The poem "Howl" itself, "A Supermarket in California" and "America" more than make up for "Sunflower Sutra" -- the idea of sitting next to Jack Kerouac contemplating trains and whatnot hasn't, I don't think, aged that well -- as well as the four pieces labeled "Earlier Poems," none of which did much for me. When Ginsberg was good, though, he was really good.

Ginsberg takes you there.

"we're not our skin of grime, we're not our dread bleak dusty imageless locomotive, we're all beautiful golden sunflowers inside"

this was a banger honestly

had to read mainly howl for uni but i figured i might as well read the whole thing and i liked it a lot :)

Footnote to Ginsberg’s Footnote to Howl

Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!

The bodies are holy! The universe is holy! The sun is holy! The moon is holy! The stars holy!

You are holy! I am holy! They are holy! We are holy! Everything is holy!

Holy the paved asphalt! Holy the automobiles running on them! Holy the puddles! Holy the buildings! Holy the flies! Holy the worms! Holy the flesh! Holy the fish! Holy the love! Holy the friendships! Holy the relationships!

Holy the cigarettes! Holy the booze! Holy the sex! Holy the books and the pen bleeding through a porous paper! Holy the Kindle! Holy the eBooks! Holy Goodreads! Holy friends! Holy trolls! Holy the publishers! Holy the readers! Holy the reviewers!

Holy the musicians! Holy the writers! Holy the artists! Holy Ginsberg and his circle! Holy Janis Joplin! Holy Led Zeppelin! Holy Lamb of God! Holy our families!

Holy philosophy! Holy phi beta kappa! Holy love-of-learning-is-the-guide-of-life!

Holy Tibet Holy America Holy Peru Holy Liechtenstein Holy Australia Holy Tanzania Holy the people living there! Holy the people living everywhere!

Not Berkeley, 2022

Howl is the poem that shook the world and became part of legal and literary history.

There is also an irreverent glimpse of Walt Whitman eyeing the grocery boys in a Supermarket in California, and America stop pushing I know what I’m doing.

Ginsberg steps up to put his queer shoulder to the wheel. Angelheaded hipsters, saintly motorcyclists, and human seraphim, who journeyed who demanded who barreled.

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.

"The weight of the world
is love.
Under the burden
of solitude,
under the burden
of dissatisfaction

the weight,
the weight we carry
is love.

Who can deny?
In dreams
it touches
the body,
in thought
constructs
a miracle,
in imagination
anguishes
till born
in human —

looks out of the heart
burning with purity —
for the burden of life
is love,

but we carry the weight
wearily,
and so must rest
in the arms of love
at last,
must rest in the arms
of love.

No rest
without love,
no sleep
without dreams
of love —
be mad or chill
obsessed with angels
or machines,
the final wish
is love
— cannot be bitter,
cannot deny,
cannot withhold
if denied:

the weight is too heavy

— must give
for no return
as thought
is given
in solitude
in all the excellence
of its excess.

The warm bodies
shine together
in the darkness,
the hand moves
to the center of the flesh,
the skin trembles
in happiness
and the soul comes
joyful to the eye —

yes, yes,
that's what
I wanted,
I always wanted,
I always wanted,
to return
to the body
where I was born."

"Song by Allen Ginsberg
San Jose, 1954

***

O "Uivo" ("Howl") é um poema que congrega vários elementos que me prendem a atenção: tem um dinamismo e ritmo próprio, consigo imaginar alguém a caminhar pela rua, com passadas largas e apressadas, a declamá-lo e a espalhá-lo pelo espaço público; por outro lado reflecte todo um contexto e movimento social e cultural (com mais ou menos efabulações à mistura - com um pé no real e outro no imaginado), quase como se se pudesse tornar um manifesto de uma geração... Embora o poema "Howl" me tenha cativado pelo seu ritmo (li a versão original e a versão traduzida por Margarida Vale de Gato), houve um outro poema que me atirou ao chão... e digo-o sem réstia de orgulho ou de pudor. Atingiu-me de tal forma que tive de o ler algumas vezes (e umas atrás das outras), de o sentir de uma forma diferente de todas as vezes que o lia. Esse poema chama-se "Song" e é um daqueles poemas que prontamente coloco num pedestal: um daqueles poemas que sei que vou reler incansavelmente; um daqueles poemas que se fundirá com a minha pele e com o meu odor...

2018:
All i could say is that i absolutely wrecked my copy of HOWL and practically underlined everything in there; AMERICA was my favorite
2019:
Moloch!
2020:
indecisive..
2022:
the footnote to HOWL always leaves me with piel de gallina

subversão em estado puro. a génese da contracultura dadaísta, desiludida e alucinada.

raw, honest, sincere and unfiltered like an open, fresh wound, with thick liquid of crimson shade oozing out of it. You feel the discomfort seeping into your bones, by only looking at it, but. you. just. can't. rip. your. gaze. away. Because even with all the pain,it's somehow captivating.
This is how I would describe this collection, Howl in particular.

Howl is a free verse poem, quite slippery in the rhythmic pattern, dedicated to and inspired by Carl Solomon, a patient Ginsberg met in a psychiatric institution.

It talks about drug abuse, sucide, poverty, materialism, capitalism, spirituality, loneliness & homosexual themes in a very untraditional and vulgar language, which instead of making it sound obscene, only gives it more volume and truthfulness.
And about how the repression of art in society descends the creative minds, and those who do not conform to societal values into madness.

Though Part I of Howl is all about personal reference, but I don't think that you need to understand all of them in order to feel the emotions the writer is trying to get across through words.

I read HOWL once every year, and for some reason this years reading felt more powerful than it has in ages. I sat in my old bed at my parents house with just a small lamp reading the words under my breath and I saw the "Great minds of my generation" in a way I hadn't before. This poem sings a song in the depth of a man's heart (and sometimes his cock and balls) to a another man, another country, another reality I will never know. But the mark of a great poem is its ability to traanscend the limitations of time and feel as real as when it was written.

HOWL is the story of a generation driven mad trying to find something, maybe greatness, across the expanse of culture and country and identity and finding it just outside of a wooden cabin and the edge of it all.

HOWL is a bardic YAWP across the jelly brains of fools.

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.