Howl and Other Poems

Howl and Other Poems, by Allen Ginsberg, was published in 1956. It contains Ginsberg's arguably most famous poem, "Howl," and marked the beginning of the beat movement. As it openly addressed heavily charged topics of the era, such as the political environment and homosexuality, obscenity charges were brought against the book in its first year of publication. Although the charges were later dropped, the notoriety that the book gained through this experience triggered a wave of success that was then supported by the integrity of the work itself.

In this edition, the book is divided into six poems: "Howl," "America,""A Supermarket in California,"Sunflower Sutra,""Transcription of Organ Music,"and "In the Baggage Room at Greyhound." Because each poem is rather lengthy, they stand more as subdivisions or lengthy chapters in a book as opposed to short ideas linked only through their inclusion in the same work. As all of the poems comment or reflect on contemporary life in some aspect, they serve to work as a cohesive unit of thought. The voice between the poems moves from that of an individual, to that of one representing society in its masses. Some of the poems, clearly spoken in Ginsberg's own voice, reflect fantasies of his lived life-- "A Supermarket in California" depicts an imagined encounter with Walt Whitman in a grocery story, while "Sunflower Sutra" extends an image of a sunflower to represent all of humanity.

Perhaps the most cohesive element of this collection of Ginsberg's poetry is the fact that the line is intended to match with the capacity of one breath. This, at times, results in multiple phrases to each line, alternating short concise ideas with more elaborate expansion. The flow of the language is at times light and conversational, and toes the line between ego and satire in nearly every poem. The images he chooses are heavily juxtaposed, forcing the reader to come to difficult conclusions from simple wording. Each line reads as a sentence would, if every sentence in daily speech were chosen of only the most carefully tailored diction available.

It is clear in both the form and even occasionally the voice that Ginsberg was influenced heavily by Whitman. His boldness in the address of sexuality builds upon the groundwork laid by Whitman in sever of his poems in Leaves of Grass. The introduction of this edition was written by William Carlos Williams, another noted contemporary and influence of Ginsberg's.

I found this collection of Ginsberg's poems to be coherent and unified. As a beginning poet, it helped me to see how very disparate subjects might be drawn together under the roof of one overarching concept-- a portrait of the contemporary world. Ginsberg writes about what he sees and experiences both in his mind and in the lived world. The discrepancies between the subject matters only serve to strengthen the overall concept of the work as a whole.