Howl and Other Poems (1956) is Allen Ginsberg‘s best-known poetry collection. (—deservedly, fervently so.) Its publisher, Lawrence Ferlinghetti of City Light Books, was arrested on witless charge of obscenity soon after its publication. Ferlinghetti was acquitted, on all counts and wily, wordy accounts. Yet — the spectred reek of lawless, god- and country-less abandon, like a pall, rebelliously, drapes along the granite nape of this collection.

It could have been written in any country, under any scrupulous gods and trampling, purity-sampling laws — but wasn’t. Written in America, during the upbeat, durable tide of the Beat Generation’s frantic beatings at the doors of inequity, industrialized comformity, and comfortless industry, bleating with rough and druck-wracked abandon, this collection is the sine qua non of freedom’s rasp. Sinewy, it says:

Howl, and be freer.

Raiazome considers this collection to be the leering crag (spidered through with splintery, summery and summary desires, roughshod and dull) of American letters. Much’s been written, since, in America — on America, and the cleaving wheels of work and timely drudgery. Most of that, shadowed and lingering in that lee of inspiration’s lively blaze, is but a glazed footnote to Howl.

On with the wonder; and plentiful, lust-plenty words.

Contents

1. Title Page.
2. Dedication.
3. Introduction by William Carlos Williams.
4. HOWL.
5. FOOTNOTE TO HOWL.
6. A SUPERMARKET IN CALIFORNIA.
7. TRANSCRIPTION OF ORGAN MUSIC.
8. SUNFLOWER SUTRA.
9. AMERICA.
10. IN THE BAGGAGE ROOM AT GREYHOUND.
11. Earlier Poems:
    1. AN ASPHODEL.
    2. SONG.
    3. WILD ORPHAN.
    4. IN BACK OF THE REAL.

Copyright

© 1956 Allen Ginsberg, should he still assert it.