Rough Draft 2 - Allen Ginsberg and Howl

Chelsa Lauderdale
Intro to Writing and Literature
11/2/10
Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl”: A Cultural Phenomena
“I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness...” This is the opening line to Allen Ginsberg’s iconic poem “Howl”, a poem that stirred a generation into a frenzy and is still recognized and revered today. There are few people today who do not know of or recognize Allen Ginsberg, and even fewer have not read or heard of his poem “Howl”. This is proof that there is something about it that is will live on forever. Allen Ginsberg and all of the members of the Beat generation are iconic, not because of who they are specifically but because of the things that they represent, now and when they first came about. The style and flow of their poetry and prose is something that was previously unheard of and even today can scarcely be imitated and there will never be another movement of literature like the Beats. Though Ginsberg has published many other recognizable works, such as Empty Mirror: Early Works and Kaddish and Other Poems, none are as widely-known as “Howl” (The Works of Allen Ginsberg). “Howl” with its continuously flowing language and the extreme power in its words, created such a calamity in Ginsberg’s time that was even on trial, where its literary merit was under scrutiny. However, the poem “Howl” is one of the most sound literary works of this century. The elements that made “Howl” such a strong poem were how relatable it was to the entire nation at the time and how inspiring it was to them. Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl” is still relevant in today’s society because many of the themes that made it phenomenal in its time continue to persist today.
Irwin Allen Ginsberg was born on June 3rd, 1926 at Beth Israel Hospital (Miles 16). From early in his childhood his life was filled with various hardships. During his youth he moved many times to different poverty-riddled neighborhoods throughout the East coast (Miles 18). Ginsberg’s mother, Naomi, suffered from continuous illness and nervous mental breakdowns throughout his childhood, while Ginsberg’s father, Louis, struggled to make ends meet while taking out loans to help pay for his wife’s stay in the sanitarium while he tried to provide for his two sons at home, miles away from his wife (Miles 18). Growing up in America’s depression was as difficult for Ginsberg as any other child at the time. Ginsberg’s upbringing strayed some from the what one would expect of a typical childhood in the 1930’s and 40’s. Ginsberg was born into a Jewish family, his father was a Socialist, and his mother was a communist, both different from the American governmental system (Miles 13). Louis, Ginsberg’s father, was also a published poet. He wrote “Roots”, “which was to be the major poem on which his reputation as a poet rested” (Miles 15). (write more about Ginsberg here...)
“Howl” was first published by San Francisco publishing house “City Lights Bookstore” in October 1956 (“Howl Criticism”). The first reading of “Howl” was on October 15th, 1955 at The Six Gallery in San Francisco, where iconic beat poets such as Michael McClure, Gary Snyder, and Philip Whalen were all in attendance (“Howl Criticism”). After the reading one of Ginsberg’s friends Rexroth was quoted as saying, “this poem will make you famous shore to shore” (Miles 196). They were absolutely right.
Ginsberg's “Howl” became one of the most widely read poems of the second half of the twentieth century. In part this was due to Ginsberg's role as a 1950s champion of causes later embraced by the 1960s counterculture: freedom from sexual repression and traditional behavior; freedom to engage in recreational drug use; rejection of authority and censorship; rejection of the military-industrial complex. The poem assumed the status of gospel to those who found in it a voice that expressed their youthful angst and disillusionment. (“Howl Criticism”)
The poem itself is a somehow synonymous cacophony of ideas, written in the fluency of someone trying to get all of their ideas out at once. Allen Ginsberg is quoted saying, “I began typing, not with the idea of writing a formal poem, but stating my imaginative sympathies, whatever they were worth. As my loves were impractical and my thoughts relatively unworldly, those sympathies most intimate to myself and most awkward in the great world of family, formal education, business and current literature” (Miles 188). This evident becomes clear on reading the poem. It is obvious that the poem was unplanned as much as the words on the pages were, and there seems to be no method to the madness in part I of “Howl”. The parts of “Howl” (I, II, and III) were written as sporadically as the poetry itself, part I and III being written in part on the same day, but everything managed to pull together at the end (Miles 190).










Works Cited
"Allen Ginsberg Howl Criticism." ENotes - Literature Study Guides, Lesson Plans, and More. Web. 09 Dec. 2010. .

Miles, Barry. Ginsberg: a Biography. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989. Print.

"The Works of Allen Ginsberg." AMERICAN MUSEUM OF BEAT ART. Web. 09 Dec. 2010. .


This is as much as I've got done so far, it's only 4 pages, but I plan to write more about Ginsberg and the poem, as well as continuing on to the fourth paragraph and talking about the trial on the poem. In the fifth paragraph I will talk about how and why it's still relevant and include comments from critics. Then finish with a conclusion. I'd like to email you sometime this weekend with another draft if I could, one that will be closer to finished...