Customer Reviews

The Poem That Changed America: "Howl" Fifty Years Later

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Greil Marcus's review in The New York Times Book Review says it so well: this book is TIRESOME. Most of the contributors seem so in love with their own voices that they don't even listen to Ginsberg's. I found no new critical insights here, but plenty of posturings by the same cronies Shinder features in his other collections. The book will appeal to the same 2,000 (if that) readers who think Sven Birkerts and Carol Muske Dukes are good writers, all evidence to the contrary. It's fun to imagine Ginsberg himself reacting to the egregious bathos collected in this book; he had a low tolerance for phonies, particularly poets intent on nothing but self-promotion.

The complete poem is in fact included.
A 1956 mimeographed copy follows the intro and preceeds the collection of essays.
It also includes a 32 minute CD of Allen Ginsbergs March 18, 1956 "Howl" public reading.
This is a fine collection of essays from a wide variety of authors/artist that have been influenced by this poem.

The sad truth is that the "praise" this book offers is never very interesting.

Sorry. Love Ginsberg, hate po-biz.

This book is full of poorly written essays backed only by the authors' direct ties to the beat generation.

Instead, buy this book ("Howl: Original Draft Facsimile, Transcript, and Variant Versions, Fully Annotated by Author..."), which is cheaper and very very interesting to those fascinated by Howl and Ginsberg, or even just the poetic process.

"Howl Fifty years later" was a great disapointment for me.