DailyKos - Books that changed my life: "Howl" by Allen Ginsberg
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/02/03/1061022/-Books-That-Changed-My-Life:-Howl-by-Allen-Ginsberg?via=spotlight
OK, I know that if we’re getting literal about the title of this diary series, “Howl” isn’t a book; however, it is THE poem featured in the collection Howl & Other Poems published in 1956 by City Lights Bookstore. It is still City Light’s best seller, and the issues & imagery Mr. Ginsberg was brave enough to discuss opened this country & the world to concepts like “hippies,” the introduction of eastern philosophy (including Buddhism) into American culture, ecological consciousness, the civil rights movement, the women’s movement, the “gay pride” movement, etc. 55 years after the trial that declared “Howl” not obscene, the struggle for academic & artistic expression goes on, and its themes are still relevant.
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When our class was finished with the first day’s lecture, I asked my professor, “Has this Ginsberg guy written anything else?!” After that day, a world of brilliant, intelligent, tortured artists & muses was introduced to me who had the courage of their artistic & personal convictions in an early to mid – 1950s America where it was dangerous to be different. One wrong or suspicious comment from someone who didn’t like you could get you fired or jailed or killed. Had the famous 1957 obscenity trial in San Francisco ended differently, Lawrence Ferlinghetti would’ve gone to jail. Howl on Trial: the Battle for Free Expression is a WONDERFUL account of what lead up to the trial & what resulted from the verdict.
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If Allen Ginsberg was alive today, he probably wouldn’t have the physical stamina to camp in Zuccotti Park, but he sure as $hit would’ve supported Occupy protestors by lending his time & energy to the cause, writing a poem or 2 specifically for the occasion, or expanding on the imagery & feelings he’d already written in “Howl.”
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Remember, he wrote these lines in the aftermath of WWII when the atrocities of the concentration camps & what the atomic bombs really did to Japan came to light; however, the sentiment & passion & desperation behind these lines still resonate in a society where a major party’s probable Presidential candidate and the party itself think corporations are people, poor people should pay a higher tax rate than rich people, home mortgages are casino chips on Wall Street, and uninsured Americans should be left to die.