As we leave Kerouac and Mexico City Blues behind, we'll be staying in the poetic mode, beginning two weeks of intense focus on the work of Allen Ginsberg. Over the course of our four classes, we'll investigate the high points of his poetic output from the 1950s through to his death in 1997, with our first three classes tackling the three major epic works of his early career — "Howl (for Carl Solomon)," "Kaddish" and "Wichita Vortex Sutra" — while the fourth will look at the poems surrounding the death of his father, Louis, in the 1970s, and make a quick survey of Ginsberg's poetic responses to live in the 1980s and 90s.
First up is "Howl," a poem many would argue is the most influential and groundbreaking poetic work of the 20th century, not only for its aesthetic innovations, but for its revolutionary effects upon the social and cultural discourse — both in the U.S. and worldwide — from the 50s into the 60s and well beyond. The stylistic breakthrough that "Howl" would mark for Ginsberg was a long time in the making. You'll notice, for example, that we'll more or less skip the first 120 pages of Collected Poems, and that's because — much like the massive differences between Kerouac's first novel, The Town and the City and On the Road — Ginsberg wrote a lot of poetry in the more traditional modernist mode of his father before he felt empowered to break free and write in his own expressionistic way. Aside from NYC Beat compatriots like Kerouac and Burroughs, another key figure in his artistic development was San Francisco poet Kenneth Rexroth, who critiqued Ginsberg's early poetry as being too formal: "It still sounds like you're wearing Columbia University Brooks Brothers ties," he observed. Yet another unsung hero of American literary history is Ginsberg's psychiatrist, Philip Hicks. Here's Ginsberg's retelling of a liberating exchange between the two after Hicks asked him what he wanted to do with his life:
Ginsberg debuted "Howl" at the famous Six Gallery Reading in San Francisco on October 7, 1955 — an event Ginsberg co-organized with Gary Snyder, and which featured Rexroth as Master of Ceremonies and readings from Philip Whalen, Philip Lamantia and Michael McClure. In attendance, among many others, were Kerouac, Neal Cassady, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, poet and cofounder of City Lights Bookstore, along with its publishing imprint. Ferlinghetti had already published a few books (including his own Pictures of the Gone World) in the "Pocket Poets" series (small pocket-sized books based on volumes he saw while studying at the Sorbonne in Paris on the G.I. Bill), and he was very excited at the thought of putting out Ginsberg's work — so much so that the morning after the reading he sent him a postcard mirroring Ralph Waldo Emerson's words to Walt Whitman a century earlier: "I greet you at the beginning of a great career," and adding "When do I get the manuscript?"
Published in 1956, Howl and Other Poems was seized by officials and subject to an obscenity trial. Ferlinghetti gives his own account of the trial in his essay, "Horn on Howl" [PDF], which I wholeheartedly recommend you read. For more background on the book, I also recommend reading William Carlos Williams' introduction to the volume, which can be found on page 819 of Collected Poems.
The final piece of the puzzle missing so far is Carl Solomon, the person to whom "Howl" is dedicated. Ginsberg met Solomon in Pilgrim State Psychiatric Hospital, a mental institution he agreed to be admitted to in lieu of serving time when he was arrested for allowing thief friends to store stolen goods at his apartment. Ginsberg's time in Rockland was a harrowing experience for a number of reasons, including his fears that he shared his mother's mental illness (something we'll discuss in greater depth when reading "Kaddish") and his witness to the defeated Solomon, once a fervent youthful Dadaist who'd surrendered to institutionalization, tired of asserting that it was the world instead that was insane. This distinction forms a central conceit of "Howl," as you'll see.
Here's our reading list for Tuesday's class (page numbers refer to Collected Poems), and don't forget that there'll be a quiz. When possible, I've provided links to streaming audio via PennSound:
Early Poems:
"Howl"-era Poems:
William Carlos Williams, “Introduction to Howl” (819)
And here are a few supplemental links on "Howl" for your reading (and listening) pleasure:
Finally, let's not forget last year's film, Howl, starring James Franco as Allen Ginsberg. We'll gather for our last film screening of the year to watch the movie, but for now, here's the trailer:
"Doctor, I don't think you're going to find this very healthy and clear, but I really would like to stop working forever — never work again, never do anything like the kind of work I'm doing now — and do nothing but write poetry and have leisure to spend the day outdoors and go to museums and see friends. And I'd like to keep living with someone — maybe even a man — and explore relationships that way. And cultivate my perceptions, cultivate the visionary thing in me. Just a literary and quiet city-hermit existence. Then he said 'Well, why don't you?' I asked him what the American Psychoanalytic Association would say about that, and he said . . . if that is what you really feel would please you, what in the world is stopping you from doing it?"
Published in 1956, Howl and Other Poems was seized by officials and subject to an obscenity trial. Ferlinghetti gives his own account of the trial in his essay, "Horn on Howl" [PDF], which I wholeheartedly recommend you read. For more background on the book, I also recommend reading William Carlos Williams' introduction to the volume, which can be found on page 819 of Collected Poems.The final piece of the puzzle missing so far is Carl Solomon, the person to whom "Howl" is dedicated. Ginsberg met Solomon in Pilgrim State Psychiatric Hospital, a mental institution he agreed to be admitted to in lieu of serving time when he was arrested for allowing thief friends to store stolen goods at his apartment. Ginsberg's time in Rockland was a harrowing experience for a number of reasons, including his fears that he shared his mother's mental illness (something we'll discuss in greater depth when reading "Kaddish") and his witness to the defeated Solomon, once a fervent youthful Dadaist who'd surrendered to institutionalization, tired of asserting that it was the world instead that was insane. This distinction forms a central conceit of "Howl," as you'll see.
Here's our reading list for Tuesday's class (page numbers refer to Collected Poems), and don't forget that there'll be a quiz. When possible, I've provided links to streaming audio via PennSound:
Early Poems:
- In Society (11)
- The Bricklayer's Lunch Hour (12): MP3
- Complaint of the Skeleton to Time (25)
- Pull My Daisy (32)
- Bop Lyrics (50)
"Howl"-era Poems:
- Malest Cornifici Tuo Catullo (131)
- Howl (134): (1956 in San Francisco: Intro: MP3 / Poem: MP3) (1995 in NYC: Poem: MP3 / Epilogue: MP3)
- Footnote to "Howl" (142)
- A Strange New Cottage in Berkeley (143): MP3
- A Supermarket in California (144): MP3
- Sunflower Sutra (146): MP3
- Transcription of Organ Music (148): MP3
- Sather Gate Illumination (150)
- America (154): MP3
- Tears (159): MP3
- In the Baggage Room at Greyhound (161): MP3
- Ready to Roll (167)
- Epigraph and Dedication to "Howl" (809, 810)
William Carlos Williams, “Introduction to Howl” (819)
And here are a few supplemental links on "Howl" for your reading (and listening) pleasure:
- NPR: "Revisiting 'Howl' at 50" [link]
- NPR: "After 50 Years, 'Howl' Still Resonates" [link]
- Stephen Burt on "The Paradox of Howl" in Slate [link]
- "Allen Ginsberg's 'Howl' in a New Controvery," The New York Times, 1988 [link]
- "Classic Beat," Greil Marcus reflects on the poem in The New York Times, 2006 [link]
Finally, let's not forget last year's film, Howl, starring James Franco as Allen Ginsberg. We'll gather for our last film screening of the year to watch the movie, but for now, here's the trailer:
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