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Howl: Original Draft Facsimile, Transcript, and Variant Versions, Fully Annotated by Author, with Contemporaneous Correspondence, Account of First ... (Harper Perennial Modern Classics)

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Considering Ginsberg embraced Kerouac's "First thought, best thought," motto, Howl's 50th anniversary edition, which includes many photocopied pages of handwritten and typed revisions, proves Ginsberg did plenty of revisiting and change to those first thoughts. Choosing better, more musical adjectives, adding to and shaping his images to enhance the mental scenery, and the great big cross-outs in pencil, turn this long, occasionally tough read into something wondrous.

Anyone who hasn't read Howl might not get the beauty of this book. Howl, (at first impression, anyway) appears to be a spontaneous effusion of cadence, gibberish, sexual references and glamorized psychosis. It is funny, frank and unashamed, and in those Eisenhower American-era days, what Ginsberg did was a brave and scary thing. He and his publisher, the poet, Lawrence Ferlinghetti (who owned City Lights Books) certainly had their work cut out defending it.

Beyond its great literary status, "Howl" is a political milestone, being initially banned and labeled "obscene" for what by today's standards is laughably mild. This version of Howl is dedicated to Ferlinghetti, who along with the American Civil Liberties Union, championed the poem with First Amendment Protections. As we all know, Howl won its censorship trial to became one of the best and most widely read poems of modern time.

The 50th Anniversary Edition has some interesting 1950s black and white photos of Ginsberg, Kerouac, Neal Cassady and friends; photos of Ginsberg's room, photographed in Summer 1955, where Howl was created; a reader's guide and notes by Ginsberg; and perhaps most interesting, a `reintroduction to Carl Solomon' (for whom Howl was written), and a statement and writings by the real Carl Solomon, who had the uncomfortable burden of becoming an unlikely celebrity for having known Ginsberg during shared time in a mental institution. Of great interest are pages written by Carl Goy, a mental patient who underwent some of the shock treatments Ginsberg and Solomon were subjected to. He's a fascinating, if unreliable, narrator and it is certainly food for thought. Also of interest are the pages of correspondence from poets, peers, family and publishers about the book. In some of these letters, he covers imagery and technique, in others he battles angry feelings and upset. It's a great journey through the artistic, spiritual, mental, emotional and political publishing process, on top of everything else. Finally, there are several pages of `Model Texts: Inspirations Precursor to Howl' where Ginsberg pays homage to those that planted the seeds of this work: Christopher Smart, Shelley, Artaud, a tip of the hat to Bob Dylan, his friend William Carlos Williams, and others.

It's a wonderful book--sort of a `box set' for Ginsberg fans--and it's praise for best thought, whether or not it's the first.

(This is a review for the critique of the book "Howl: Original Draft Facsimile, Transcript, and Variant Versions, Fully Annotated by Author, with Contemporaneous Correspondence, Account of First Public...etc.", not about the book itself.)

This book, at a whopping 208 pages, portrays the author, Allen Ginsberg in a cultural and artistic flux as both poet and as creator who's process is also in flux as well. It is also not for the feint of heart except for those who are true fans of the 4 page typewritten epic poem, Allen's first real foray at attempting what can only now be called true free-form poetry from 1956.

The poem itself is full of life and is a ripped-open from the heart - and even his soul - portrayal of his own life; his view of his life from a mirror. This book breaks it down by the entire process - from the original typewritten version to the crossed-out edited parts, the many revisions, the "final" copies of different versions sent to friends who kept them for over 50 years (and luckily some of them, not all of them, reprinted here for the first time ever), to even letters corresponding back and forth from those same friends about it's then-impact, his subsequent secret agony in having opened up a Supreme Court type firestorm over the readings, and much much more ephemera concerning it.

It's a lot to take in, and it can't be done in one sitting. Almost everyone from that time period chimes in - Neal Cassidy, ex-lovers, Ferlinghetti, the publishers, and writings and thoughts by Ginsberg himself, who contributed unlimited access to his own personal papers among his other "scraps of paper," as he called them. (Sadly, Allen would never see this publication in it's final form as he died right before it was published.)

In a way, this is the final 'version' of the poem, to explain some of the more obscure references that have been argues for years, to make sense of the motivation behind some of the now legendary passages he was thinking about when he typed it up in that dingy one room apartment over 50 years ago.

On a personal level as a poet (I have written several chapbooks of poetry and many pieces of fiction myself), this is overwhelming. You need to be a true scholar of obscure fiction and poetry to understand the real depth and level of commitment he made when he wrote this, knowing he was standing up to over 1,000 years of structured, unassuming, harmless poetry. He was the first daredevil of poetry, daring to howl (forgive the pun) and rage against any kind formality.

This was a new way of writing poetry, a style never really seen, and written with such honesty it surely shows. I read this, ad re-read it, I went over the several dozen revisions, read every bit of notes written and typed and edited and scratched out to friends and lovers and editors, and well, I was mentally exhausted - there is a LOT to take in, but it is worth it.

The book is broken down into several sections, from the many drafts to the annotations, the many appendixes and correspondences to Kerouac, Carl Solomon, Ezra Pound, accounts of the first reading, the legal battles, and finally tons and tons of pictures and facsimiles of the original poem, the edits, an offhandedly snapped picture of the actual room he wrote it in, pictures of friends and lovers and friends, and much much more. It's just too much here to list, but it will be worth it for you to open it up and see for yourself.

If and when you read this, you will come to know the very essence of Allen's spirit, his thinking process, and finally you will not only be just a reader, but you will be drawn in and become part of something that happened once in a lifetime, a groundbreaking piece of writing has finally been given the proper dissection and criticism with the respect it deserves by not only many in his own circles but but Ginsberg himself.

In the past I've written a few special things, but nothing can come close to a poem that was written before my birth, affected First Amendment law, brought together a special kind of writing community and changed forever the way we all approach poetry, and even literature itself.

We have one man to thank, not only for writing it, but for having the kind of support and friendship of so many others whose voices were only heard from the sidelines who supported him enough to back him when the rest of the world did not.

This book is a living statement, of how it was originally thought out, how it was born, and how it even now lives through those who may yet read it and see for themselves that this singular poem, as a document, is as important to us as some who may revere the Liberty Bell, the Constitution and the American flag itself.

To own this is to own a true piece of Americana itself, so do yourself a favor, pick it up, read it, and place it proudly on your shelf.

(Thanks for reading - please check out my other hopefully not-too-syrupy critiques here on Amazon.)

Allen Ginsberg's Howl has long been one of my favorite poems. I like and admire the poem for various reasons; most of these reasons are related either to the particulars of the poem or to its technical aspects. As a poem, I find it to be a watershed work, both for the extent of its influence and its immense historical importance; therefore, I hope to be able to use it as a standard for my own writing and as a source of perpetual inspiration.

Reading and re-reading Howl is, for me, an enjoyable experience. For a first-time reader, the depth and sophistication of its imagery can seem staggering and even intimidating, but subsequent reads reveal something new each time. Unlike many poems, great or otherwise, Howl rewards re-reading. Much of the poem's complexity and appeal derive from its series of vivid, phantasmagoric portraits, or "chains of flashing images" as described in the Bob Dylan phrase that Ginsberg himself likes to quote. These images are described well and fully; they succeed in conjuring up particularly keen visions in the reader's mind. As Carl Solomon, Ginsberg's primary inspiration for the poem says, Ginsberg possesses a "great skill in describing the maze of thoughts of upset people and conveying them to the reader." By any account, the poem's vivid imagery is one of the keys to its phenomenal success and its immense power. In my own writing, I tend sometimes to veer too closely toward abstract composition without any grounding in concrete imagery; constantly referring back to Howl will, hopefully, steer me away from this tendency.

To me, one of the most noteworthy aspects of Howl is its mesmerizing use of the particular. Readers who are largely ignorant of Ginsberg's life, as I was when I first read the poem, will likely read all of the incidents catalogued in the first part of the poem as fictional creations of the author. However, as Ginsberg reveals in the "Author's Annotations" section of this edition, nearly all of the events depicted in Part I of the poem are based on real occurrences. Even the events that seem the most unlikely have their roots in reality; for example, one of Ginsberg's friends actually "walked all night with their shoes full of blood" (4), while another really "jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge... and walked away unknown and forgotten" (5). That these and many of the other events described in Part I actually happened is a definite surprise to me. Such surprise, no doubt, arises because of the manner in which Ginsberg relates the events in his poem - i.e., surrealistically - and also because it seems to have been written in a very spontaneous fashion, as will be mentioned later. Knowing the history behind the lines in the poem reveals to one how beautifully and successfully Ginsberg shows the beauty of the particular; he manages to take events that he knows of, some of them quite personal, and turn them into something universal. On the surface, such disparate and seemingly unrelated vignettes would appear to have little or no relevance to anyone other than Ginsberg and the others involved in them, but the poet admirably shows that this is far from being true. As hinted at in the Carl Solomon quote above, this is the true genius of Ginsberg's art. The thought of even attempting such a thing probably does not occur to many, and it certainly does not occur to me. In most of my writing, I typically do not even consider using particular events from my own life because they do not seem universally applicable; however, after reading Howl, I find this to be a false assumption. For me, then, Ginsberg's enlightening use of the particular can serve as a fountainhead of inspiration.

The famous long lines of Howl comprise, for me, another of the poem's attractive elements. I have always been partial to long lines in the poetry that I choose to read; I also tend to employ them in my own compositions. Ginsberg's lengthy lines, in particular, are flexible and graceful, as they serve several functions. First of all, they contribute greatly to Howl's sense of pacing; this becomes especially clear when one hears the poem read aloud. Secondly, they allow the poem to flow very smoothly; indeed, when read, the poem almost seems to take on a distinctive rhythm of its own. Few poets, of course, favor the long line; between Whitman and Ginsberg, precious few used it to their advantage. Ginsberg, on the other hand, not only uses the long line, but also is famous for doing so; his skillful deployment of the long line in Howl clearly demonstrates the technique's poetical vitality. Ginsberg has said that the whole of Howl was an experiment to see what can be done with the long line (163); in that case, it is most assuredly a successful experiment. Howl provides constant encouragement - and justification - for my own use of the long line when I sometimes have doubts about its usefulness.

I also admire Ginsberg's deft hand with tropes. In Howl, his use of the trope of anaphora stands out especially. All four parts of the poem have a word or phrase that starts out most of the lines - "who" in Part I, "Moloch!" in Part II, "I'm with you in Rockland" in Part III, and "Holy!" in the Footnote. The constant reiteration of these words and phrases is important to the pacing of the poem; they lend it a breakneck speed and a sense of cadence that is nearly hypnotic. As many fans of Howl well know, the poem truly comes alive only when one hears it read; these anaphoric phrases are one of the main reasons for this. Ginsberg also manages to come up with, through word association, several memorable phrases that seem contradictory or oxymoronic; the most famous of these, of course, is his "hydrogen jukebox" (3). I try to be aware of the tropes available to me when I write and to make good use of them; Howl remains a goldmine of inspiration.

When applying the poetics of Ginsberg, as displayed in Howl, to my own writing, probably the most important factor is Ginsberg's constant revision. The version of Howl that I read contains facsimiles of many early drafts of the poem, complete with Ginsberg's changes. The amount of changes that Ginsberg made in his poem from the first draft to the final one is staggering. I was very surprised by them, as I am sure other also are. The reason for this being that Howl appears to have been written in a very spontaneous manner, much like Kerouac's work. What looks like an astounding display of spontaneity in Howl is actually carefully controlled art. To be sure, the early versions of Howl are, in their basic essence, quite similar to the finished product; the power and beauty of the poem are already present in them. However, through his various changes and alterations, Ginsberg ended up with a poem superior to the one with which he started. The finished version is cleaner, more succinct, flows better, and reads better than the earlier versions. In short, Ginsberg, much to this writer's surprise, shows himself to be a meticulous but successful reviser. I hope to apply this fact to my own writing, because revision is one of my weak points. After scouring the various versions of Howl, though, I at least know that successful revision is possible; hopefully, I will be able to learn more about this delicate art from studying Ginsberg.

Many people view Howl as essentially a poem of protest, but Ginsberg himself has said that it is not meant to be viewed in this light alone. Armed with all the candor of truth, he declares of his poem that, "To call it a work of nihilistic rebellion would be to mistake it completely. Its force comes from positive `religious' belief and experience." What the poet says is true; Howl is not a hopeless, nihilistic lament. Instead, it is a hopeful (and very spiritual, in the non-traditional sense) howl from the wasteland of contemporary culture and society; it is the voice of one man who insists upon holding up a lucid torch of compassion and reason in a world full of oppressive darkness. One of Ginsberg's intentions with Howl was to, if possible, save the best minds of the next generation from being "destroyed by madness" (3). Still, the poem does contain protest elements, and these I particularly admire. Part I of the poem chronicles the unfortunate experiences of many of Ginsberg's hapless contemporaries; it shows the apathetic extremes that are possible when the world is a mere hollow shell that serves only to bring on malaise. It also reflects the fact that there has been more than one "Lost Generation." The inherent, even if implicit, protest in Part I against the mindlessness of the mainstream world is very powerful and piercing. Similarly, the second part of the poem attacks the source of many of the evils in society, the military-industrial complex. Ginsberg compares the problem identified by Eisenhower to Moloch, the fire god of the Canaanites; the former sends young, idealistic kids off to their deaths in pointless wars, whereas worship of the latter involved sacrificing children by fire. The protest elements of Howl, then, are incredibly powerful and striking, even if they are not essential to the poem's core sentiment. I frequently make use of protest methods in my own work, and successful examples such as Howl are a never-ending inspiration to me.

Lastly, I look upon Howl with admiration because of its sheer daring. The poem was, of course, highly controversial upon release; it even provoked a legal trial after having been dubbed obscene by legal authorities (Ginsberg 169). I can scarcely imagine the reactions of some of the more conservative readers of the 1950's to the poem; after all, this was the decade of utopian suburbia and Leave It To Beaver. Some lines seem daring even now, as the fact that I cannot even quote them under Amazon rules attests. I admire Ginsberg's resolve - whether it was bravery, mere bravado, or whatever else - to publish and distribute his poem in the midst of such raving censorship and extreme prejudice. These things, of course, are still occurring, but the fact that Howl was published in the 1950's make the event even more noteworthy. With the publication of Howl, Ginsberg boldly announced himself to the world as an atheistic, homosexual Jewish Communist. Ginsberg's determination to stand behind the work he had written, no matter what the consequences, was an awe-inspiring decision that can only elicit feelings of admiration and inspiration from me.