Howl (poem)

Howl

Company type	Poem
Industry	Literature, Poetry
Founded	1954–1955
Founder	Allen Ginsberg
Products	Poem "Howl"

Template:Infobox poem

Howl, sometimes referred to as Howl for Carl Solomon, is a poem composed by Allen Ginsberg between 1954 and 1955, later featured in his 1956 volume, Howl and Other Poems. The piece is dedicated to Carl Solomon.

The initial creation of "Howl" began in 1954. Audio recordings housed in the Paul Blackburn Collection at the University of California, San Diego capture Ginsberg presenting early versions of the poem to his literary peers.Template:Fix/category In October 1955, Ginsberg delivered a public reading of "Howl" at San Francisco's Six Gallery reading. Poet and publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti, present at this event and affiliated with City Lights Books, took on the role of publishing the poem in 1956. Following its publication, both Ferlinghetti and City Lights Bookstore's manager, Shigeyoshi Murao, faced legal charges for distributing allegedly obscene material and were arrested. However, on October 3, 1957, Judge Clayton W. Horn determined that the poem did not meet the criteria for obscenity.

Initially met with significant controversy and excluded from academic study for many years, "Howl" has since been recognized as a seminal work within contemporary American literature. The poem is also strongly linked to the literary movement known as the Beat Generation.

Composition of the poem

Bill Morgan, who served as Allen Ginsberg's bibliographer and archivist, attributes the main inspiration for "Howl" to a harrowing peyote-induced vision. This occurred on the night of October 17, 1954, in the Nob Hill apartment of Sheila Williams, Ginsberg’s then-girlfriend and cohabitant. During this experience, Ginsberg perceived the façade of the Sir Francis Drake Hotel shrouded in San Francisco fog as a terrifying child-devouring demon’s visage. He recorded notes from this disturbing vision, which later formed the foundation for Part II of the poem.

Throughout late 1954 and into 1955, Ginsberg developed the poem while residing in a rented apartment at 1010 Montgomery Street in San Francisco’s North Beach district, initially titling it "Strophes." Some portions were reportedly composed at Berkeley’s Caffe Mediterraneum after Ginsberg moved into a small cottage near the University of California campus on September 1, 1955. Multiple influences converged during the poem’s creation. Prior to writing it, Ginsberg’s therapist, Dr. Philip Hicks, encouraged him to leave an unsatisfying market research position to focus entirely on poetry and to embrace his homosexuality.

At this stage in his poetic development, Ginsberg was experimenting with parataxis—a syntactic technique involving juxtaposed phrases without conjunctions—demonstrated in his poem "Dream Record, 1955," which dealt with Joan Vollmer’s death. This approach became a key element in "Howl." When Ginsberg shared "Dream Record, 1955" with Kenneth Rexroth, Rexroth criticized it for sounding overly formal and academic, advising Ginsberg to liberate his voice and write more authentically from personal emotion. Taking this counsel to heart, Ginsberg aimed to compose a poem free from constraints.

Influenced by William Carlos Williams’ imagist focus and Jack Kerouac’s emphasis on spontaneity, Ginsberg began writing "Howl" using Williams’ stepped triadic form. However, midway through composing the lines, his style shifted toward a distinctive long-line structure organized around breath patterns.

The verses produced during this initial creative surge were later incorporated into Parts I and III of "Howl." These sections are characterized by a rapid, hallucinatory rhythm; they recount episodes involving Ginsberg’s friends and peers and candidly explore themes of sexuality—particularly homosexuality—which ultimately led to an obscenity trial. While numerous acquaintances such as Neal Cassady, Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs, Peter Orlovsky, Lucien Carr, and Herbert Huncke are referenced throughout the poem, its emotional core is rooted in Ginsberg’s empathy for Carl Solomon. Having met Solomon in a mental institution and forged a friendship with him, Ginsberg dedicated "Howl" to him. He later revealed that this sympathy was tied to unresolved guilt and compassion related to his mother’s schizophrenia (she had undergone a lobotomy), a subject he was not yet prepared to confront openly.

Upon publication in the 1956 collection Howl and Other Poems, the dedication page acknowledged that several phrases and the poem’s title were borrowed from Kerouac. Supporting this origin story, Ann Charters noted in her 1973 biography of Kerouac that Ginsberg sent a draft of the poem to Kerouac during the summer of 1955; Kerouac responded enthusiastically with “I received your Howl.” However, in 2008 Peter Orlovsky proposed an alternative source for the title. He recounted to the co-directors of the film Howl that during a brief moonlit walk with Ginsberg—while Orlovsky sang Hank Williams’ song "Howlin' at the Moon"—the phrase may have inspired the poem’s name. Orlovsky remarked that although he never asked Ginsberg directly about it nor did Ginsberg volunteer an explanation, poets often incorporate elements they encounter into their verse in subtle ways.

Performance and publication

The initial public presentation of Part I of Howl occurred at the Six Gallery reading in San Francisco on October 7, 1955. Originally, Ginsberg had not planned to recite the poem aloud. The event was organized by Wally Hedrick, a painter and co-founder of the Six Gallery, a co-op art space and gathering spot for the Bay Area avant-garde community. Hedrick invited Ginsberg in mid-1955 to arrange a poetry reading at the gallery. Although Ginsberg initially declined, after drafting an early version of Howl, he changed his mind, as he later expressed.

Ginsberg took charge of inviting the other poets who would read—Gary Snyder, Philip Lamantia, Philip Whalen, and Michael McClure—and also designed the invitation. The evening’s master of ceremonies was Kenneth Rexroth. Howl was performed second to last, just before Snyder’s "A Berry Feast," and many attendees considered it the event’s highlight. The reading was widely regarded as marking the emergence of a new literary movement, and Ginsberg’s prominence, along with that of the Six Gallery participants, quickly grew throughout San Francisco. Reflecting on Ginsberg’s recital, McClure noted that it left the audience in awe or enthusiastic applause, recognizing that a significant barrier had been shattered—the raw human voice confronting the rigid American establishment.

Jack Kerouac depicted the Six Gallery reading from his perspective in his 1958 novel The Dharma Bums, where Ginsberg appears as "Alvah Goldbrook" and Howl is renamed "Wail":

Anyway I followed the whole gang of howling poets to the reading at Gallery Six that night, which was, among other important things, the night of the birth of the San Francisco Poetry Renaissance. Everyone was there. It was a mad night. And I was the one who got things jumping by going around collecting dimes and quarters from the rather stiff audience standing around in the gallery and coming back with three huge gallon jugs of California Burgundy and getting them all piffed so that by eleven o'clock when Alvah Goldbrook was reading his poem 'Wail' drunk with arms outspread everybody was yelling 'Go! Go! Go!' (like a jam session) and old Rheinhold Cacoethes [Kenneth Rexroth] the father of the Frisco poetry scene was wiping his tears in gladness.

Within hours following this event, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, proprietor of City Lights Bookstore and its publishing branch City Lights Books, sent Ginsberg a telegram via Western Union requesting the manuscript for Howl. The telegram’s opening line—"I greet you at the beginning of a great career. When do I get the manuscript?"—echoed Ralph Waldo Emerson’s famous congratulatory letter to Walt Whitman after reading Whitman’s 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass. Two months later, Carl Solomon granted Ginsberg permission to publish the poem.

On October 1, 1956, City Lights released Howl and Other Poems as number four in its Pocket Poets Series. By this time, Ginsberg had completed Part II and added a "Footnote" after Ferlinghetti agreed to publish. Since Howl along with its "Footnote" did not fill an entire book, Ginsberg included additional poems to complete the volume. He chose several recent works where he continued refining his use of "breath-length" lines and a consistent structural base—a technique he began developing during Howl’s composition. Among these supplementary poems were "America", "Sunflower Sutra", and "A Supermarket in California", which would become some of Ginsberg's most frequently anthologized pieces.

Previously believed to be recorded first on March 18, 1956, an earlier audio capture of Howl was discovered in 2007. This recording features Ginsberg performing at Reed College's Anna Mann dormitory on February 13 and 14; notably, the second date’s session was preserved on tape. The recording quality remained excellent and Omnivore Recordings released it in 2021. In this historic recording, only Part I is performed. Conversely, during the March 18 Berkeley reading, Ginsberg delivered all three parts of the poem.

Overview and structure

The poem is composed of 112 lines resembling paragraphs, arranged into three distinct sections along with a supplementary footnote.

Part I

Described by Ginsberg as "a lament for the Lamb in America with instances of remarkable lamb-like youths," Part I is arguably the most recognized segment. It portrays vivid scenes, characters, and circumstances inspired by Ginsberg's own life and the circle of poets, artists, political radicals, jazz performers, drug users, and psychiatric patients he encountered during the late 1940s and early 1950s. These individuals, whom Ginsberg saw as marginalized outsiders in a period he considered oppressively conformist and materialistic, are referred to as "the best minds of my generation." The narrative details their experiences candidly, including references to drug consumption and homosexual encounters.

The majority of lines in this section revolve around the recurring word "who." In his "Notes for Howl and Other Poems," Ginsberg explains: "I relied on the term 'who' to maintain rhythm, serving as a foundation to return to and launch into new inventive phrases."

Part II

According to Ginsberg, Part II functions as "the naming of the monster of mental consciousness that preys on the Lamb," relative to Part I. This section addresses the condition of industrial society, symbolized by "Moloch." The inspiration for this part came during a peyote-induced visionary experience when Ginsberg perceived a hotel façade as a terrifying monstrous face identified with Moloch—the Biblical idol mentioned in Leviticus, to whom the Canaanites offered child sacrifices.

Ginsberg implies that those depicted in Part I have been metaphorically sacrificed to this idol. The name Moloch also refers to a demonic industrial figure featured in Fritz Lang's film Metropolis, which Ginsberg credits as an influence on Part II (notably discussed in Howl: Original Draft Facsimile, Transcript & Variant Versions). Most lines here incorporate the repeated base word "Moloch." Ginsberg notes regarding this section: "The extended line acts as a stanza form broken into exclamatory segments punctuated by the recurring base word, Moloch."

Part III

In contrast to Parts I and II, Part III serves as "a litany affirming the Lamb in its glory," according to Ginsberg. It is addressed directly to Carl Solomon, whom Ginsberg met during a brief hospitalization in 1949 at what is called "Rockland" within the poem but was actually Columbia Presbyterian Psychological Institute. This part is distinguished by its repeated phrase, "I'm with you in Rockland," marking a shift away from the bleakness of the "Moloch" section. Regarding its form, Ginsberg describes Part III as "pyramidal, featuring a progressively extended response to the fixed base."

Footnote

The poem concludes with the "Footnote," distinguished by its repetitive chant of "Holy!"—a fervent declaration that sanctity permeates all things. Ginsberg recalled, "I remembered the archetypal rhythm of Holy Holy Holy weeping in a bus on Kearny Street, and wrote most of it down in notebook there. ... I set it as 'Footnote to Howl' because it was an extra variation of the form of Part II."

Rhythm

The opening lines, widely cited and frequently spoofed, establish both the poem’s rhythm and central theme:

Ginsberg described the poem as an exploration of the "long line" technique. For instance, Part I is crafted as one continuous sentence segmented by a recurring refrain that serves as a natural pause for breath. He noted, "Ideally each line of 'Howl' is a single breath unit. My breath is long—that's the measure, one physical-mental inspiration of thought contained in the elastic of a breath."

On another occasion, he elaborated: "the line length ... you'll notice that they're all built on bop—you might think of them as a bop refrain—chorus after chorus after chorus—the ideal being, say, Lester Young in Kansas City in 1938, blowing 72 choruses of 'The Man I Love' until everyone in the hall was out of his head..."

"Howl" and the Obscenity Controversy

The poem Howl features numerous allusions to illegal drug use as well as various sexual behaviors, encompassing both heterosexual and homosexual themes. On March 25, 1957, customs authorities confiscated 520 copies of the work being imported from England, labeling it as obscene.

On June 3, Shig Murao, manager of City Lights Bookstore, was taken into custody and detained for selling Howl and Other Poems to an undercover police officer in San Francisco. Shortly thereafter, City Lights publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti was arrested for publishing the poem. During the obscenity trial, nine literary scholars provided testimony supporting the poem’s artistic merit. Ferlinghetti, himself a recognized poet, was acknowledged by David Skover and Ronald K. L. Collins for revitalizing Ginsberg’s career by bringing his poetry to public attention. Backed by the American Civil Liberties Union, Ferlinghetti prevailed when California State Superior Court Judge Clayton Horn ruled that the poem possessed "redeeming social importance."

The trial surrounding Howl attracted significant media coverage, with features appearing in both Time and Life. Ferlinghetti documented his experience in an article published in the 1957 issue of Evergreen Review. Subsequently, his chief defense lawyer Jake Ehrlich authored a book titled Howl of the Censor, detailing the landmark case. The 2010 movie Howl dramatizes the courtroom events, starring James Franco as a young Allen Ginsberg and Andrew Rogers in the role of Ferlinghetti.

1969 Broadcast Dispute in Finland

File:Yleisradio-hallintoneuvosto-1969.jpg

The administrative council of Yleisradio preparing to deliberate on the airing of “Howl” in December 1969.

On September 30, 1969, Part I of Howl was transmitted in Finland via Yleisradio's (the national public broadcasting company) "parallel programme" at 10:30 p.m. The poem was performed by three actors, accompanied by jazz music specially composed for this radio presentation by Henrik Otto Donner. Prior to the reading, an eight-minute introduction was aired. The poem was presented in Finnish, translated by Anselm Hollo.

Following the broadcast, Arne Berner, a representative from the Liberal People's Party in the Finnish Parliament, initiated an interpellation directed at the Minister of Transport and Public Works. This appeal was endorsed by Berner along with 82 other parliamentarians out of a total of 200. It remains uncertain how many signatories had actually listened to the broadcast. The interpellation cited only a brief six-line excerpt—deemed offensive and representative—from the poem’s more than seventy lines, and the ensuing discussion centered predominantly on these lines.

Furthermore, a complaint alleging obscenity was submitted to the criminal investigation unit of the Helsinki police district, asserting that the poem violated standards of modesty and decency. This report originated from Suomen kotien radio- ja televisioliitto (The radio and television association of Finnish homes), a Christian and patriotic group, relying solely on the same six-line passage. Additionally, Yleisradio faced accusations of copyright violation related to this broadcast. No formal charges were pursued.Template:Fix/category

At this period, homosexual acts remained illegal in Finland.

Ultimately, in December 1969, the Ministry of Transport and Public Works ruled that Yleisradio's airing of Howl breached its operational license conditions: it was judged neither educational nor beneficial. Consequently, Yleisradio was issued a formal reprimand and instructed to exercise greater vigilance to prevent similar broadcasts in the future.

Part I

Line	Reference
"who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and saw Mohammedan angels staggering on tenement roofs illuminated."	This phrase directly alludes to a tale Jack Kerouac shared with Ginsberg about poet Philip Lamantia's "celestial journey" inspired by his reading of the Quran.
"Who passed through universities with radiant cool eyes hallucinating Arkansas and Blake—light tragedies among the scholars of war" and "who thought they were only mad when Baltimore gleamed in supernatural ecstasy"	In 1948, Ginsberg experienced an auditory hallucination in which he heard William Blake reciting poems such as "Ah! Sun-flower", "The Sick Rose", and "The Little Girl Lost". This vision revealed to him a profound interconnection of all life, which he sought to rediscover through his drug use.
"Who were expelled from the academy for crazy & publishing obscene odes on the windows of the skull"	Ginsberg's suspension during his sophomore year at Columbia University partly stemmed from his act of inscribing profanities on his grimy dorm windows. Suspecting the cleaning staff of anti-Semitism due to their neglect, he provocatively wrote "Fuck the Jews" and drew a swastika on the glass, also mocking the university president’s masculinity.
"who cowered in unshaven rooms in underwear, burning their money in wastebaskets and listening to the Terror through the wall"	Lucien Carr, at his mother's urging, destroyed his record of mental illness along with twenty dollars.
"... poles of Canada and Paterson..."	Kerouac hailed from a French-Canadian background in Lowell, Massachusetts, whereas Ginsberg was raised in Paterson, New Jersey.
"who sank all night in submarine light of Bickford's floated out and sat through the stale beer afternoons in desolate Fugazzi's..."	Bickford's and Fugazzi's were popular New York City venues frequented by Beat Generation figures; Ginsberg himself briefly worked at Fugazzi's.
"... Tangerian bone-grindings ..." "... Tangiers to boys ..." and "Holy Tangiers!"	At the time "Howl" was composed, William S. Burroughs resided in Tangier, Morocco. He also endured heroin withdrawal, a subject he discussed in letters to Ginsberg.
"who studied Plotinus Poe St. John of the Cross telepathy and bop kabbalah because the cosmos instinctively vibrated at their feet in Kansas"	This refers to various mystical philosophies and traditions that captivated Ginsberg during certain periods of his life.
"who disappeared into the volcanoes of Mexico".	This line alludes both to John Hoffman—a friend of Philip Lamantia and Carl Solomon who died in Mexico—and to Malcolm Lowry's novel Under the Volcano.
"weeping and undressing while the sirens of Los Alamos wailed them down"	An allusion to a protest organized by members of The Living Theatre, including Judith Malina and Julian Beck.
"who bit detectives in the neck ... dragged off the roof waving genitals and manuscripts." Also, from "who ... fell out of the subway window" to "the blast of colossal steam whistles".	These lines specifically reference Bill Cannastra, known for these rebellious acts before his death falling from a subway window.
"Saintly motorcyclists"	This is a nod to Marlon Brando’s iconic biker character in The Wild One.
From "Who copulated ecstatic and insatiate" to "Who went out whoring through Colorado in myriad stolen night-cars, N. C. secret hero of these poems". Also, from "who barreled down the highways of the past" to "& now Denver is lonesome for her heroes"	These passages refer to Neal Cassady (N.C.), who lived in Denver, Colorado; he was notorious for his sexual exploits and car thefts.
"who walked all night with their shoes full of blood on the showbank docks waiting for a door in the East River to open to a room full of steamheat and opium"	This line specifically depicts Herbert Huncke’s state following his release from Riker's Island prison.
"... and rose to build harpsichords in their lofts ..."	Ginsberg’s friend Bill Keck was a harpsichord craftsman. Prior to composing "Howl," Ginsberg had spoken with Keck’s wife.
"who coughed on the sixth floor of Harlem crowned with flame under the tubercular sky surrounded by orange crates of theology"	Refers to Ginsberg’s residence during his Blake vision experience. His roommate Russell Durgin was studying theology and stored books in orange crates.
"who threw their watches off the roof to cast their ballot with eternity outside of time ..."	This incident involved Columbia peer Louis Simpson during a brief psychiatric hospitalization for post-traumatic stress disorder.
"who were burned alive in their innocent flannel suits on Madison Avenue ... the nitroglycerine shrieks of the fairies of advertising"	Although referencing Madison Avenue’s advertising scene, Ginsberg himself worked as a market researcher on Montgomery Street in San Francisco.
"who jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge ..."	A direct reference to Tuli Kupferberg.
"who crashed through their minds in jail ..."	Alludes to Jean Genet’s poem Le Condamné à mort ("The Man Sentenced to Death").
"who retired to Mexico to cultivate a habit, or Rocky Mount to tender Buddha or Tangiers to boys or Southern Pacific to the black locomotive or Harvard to Narcissus to Woodlawn to the daisychain or grave"	Many Beat figures traveled to Mexico City for drug use. This line particularly references Burroughs (living then in Tangiers) and Bill Garver. Rocky Mount relates to Jack Kerouac’s sister’s residence. Neal Cassady worked as a Southern Pacific brakeman. John Hollander attended Harvard. Ginsberg’s mother Naomi lived near Woodlawn Cemetery.
"Accusing the radio of hypnotism ..."	This refers both to Naomi Ginsberg’s paranoid schizophrenia and Antonin Artaud’s reaction against shock therapy. The latter was introduced to Ginsberg by Carl Solomon at Columbia Presbyterian Psychological Institute.
From "who threw potato salad at CCNY lecturers on Dadaism ..." to "resting briefly in catatonia"	Specifically about Carl Solomon. The passage depicts students disrupting lectures on Dadaism—a movement embracing absurdity—by throwing potato salad at professors, reflecting Dada’s anti-art stance originating from post-WWI Zurich.
"Pilgrim's State's Rockland's and Greystone's foetid halls ..." and "I'm with you in Rockland"	References mental hospitals connected either with Naomi Ginsberg or Carl Solomon: Pilgrim State Hospital, Rockland State Hospital (New York), and Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital (New Jersey). Ginsberg met Solomon at Columbia Presbyterian Psychological Institute. The word "Rockland" was often used for its rhythmic sound.
"with mother finally ******"	Ginsberg acknowledged that this censored word was an expletive deliberately left ambiguous but later restored as "fucked" during subsequent readings after distancing himself from his troubled relationship with his mother.
"obsessed with a sudden flash of the alchemy of the use of the ellipse the catalog the meter (alt: variable measure) & the vibrating plane". Also, from "who dreamt and made incarnate gaps in Time & Space" to "what might be left to say in time come after death".	This segment recounts Ginsberg’s stylistic development influenced by haiku brevity, Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams’ emphasis on variable meter based on breath length, Walt Whitman’s cataloging technique, and Cézanne’s concept of visual vibration termed “eyeball kick.”
"Pater Omnipotens Aeterna Deus"/"omnipotent, eternal father God"	This phrase derives directly from Cézanne’s work.
"to recreate the measure and syntax of poor human prose ..."	Reflects Kerouac’s significant impact on Ginsberg through his concept of “Spontaneous Prose,” which shaped this poem’s composition.
"what might be left to say in time come after death"	Draws from Louis Zukofsky’s translation of Catullus: “What might be left to say anew after death,” as well as themes found near Visions of Cody’’’s conclusion emphasizing mortality.
"eli eli lama sabachthani"	A phrase spoken by Jesus on the cross (also Psalm 22:1), meaning “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Ginsberg uses Jesus’ Gospel translation rather than Psalm transliteration. It connects themes of suffering and religious conformity invoked through Moloch imagery. Though raised agnostic, Ginsberg explored Jewish heritage alongside emerging Buddhist studies during this period.

Part II

Line	Source
"Moloch! Solitude! Filth! Ugliness!"	The fire deity worshiped by the Canaanites mentioned in Leviticus 18:21: "And thou shalt not let any of thy seed pass through the fire to Molech." This cult involved child sacrifices by burning.
"Moloch whose buildings are judgement!"	An allusion to Urizen, one of the four Zoas created by William Blake.
"Crossbone soulless jailhouse and congress of sorrows ..." and "Holy the solitudes of skyscrapers and pavements! Holy the cafeterias filled with the millions!"	Refers to Gods' Man, a graphic novel by Lynd Ward that was part of Ginsberg’s childhood reading.
From "Moloch whose breast is a cannibal dynamo!" to "Moloch whose skyscrapers stand in the long streets like endless Jehovahs!"	Draws from several films by Fritz Lang, especially Metropolis, where "Moloch" is linked to a monstrous factory. Ginsberg also cited inspiration from Lang's M and The Testament of Dr. Mabuse.
"Moloch whose eyes are a thousand blind windows!"	Ginsberg stated that Part II of "Howl" was inspired by a peyote vision of San Francisco’s Sir Francis Drake Hotel, which appeared to him as a monstrous face.
From "Moloch whose soul is electricity and banks!" to "Moloch whose name is the Mind!"	References Ezra Pound’s concept of usury as expressed in the Cantos, combined with Blake’s idea of "Mind forg’d manacles" from his poem "London". Ginsberg described "Moloch whose name is the Mind!" as a pivotal line in the poem.
"Lifting the city to Heaven which exists and is everywhere about us"	An allusion to the poem "Morning" from Season in Hell by Arthur Rimbaud.

Part III

Line	Source
"I'm with you in Rockland/where we are great writers on the same dreadful typewriter ..."	While at Columbia Presbyterian Psychological Institute, Ginsberg and Solomon composed satirical letters addressed to Malcolm de Chazal and T. S. Eliot, which were never sent.
"I'm with you in Rockland/where you drink the tea of the breasts of the spinsters of Utica."	This line references Mamelles de Tiresias by Guillaume Apollinaire.
From "I'm with you in Rockland/where you scream in a straightjacket" to "fifty more shocks will never return your soul to its body again ..."	Solomon experienced electroshock therapy and was confined in a straightjacket at Pilgrim State hospital.
"I'm with you in Rockland/where you bang on a catatonic piano ..."	Ginsberg himself was reprimanded for hitting a piano while at CPPI.
"I'm with you in Rockland/where you split the heavens of Long Island ..."	Pilgrim State hospital is situated on Long Island.
"I'm with you in Rockland/where there are twenty five thousand mad comrades all together singing the final stanzas of the Internationale ..."	Pilgrim State had a population of approximately 25,000 patients. "The Internationale" is a workers' anthem popularized by labor movements and included in the Little Red Songbook of the Industrial Workers of the World.
"... the door of my cottage in the Western night."	This refers to Ginsberg’s cottage on Milvia Street in Berkeley, California, where many poems from Howl and Other Poems, including "A Strange New Cottage in Berkeley," were written.

Annotation to "Howl"

Line	Source
"Everyday is in eternity!"	An allusion to William Blake's "Auguries of Innocence": "Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand/And Eternity in an hour.”
"Holy Peter holy Allen holy Solomon holy Lucien holy Kerouac holy Huncke holy Burroughs holy Cassady ..."	Mentions of Peter Orlovsky, Allen Ginsberg, Carl Solomon, Lucien Carr, Jack Kerouac, Herbert Huncke, William S. Burroughs, and Neal Cassady.
"Holy the Fifth International"	Refers to the series of "Internationals," which were assemblies of Communist, Socialist, and/or Labor organizations. The First International was led by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels in 1864, while the Fourth International was a gathering of Trotskyists in 1938. Ginsberg suggested that the Fifth International remains forthcoming.

Critical reception

In 1956, The New York Times dispatched poet Richard Eberhart to San Francisco to explore the local poetry landscape. His resulting article, "West Coast Rhythms," published on September 2, 1956, in the New York Times Book Review, spotlighted "Howl" as the standout poem among a new generation of poets who emerged as voices for the Beat generation.

Commemorations for the poem’s 50th anniversary took place on October 7, 2005, in San Francisco, New York City, and Leeds, UK. The UK event, titled Howl for Now, was supported by a companion volume of essays edited by Simon Warner and released by Route Publishing (Howl for Now ISBN 1-901927-25-3), highlighting the poem's lasting cultural significance.

1997 broadcasting controversy

On July 18, 1997, at 6:00 p.m., Boston's independent alternative rock station WFNX became the first commercial radio outlet to air "Howl." This broadcast occurred despite Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations concerning Safe Harbor hours that permit adult content only during late-night time slots.

Concerns over 2007 broadcast

In late August 2007, a group including Ron Collins, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Nancy Peters, Bill Morgan, Peter Hale, David Skover, Al Bendich (noted as one of Ferlinghetti's attorneys during the 1957 obscenity case), and Eliot Katz submitted a petition to Pacifica Radio requesting the airing of Ginsberg's Howl on October 3, 2007. This date marked the 50th anniversary of the ruling that recognized the poem as safeguarded by the First Amendment against obscenity accusations. However, due to apprehensions about potential fines from the FCC, Pacifica's New York station WBAI decided against broadcasting the poem on air. Instead, they presented it through a dedicated webcast program on October 3, 2007, which included commentary by Bob Holman, Regina Weinreich, and Ron Collins, with narration by Janet Coleman.

Legacy

Part II of Howl served as the libretto for Song #7 in Hydrogen Jukebox, a chamber opera from 1990 featuring a selection of Ginsberg's poems set to music by Philip Glass. The opera’s title is derived from a line in the poem: "...listening to the crack of doom on the hydrogen jukebox..." The poem’s opening phrase, "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical ...", was also adopted as the first line in the song "I Should Be Allowed to Think" by They Might Be Giants. A variation of this quote — "I've seen the best minds of my generation, they are starving, hysterical, and naked" — appears during the interlude of Machinehead by Bush. Additionally, Tav Falco recited the poem’s opening lines in the Panther Burns’ 1981 rendition of Bourgeois Blues.

The poem’s introduction was also performed by Richard Moll in the 1981 film American Pop and by Lana Del Rey in her short film Tropico released in 2013.

Film

Main article: Howl (2010 film)

The 2010 motion picture Howl delves into Ginsberg’s life and literary contributions. Utilizing a nonlinear storytelling approach, it interweaves historical moments with diverse cinematic methods. The film portrays Ginsberg’s formative years during the 1940s and 1950s and features a black-and-white reenactment of his inaugural public reading of "Howl" at the Six Gallery Reading on October 7, 1955. Animated sequences interpret sections of the poem while color footage contrasts with scenes from Ferlinghetti’s obscenity trial in 1957.

Further reading

• Charters, Ann (editor). The Portable Beat Reader. Penguin Books, New York, 1992. ISBN 0-670-83885-3 (hardcover); ISBN 0-14-015102-8 (paperback)
• Collins, Ronald & Skover, David. Mania: The Story of the Outraged & Outrageous Lives that Launched a Cultural Revolution (Top-Five Books, March 2013)
• Ginsberg, Allen. Howl. Critical edition from 1986, edited by Barry Miles, featuring Original Draft Facsimile, Transcript & Variant Versions, Fully Annotated by Author, with Contemporaneous Correspondence, Account of First Public Reading, Legal Skirmishes, Precursor Texts & Bibliography ISBN 0-06-092611-2 (paperback)
• Lounela, Pekka and Mäntylä, Jyrki: Huuto ja meteli. [Howl and turmoil.] Hämeenlinna: Karisto, 1970.
• Miles, Barry. Ginsberg: A Biography. London: Virgin Publishing Ltd., 2001. Paperback edition, 628 pages. ISBN 0-7535-0486-3
• Raskin, Jonah. American Scream: Allen Ginsberg's Howl and the Making of the Beat Generation. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004. ISBN 0-520-24015-4

External links

• The Allen Ginsberg Project
• The Poetry Archive: Allen Ginsberg
• Allen Ginsberg on Poets.org Includes audio recordings, poems, and essays from the Academy of American Poets.
• Complete text of "Howl" and "Footnote to Howl" available at the Poetry Foundation
• Allen Ginsberg performing his famously censored Beat poem "Howl" (1959)
• Naropa Audio Archives: Allen Ginsberg lecture (August 6, 1976) Streaming audio and 64 kbps MP3 ZIP
• Naropa Audio Archives: Anne Waldman and Allen Ginsberg reading including "Howl" (August 9, 1975) Streaming audio and 64 kbps MP3 ZIP
• Allen Ginsberg Live in London Site promoting DVD of Ginsberg's final poetry reading in the UK on October 19, 1995.
• After five decades, Ginsberg's "Howl" continues to resonate
• Allen Ginsberg recites "Howl" and other poems at Reed College, February 1956. Archived 6 September 2015 at the Wayback Machine
• Howls of Anger and Liberation Review of the film Howl by The Nation.
• "Howl for Carl Solomon", manuscript and typescript with autograph corrections and annotations Original drafts of "Howl" hosted by Stanford Digital Repository.
• Howl Obscenity Trial: Verdict