Why So Many Who 's
In Allen Ginsberg three Part Howl poem, he uses 58 “who 's” to refer to the experiences that he
and his “best minds” pals encounter during a time after World War II. The “who” relates to Ginsberg
friends as they accompany him through a variety of activities that involve drugs, sex, and drinking, all
of which help him cope with his unhappiness. Howl is an example of an artistic outlet that Ginsberg
uses to share his frustration within the society he lives in. Many may not understand the meaning
behind his complex and lengthy rant, but Ginsberg employs religious images, spiritual references, and
descriptive language to express his journey in life and love. It is the journey itself that transpires from
the
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He had no intention
of following the rules as society had set forth. It was the institution of everything that bothered him
most. Matters of higher education, artistic expression, psychiatric treatment, and government policies
were some of the issues that got way under his skin. Using drugs and partying all night with friends
and strangers in unfamiliar places is what passed most of the time in Ginsberg 's journey. “Peyote
solidities of halls, backyard green tree cemetery dawns, wine drunkenness over the rooftops,” is
reference to a moment experienced by Ginsberg and his friends. Peyote is a plant that Native
Americans used for medicinal purposes that can also have a hallucinogenic affect on those that ingest
it. The idea behind the use of peyote for Ginsberg and his pals was to alter their state of mind by taking
them to a spiritual realm which was better than their actual reality. Along with peyote use, there was
apparent wine drunkenness as well, and on rooftops nonetheless which implies that no one was trying
to be safe. Every event can be described as “anything goes.” Death was not the intention, but I am
sure there were many times where it may have been possible. (Ginsberg 13)
No one in life ever wants to face things alone. On this Howl of a journey that Ginsberg is on,
he engages a community of great friends who share the same beliefs as he does and is willing to do the
Ginsberg describes Beatniks who ate, wept, coughed, plunged, cut, balled, hiccupped, howled, broke, burned, cowered, and sank, yacketyyakking, screaming, vomiting, whispering. These endless verbs range from ecstatic to violent and give the poem an almost frantic tone that reflects the lives of the oppressed. Ginsberg even titles his poem “howl,” a cry of emotion and sorrow. To howl is to wail in self-pity, to be helpless and alone. Hearing a howl is both frightening and piercingly sad. A howl is a perfect representation of the collective cry of the Beats; a people trapped like helpless animals with nothing to do but howl in despair.
The life and times of Allen Ginsberg is given a breath of fresh air with Director John Krokia exploring the relationship between Ginsberg and his asphyxiating, enigmatic classmate, Lucian Carr. A relationship formerly unexplored in the two previous beat generation films that fell flat including Howl (2010) and On the
It was a 1951 TIME cover story, which dubbed the Beats a ‘Silent Generation, ’ that led to Allen Ginsberg’s retort in his poem ‘America,’ in which he vocalises a frustration at this loss of self- importance. The fifties Beat Generation, notably through Jack Kerouac’s On the Road and Allen Ginsberg’s Howl as will here be discussed, fought to revitalise individuality and revolutionise their censored society which seemed to produce everything for the masses at the expense of the individual’s creative and intellectual potential. Indeed, as John Clellon Holmes once noted: “TIME magazine called them the Silent Generation, but this may have been because TIME was not
Many of the Beat writers wrote in a style known as spontaneous prose. Allen Ginsberg often writes in this style. He does so in the poem “Howl” in which he rants and raves about society via his friends – Jack Kerouac, Willaim S. Burroughs, Lawrence Ferlingetti, and Neil Cassidy to name a few, live. He discusses their poverty, civil disobedience, the ways that they fight society, and his personal fight against industrialization; he uses many images in order to allow the reader to understand his lifestyle, the lifestyle of his friends and points of view, specifically their rejection of society.
The poem begins with Ginsberg stating that he “saw the best minds of his generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the Negro street at dawn looking for an angry fix, angel headed hipster burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night” (Ginsberg Line 1.) These “best minds” have been ostracized by society for their opposition to conform to
Similar to Marx, Ginsberg is against the idea of a small fraction of the people having significant control and power. Even though the poem is harsh on America, the goal of the author is not to shun or shame the country but try to better it. He is an extremely critical patriot trying to correct America’s flaws.
With reference to Ginsberg's emulation of Walt Whitman's content, the Norton Anthology, Postmodern American Poetry, states that, "Ginsberg proposed a return to the immediacy, egalitarianism and visionary ambitions of Blake and Whitman." (130). His poem "America" caters toward themes of democracy, something Whitman's poetry also does. Yet unlike Whitman, Ginsberg takes a more questioning stance on America and does not use his poem to praise the nation.
The form of Ginsberg’s poem challenges the American culture by resistance from “best minds”. Howl is separated to three sections that include long lines, which look like paragraphs. Resisting
Century apart, Allen Ginsberg and Walt Whitman share similar cultural, political and moral values, which they express in their literary work. Whitman’s writing is considered controversial for the eighteen hundreds. He sets the stage for generations to come breaking way from the strict Victorian poetic tradition by writing in free verse. Ginsberg follows his footsteps when composing his poem “Howl” by writing in long lines almost resembling prose and subdividing the poem into several parts. Likewise, he uses numerous repetitions to achieve rhythmicity of his verse. Ginsberg’s poem is heavily influenced by Whitman’s philosophy. The works “Song of myself” and “Howl” are similar in ideas, structure and underling themes. The two authors protest against old traditions imposed on the individual by corrupt society, stand against conformity and put emphasis on the need for change. They identify with their generation and dwell on themes such as sexuality, religion and the state of American society.
Ginsberg’s work often represents a struggle for spiritual survival in a dehumanized, repressive society. This can be seen in his writing of “Howl”:
Therefore, in the very beginning, Ginsberg presents to the reader the subject and tone of the poem in the context of this question. Ginsberg’s questions make the audience realize the seriousness of the issues that this poem discusess, such as America, politics, war, humanity, and ethics.
Poet Allen Ginsberg composed "Howl" in 1955 and it was published by City Lights Books of San Francisco, CA the following year. He composed the poem in the middle of the 1950s, one of the greatest decades in history for mainstream America. It had been a decade since the American and Allied victory in the second world war. Numerous American men returned home to a country in much better shape than expected, with many women having entered the workforce to keep the economy and industry alive in their absence. The spoils of war were great and America saw a great era of prosperity and domestic, suburban bliss. More interstate highways were constructed. Many more cars were produced and bought. It was a classic era for mainstream American culture in the 1950s. Yet in the haze of the suburbs, expansion of television, growth of Hollywood, and cars, present here were the seeds of rebellion and counterculture that was more indicative of the following decade, 1960s. One such seed is the poem
Whitman and Ginsberg share the same points of view that can be seen through not only the words in their poetry, but through how they share similar poetic techniques. In part 1 of “Howl”, Ginsberg repeats the word “who” to begin many of the lines. This gives readers the impression that every strophe in “Howl” is separated with the word “who”. In “Song of Myself”, Whitman often used such devices of repeated identification, here he writes, “It cannot fall the young man who died and was buried, Nor the young woman who died and
Allen Ginsberg was one of the founding fathers of what is considered the Beat Generation and the Beat Movement. Throughout his entire life he wrote multiple poems which voiced his certain opinions and thoughts about what America had been going through at the time. American poet, writer, and philosopher, Allen Ginsberg uses his life experiences and ideas on resistance, freedom, and the Beat Movement to express specific ideas within his poems.
The sheer audacity of a statement like this in 1955 has no comparison in present-day American society. In effect, Ginsberg was announcing himself as a criminal, a felon, and a traitor. Yet he antagonizes the situation further by saying, "You should have seen me reading Marx. / My psychoanalyst thinks I'm perfectly right." (P-M 369) Ginsberg's cynical nature shines here as he is pronounced sane by a doctor, who is probably certified by a federal department of medicine, when Senator McCarthy would have you believe that Communists are dangerous and/or mentally instable. It is also important to mention the reference made to marijuana in this passage. Ginsberg was an avid marijuana user and was at the forefront of the psychedelic revolution in the late 1960's, but it is apparent that he used the hallucinogen regularly almost a decade earlier.