What are your reactions to this poem? Like? Dislike? Undecided? Given what we've said about the Beats in the last couple days, what makes this a singularly "Beat" poem? What lines jump out at you in particular? Why don't you choose 3 lines that particularly strike you—and how so?
We'll talk about this tomorrow. Have fun!
Reading the poem, I automatically knew this was a beat poem. The language and the word choice reminded me so much of what we have been connecting to The Beat. I parts of the poem. I did feel like it went fast, changing quickly like if he was writing his thoughts. Then again, maybe that was the point. For the reader to get a glimpse of his thoughts. What jumped out most to me was: "who cut their wrists three times successively unsuccessfully, gave up and were forced to open antique stores where they thought they growing old and cried..." His writing is bold. He writes about things we feel uncomfortable of talking about. He writes about it in a raw way. Raw. That's his style of writing. A lot of what he wrote was about sex, drugs, and even religion. "Who burned cigarette holes in their arms protesting the narcotic tobacco haze of Capitalism, who distributed Supercommunist pamphlets in Union Square weeping and undressing..." Not only was what he wrote provocative (in a way), but he had line that put the reader in the time he was writing in (like so quote). Kerouac also referred a lot about how he may have been or people like him, "who lounged hungry and lonesome through Houston seeking jazz or sex or soup...". I found the line funny because jazz and sex are more serious in a way and then he adds soup.
ReplyDeleteI went through a variety of different emotions while reading this poem. The first time I read it, I was shocked. The poem talks about daring, intense, and incredibly dark topics such as drugs and prostitution. These topics are not generally in my school assigned literature so this poem left me surprised. I then read it over looking for lines that stuck out to me. While reading it over, I began to see the poem in a different light. I was able to look past the original shock of the mature topics and instead feel the sense of madness that Ginsberg’s poem exudes. He speaks with such intensity about the men in his poem that I couldn't help but feel the passion and emotion that he feels.
ReplyDeleteThis poem is exactly what I imagine when I think of the Beats. Not just because of its sex and drug references. It describes men who think outside of the stereotypical American culture, just as the Beats are best known for. It also has a sense of intensity and madness that fits with the Beat Generation as well.
“who cut their wrists three times successively unsuccessfully, gave up and were forced to open antique stores where they thought they were growing old and cried” - This line stuck out to me because it describes men who are trying to escape the “American lifestyle” but eventually give up. This idea left a distinct image in my head of beaten down old men.
“who drove crosscountry seventytwo hours to find out if I had a vision or you had a vision or he had a vision to find out Eternity,” - This line gave me an image of self exploration.
“who lit cigarettes in boxcars boxcars boxcars racketing through snow toward lonesome farms in grandfather night,” I liked this line because of the repetition. It added to the rhythm and sound of the poem.
This poem is unlike any piece of literature I have ever read. The poem is complex and packed with daring literature. Each time I read the poem, I gained new understandings about what Ginsberg was trying to tell his readers and learned more about Ginsberg's views towards society. I think that the title, Howl, is very important regarding the poem's meaning. When I read the word howl, I knew that the poem was not going to be quiet. When I think of howl, I think of a very loud noise that is disruptive. I think that Ginsberg chose the title Howl because his writing is a poem of noise. I think that the howl represents something refusing to conform. I associate howl with animals, who are wild and cannot be tamed; just like the Beats. I could easily tell that Howl was a Beat poem, for it directly challenged American society. I could directly feel Ginsberg's anger about all the people who were being suppressed by a conforming society that limited free expression. I knew that this was a "Beat" poem because it was attacking a dangerous subject in an intense and emotional way. One line that stood out to me was, "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix" This quote demonstrated the Beat philosophy of not conforming to society's expectations. Ginsberg is implying that the best mind are the ones that have been outcasted/rejected by society, for they are unwilling to conform. I thought is was very bold to start the poem like this because Ginsberg is directly criticizing those that fall into the stereotypes of America. Another line that jumped out to me was, "Who cut their wrists three times successively unsuccessfully, gave up and were forced to open antique stores where they thought they were growing old and cried." I liked this line because it demonstrated someone who tried to break away from stereotypes, but eventually gave up and had to open antique stores. Antique stores I associate with a boring average job of an American, not a job that Ginsberg would consider as important or different. Another line that jumped out to me was, "and rose reincarnate in the ghostly clothes of jazz in the goldhorn shadow of the band." I think that in this line, Ginsberg is writing about the power of jazz. He is comparing jazz to the Beats, for they both face suffering but have the power to change America.
ReplyDeleteI really really like this poem. It shows the reader the hardships and the darker side of being a beat. It is possible that before fully committing to rebelling against all cultural norms, many of the beats idealized the lifestyle of people of color and of poor people and didn’t realize what they were getting themselves into. Although they were able to step outside of their bubble of ignorance and see that there were people who were actually suffering in the world and they wanted to help those people, they couldn’t have possibly understood what it was like to be in their situation. There is a stark difference from image of beats “burning their money in wastebaskets” at the beginning of the poem to beats “who cooked rotten animals lung heart feet tail borsht and tortillas dreaming of the pure vegetable kingdom, who plunged themselves under meat trucks looking for an egg” towards the end of the poem. One of my favorite lines is “who wept at the romance of the streets with their pushcarts full of onions and bad music, who sat in boxes breathing in the darkness under the bridge.” This line is very simple, but it perfectly depicts how beats had romanticized this lifestyle, but it really isn’t so easy. Whether or not they fully understood what they were getting themselves into by straying away from the ideal 1950s lifestyle that they could have had, they sacrificed a lot in order to live the life of poor people that they had idealized and to do what they believed was right.
ReplyDeleteYou can tell this poem is singularly a beat poem because of all the references to specific things that happened to beat writers and because of all the references to things that were happening during the time period when beats were doing most of their writing. There were a lot of references that I didn’t understand, but I looked most of them up, which made the poem a lot more interesting. One of my favorite lines was “who distributes supercomunist pamphlets in Union Square weeping and undressing while the sirens of Los Alamos wailed them down.” I think it is really smart how Ginsburg referenced Los Alamos, which was where the Manhattan project took place, which was the project to make America’s atomic bomb. The line right before this also really stood out to me. It is “who burned cigarette holes in their arms protesting the narcotic tobacco haze of Capitalism.” I think this line is saying many different things, but one thing I think it is saying is that the beats brought hardship onto themselves, but they would have rather suffered that be ignorant and blind to what was going on in the world.
This is a very heavy poem. There are a lot of risky topics that Ginsberg is not afraid to address. This makes the poem more interesting because of the shock factor that is added on top on the writing itself. That said, I personally didn't like this poem as much as some others that I've read. It is very dark and sad. It demonstrates a life style that I, and my generation as a whole, is taught to avoid. While I don't like the image that he is portraying, I do see the appeal in this type of image. It's exciting. It's risky. This is definitely a piece that is hinting to a society of countercultural individuals, as we talked about in class. I think this is what it has to do with the Beats. This part of the narrators generation is breaking out of the norm. That's bland-- almost too perfect, planned out, and systematic. It's like breaking out of Levittown in that sense.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I noticed a lot of musical references on the first few pages. I really liked this. It seems to set the scene and add another visual to display the idea of the counterculture. Music seems to be a release from life, like the drugs, "who poverty tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz." In addition to this line, there is, "who lounged hungry and lonesome through Houston seeking jazz or sex or soup..." This line puts music in a place of not only desire, but also need. These are hungry people. They need food. Along with that there is the pleasure aspect, which is portrayed through the music and the sex. Finally, he writes, "...listening to the crack of doom on the hydrogen jukebox." This line was very interesting to me because it not only brings up and incorporates music into the poem, but also it brings up recent events. To me, it is referring to the creation of the Hydrogen bomb just years before this was written. It adds another dark aspect to this poem, which I thought was interesting.
This poem is so iconic because of way Ginsberg manipulates language to communicate abstract concepts or feelings. The poem starts off innocently, with a straightforward first sentence; Ginsberg then hits us with "starving hysterical naked." Grammatically correct? No. Are all the "best minds of his generation" literally naked? No. But, the feeling evoked by those three words put together embodies what is so essentially Beat: reaching for a greater understanding or knowledge -- one that might not be easily communicated within the confines of grammatically correct English. Not only does Ginsberg reorder conventional language, he either invents new language or changes its previous meaning. After referencing drinking, Ginsberg coins the phrase "purgatoried their torsos..." this word choice invokes the word "purge," or literally vomiting, but also recalls the religious element that is so present throughout the poem, even from its first couple lines ("angelheaded hipsters"). Overall, the imagery Ginsberg uses is nothing short of incredible. One of my favorite lines was "who coughed on the sixth floor of Harlem crowned with flame under the tubercular sky surrounded by orange crates of theology." This line takes something commonplace (several people sitting on a deck surrounded by crates) and elevates its to something holy and vibrant. This type of description is used throughout the poem. An attempt to interpret direct, precise meaning is misguided -- the poem is meant to evoke a feeling, by any means necessary. Its lasting impact is proof that it succeeds.
ReplyDeleteThis poem most defnintly does not have a Lovittown vibe. Reading it, the tone and content automatically indicated to me that it as a Beat poem. The way that it talks about heavy subjects such as prostitiion and drugs. In addition, one of the quotes that stuck with me was in the very beginning, "dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix". This quote both set the entire poem up (I feel) and it was one of the many examples that this was no Lovitown. I found that reading the poem after class yesterday, I compared this poem to Lovittown because it paints a clearer description of what the Beat era was not.
ReplyDeleteIn a place like Lovittown, drugs and prostitution are not of topic causing it to lack a sort of tension that the place is sheltered from.
When I listened to the poem, it started to feel like I could visualize everything. I also felt that the poem changed thoughts quite a lot. However, I can appreciate that because it touched on so much.
I think that this poem is very interesting in the way that it just rambles. The poem itself is the howl, a nonstop chord that brings strength to some and fear to others. The opening line, “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness,” is such a powerful opening, and a very beat perspective. I don't really know if I enjoy it, simply because it is somewhat difficult to follow and many allusions fly right past me. It is a very beat poem in several ways, firstly in that it has a nontraditional writing style. Almost no capital letters to start sentences, run-ons, and the creation of new phrases. The poem also glorifies the lifestyle lived out by many, such as drugs, jazz, and both homosexual and heterosexual sex. There was also such an anti-establishment in the way that the poem openly refers to communism, and them as ones “who distributed Supercommunist pamphlets in Union Square” in a time when communism was perceived as the greatest threat to American life. The poem also has many criticisms of society and how it treated the people described in the poem from how they are taken to asylums to how they are “expelled from the academies” for radical thought and speech. All in all I think that the poem is at it’s best when it isn’t understood and all it does is evoke feeling and thought, an objective that it easily accomplishes.
ReplyDeleteI’m still undecided, we only read a part of the poem, so it is hard to come up with a clear reaction. I like how Ginsberg references some of the events that we talked about in class today. I think that this is a Beat poem because it criticizes what was happening at that time. Two lines that struck me were the first line where he says “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness”, and later on when he writes “who were expelled from the academics for crazy [and] publishing obscene odes. This stayed with me as I was reading because I felt like they set up the poem. He is criticizing America for not letting the people speak without being punished. The last line that was in my head throughout the poem was also the one where Ginsberg says “followed the brilliant Spaniard to converse about America and Eternity, a hopeless task” and then he goes on to talk about communism. I found this little part interesting because he is making fun of America and is beginning, I think, to relate to events that are happening in the real world. He is providing examples to support his claim, and in the 1950s, the topic of communism was big.
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