Blog this item

Howl and Other Poems

(City Lights Pocket Poets Series)

By Allen Ginsberg

(81)

| Hardcover | 9780872863101

Like Howl and Other Poems?
Join aNobii to see if your friends read it, and discover similar books!

Book Description

The prophetic poem that launched a generation when it was first published in 1965 is here presented in a commemorative fortieth Anniversary Edition.

When the book arrived from its British printers, it was seized almost immediately by U.S. Customs, and shortly thereafter the San Francisco Continue

5 Reviews

5 people find this helpful

Where are we going, Walt Whitman?

Ginsberg reading his poems (courtesy of the gorgeous UbuWeb):
http://www.ubu.com/sound/ginsberg.html
scroll down to October 25, 1956 and May 4, 1995.
I read the poem in preparation for the movie, I confess.
Obviously I had already come across selections (everybody has) but never actually read i ... (continue)

Ginsberg reading his poems (courtesy of the gorgeous UbuWeb):
http://www.ubu.com/sound/ginsberg.html
scroll down to October 25, 1956 and May 4, 1995.
I read the poem in preparation for the movie, I confess.
Obviously I had already come across selections (everybody has) but never actually read it top to bottom (many haven't).
Allen Ginsberg was Walt Whitman reincarnated, nobody will question the cliché I guess. The high-pitched declamative tone, at once oral and heightened, the stretched verses, the accumulations, "I am America". And the beard.
Crucially influenced by Kerouac, W.C. Williams, and jazz, Ginsberg eventually found his own voice, true, personal, outrageous, shining.
He made various references to specific events in his and his fellow beats' lives, that may be obscure if wikipedia didn't come to the rescue. Histories about inspiration for single lines are in fact very entertaining, if one is inclined to check 'em out.
"who went out whoring through Colorado in myriad stolen night-cars, N.C., secret hero of these poems, cocksman and Adonis of Denver--joy to the memory of his innumerable lays of girls in empty lots & diner backyards, moviehouses' rickety rows, on mountaintops in caves or with gaunt waitresses in familiar roadside lonely petticoat upliftings & especially secret station solipsisms of johns, & hometown alleys too..."
The book & its publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti (but not the author) underwent an obscenity trial in 1957: which if nothing else proves that Howl was a watershed, era-defining work.
And of course I would recommend reading the poem before watching the movie. http://howlthemovie.com/

Is this helpful?

míol mór said on Sep 21, 2010 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

1 person find this helpful

crazy. i've read it probably 100 times. ginsberg is probably more relevant now than most contemporary writers

Is this helpful?

amelle said on May 31, 2008 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

1 person find this helpful

before robes and sitars there was this guy who used to write straight from his stomach.
prima delle tonache e dei sitar c'era qualcuno che scriveva dritto dritto dallo stomaco.

Is this helpful?

ganzialina said on Jun 24, 2007 | Add your feedback

this book has been published in Heaven.

Is this helpful?

mario_espo said on Jan 25, 2012 | Add your feedback

Got this from Adi -- Read bits of it when I was at MV. The lyrics and rhythm of that work was quite striking.

Is this helpful?

Search Serg said on May 2, 2008 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback