rawness of his work that I find appealing. It also helps, I assume, that a little research into his life and historical context can illuminate the deeper meaning of many of his metaphors, making his poetry much more easily accessible than a lot of the poetry I've read - most of which I've struggled with. I didn't, however, struggle with Ginsberg. In fact, I like his work a lot. Both his poems and poetic statement are honest and straight forward, but written with a genius in language that most other writer’s in this world can only hope to achieve.