Comments on: Ginsberg & “Howl”

By: sara

sara — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 02:12:45 +0000

I think Howl was great- not only was its structure innovative but its content even more significant. Since the poem goes on about misunderstood people including poets, artists, radicals, and drug addicts, with carefully detailed descriptions, it seems clear that each was inspired by someone Ginsberg knew.
Also, I found the line, “who cut their wrists three times successively, unsuccessfully, gave up and were forced to open antique stores” interesting because it shows that these well-off people were now so desperate they contemplated suicide. This and various other vivid examples not only clearly convey the message that Ginsberg was getting across, but force the reader to pity them.
I also found it strange that these the “best minds” of the generation would leave their world of security and most likely prosperity, and almost chose to live like this. We are reminded of these people at the beginning of nearly every stanza, with the word “who,” which establishes both the rhythm and form of this poem. Also, the use of one large sentence forces the reader to focus continuously on the numerous examples—leaving no doubt that Ginsberg was an ingenious poet.

By: amy

amy — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 20:49:01 +0000

One of the other poems that caught my attention was “America.” Although he still uses vulgarity and obscenity, it is barely noticeable compared to “Howl.” Ginsberg describes the world and events as they are happening. He is clearly upset with the way America is handling her domestic and foreign affairs. Ginsberg’s anger is clear. He writes “It occurs to me that I am America. I am talking to myself again.” It is as if there is no way out of the mess of America because America (government and officials) do not listen; it is like talking to yourself (or to a wall for that matter).
The vulgarity of “Howl” is much stronger. I think the offensiveness of the language makes the poem that much more repulsive. Had Ginsberg been euphemistic and used words of a less tone-harsh nature the poem would still have been found disgusting but not on as great a level. The obscenities found in “Howl” really make the poem what it is: foul. Ginsberg used foul language to write about the foulness of people’s behavior. The vulgarity is also a tool. Readers would not just put down the poem, but they would discuss it and say they were offended by it. The poem is not mundane at all and therefore sticks in the minds of people. This is probably the effect Ginsberg was hoping for: to be heard. (In order for him to be heard he had to catch the reader’s attention- vulgarity).

By: adiba

adiba — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 01:52:04 +0000

regarding the vulgarity in howl, rather than just trying to interpret why he chose those words in terms of what kind of message he wants to deliver I think we can look at it from a different perspective; that is, what it tells us about himself and how that affected the generation – because the poem definitely tells us a lot about his character. Ginsberg wrote down what’s on his mind and followed his instincts rather than follow the “norm” and without caring about how offended people will be or how he’ll be criticized for it. In this way, freedom just leaps out of the poem. I think this openness/freedom and the fact that he used such language (not necessarily the content) is what inspired many people to break out of the norm which, I guess, made Ginsberg a hero and a model of the 60′ and the counterculture to many. He brought the meaning of freedom to a whole new level.
so I definitely agree that one cannot simply dismiss a piece as bad art because of its crudeness.

By: emily

emily — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 03:25:37 +0000

I felt Ginsberg depicted Howl was in a very descriptive and visual. It seems to inspire fear and it shows the desperations of the time. It seems to show that it wasn’t all love and peace during that time and Howl seems tell us how it was like then. Despair pops out at you when reading Howl because of all of the horrific descriptions such as “who plunged themselves under meat trucks looking for an egg” and “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.” Some parts of the poem seems to revolve around drugs and it’s not hard to understand because he describes it so well such as “Moloch in whom I am a consciousness without a body!Moloch who frightened me out of my natural ecstasy” and “Visions! omens! hallucinations! miracles! ecstasies!”
In Sunflower Sutra, I especially like the lines, “Leaves stuck out like arms out of the stem, gestures from the sawdust root, broke pieces of plaster fallen out of the black twigs, a dead fly in its ear, Unholy battered old thing you were, my sunflower O my soul, I loved you then!” It suggests that the cause of the ill-appearance of the sunflowers was due to the humans and their locomotives. That the sunflower was an innocent bystander, but splattered with dust and grime from human-made locomotives. It’s like saying that they were better off without the machines and the technology and that all they needed was nature.

By: Alexandra

Alexandra — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 04:43:23 +0000

I found it difficult to take Howl in fully. It was a very long poem and although I understand the general message (stated in the first line, as discussed in class), I can’t recall all the individual things he talks about However, I guess that’s irrelevant because after after reading the poem I was left with a sort of disgusted feeling. I feel like he is trying to say that society is succumbing to the counterculture and that is a bad thing. The fact that he did LSD and participated in the riots serves to illustrate that he too had fallen victim.

I thought it was interesting that Ginsberg chooses to talk about Whitman in a Supermarket in CA. Whitman was a part of the first generation born in America. He was proud of the country. It seems like Ginsberg thinks about how horrible Whitman would think his country has become.

I agree with Christina = I like he last stanza of Sunflower Sutra. It sums up the message of the poem in a very powerful way.

By: Christina

Christina — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 00:40:07 +0000

I believe Ginsberg is one of the most brilliant poets I’ve ever read. His style of free-association and stream-of-consiouness writing is beautiful and gives us the most amazing images. My favorite lines are from the end of Sunflower Sutra,

“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 accomplishment-bodies growing into mad black formal sunflowers in the sunset, spied on by our eyes under the shadow of the mad locomotive riverbank sunset Frisco hilly tincan evening sit-down vision.”

and, of course, that line in Howl, describing those who “walked all night with their shoes full of blood on the snowbank docks waiting for a door in the East River to open to a room full of steamheat and opium.”

I can just imagine a group of sick, pathetic individuals with no means and no hope, shivering in their rags in the freezing cold snow by the dirty water of the East River, perhaps on FDR Drive, waiting as hopelessly as Vladamir and Estragon wait for Godot, motionless and still, waiting for one of them to step forward and perhaps part the river like Moses did the Red Sea, and allow all of them to find a place where (as Conor Oberst put it) “the hopeless sick…are welcome.”

Waiting for a place in society where they could live and be accepted, away from the poverty and tyranny and sickness.

A home.

Nothing more beautifully desperate than that.