"Howl" by Allen Ginsberg

BOOK TITLE: Howl

AUTHOR: Allen Ginsberg

YEAR: 1956

GENRE: Poetry

SUBGENRE: Beat

GRADE: Mixed

It could be that I’m missing something here. It could be that my English degree wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be. It could be that Allen Ginsberg is making me feel stupid. But whatever the case, when I tried to piece together the imagery in Howl, all I could say to myself was…”What?!” Sometimes the imagery made sense to me and I could carry on with my reading. Sometimes I had to read it twice or three times and even then my ability to comprehend it was sketchy. The first poem in the book starts off with, “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness.” Ordinarily that would be an awesome way to start a poem. It certainly got me going. But then reading the rest of it, I began to wonder if Allen Ginsberg himself was being destroyed by madness. He does have a creative mind, I’ll give him that. He’s so creative that only he understands what the heck he’s talking about.

But for all of the times that he made sense to me, his poetry truly spoke from the heart. It’s depressing watching great minds descend into madness. It’s depressing to watch the almighty “Moloch” take over everything you love. It’s depressing to know that your best friend is wasting away in a mental hospital while the orderlies employ draconian techniques. I know how depressing these things are because I myself am a schizophrenic. There once was a time when I thought I was going to be institutionalized against my will. I even welcomed it at one point. But if I didn’t get the help I needed when I did, I could just as easily become another statistic a la Carl Solomon (Ginsberg’s insane friend). This book was published in the 1950’s, during a time when ignorance towards mental health was rampant. I’m not so sure I could have survived that era. Thank you, Allen Ginsberg, for bringing me back to reality.

It should be noted how important this book of poetry was to the free speech movement. The sexual imagery, the violence, and the constant swearing had conservative censorship groups up in arms. Despite me not understanding most of the content, I can appreciate the battles Allen Ginsberg went through to get Howl published. Freedom of speech was always a guaranteed right in the American constitution, but it still comes under fire to this day. Luckily, we’re a lot more open-minded as a society, but if not for people like Ginsberg putting their lives on the line for free speech, we would have stayed in the dark ages for a long time. When balancing the confusing imagery with the impact the words had on mental health and the free speech movement, I’ll give this book a respectable mixed grade. It wasn’t a perfect read, but maybe I’m not high enough on the educational food chain to appreciate it to the fullest extent. This is just my opinion. You’re always allowed to have your own, because that comes with the freedom of speech deal.