Allen Ginsberg, "Howl" Cultural Imapact
Howl’s Explicit Language and Revolution
“Poetry is not an expression of the party line. It's that time of night, lying in bed, thinking what you really think, making the private world public, that's what the poet does.” Allen Ginsberg believed this wholly and based his means of poetry by what he said in this sentence. One cannot censor thoughts, just as one can’t censor expression. Ginsberg faced controversy for sexual content and profanities that he used in his poetry, but those were merely his private thoughts that he brought to the public. His poetry fueled a whole generational revolution in the 1950s. In times of cookie cutter uniformity Allen Ginsberg went against norm and wrote explicit poetry for the sake of expressing a counter-culture point of view. The way he used inappropriate language and sexual content was his weapon against the institutions of the time. He performed live readings that captivated and roused the crowd. Ginsberg did not write his poems for public approval, his poem “Howl,” in particular received bad press. The press bad or otherwise only added desire to read this poem (“Allen Ginsberg.”). The explicit language and sexual content Ginsberg used in his poetry was meant to start a revolution of sorts and many thought it did. It questioned the preconceived concepts society had been accepting, such as consumerism, a close-minded view on sexuality, and an intolerant stand on drug use. Many said that the crudeness of his poetry was unnecessary, but it can be argued that his uncensored expression was the basis of his genius.
Allen Ginsberg wrote, “In publishing ‘Howl,’ I was curious to leave behind after my generation an emotional time bomb that would continue exploding in the U.S. consciousness in case our military-industrial-nationalist complex solidified into a repressive police bureaucracy…I thought to disseminate a poem so strong that a clean Saxon four-letter word might enter high school anthologies permanently and deflate
“Poetry is not an expression of the party line. It's that time of night, lying in bed, thinking what you really think, making the private world public, that's what the poet does.” Allen Ginsberg believed this wholly and based his means of poetry by what he said in this sentence. One cannot censor thoughts, just as one can’t censor expression. Ginsberg faced controversy for sexual content and profanities that he used in his poetry, but those were merely his private thoughts that he brought to the public. His poetry fueled a whole generational revolution in the 1950s. In times of cookie cutter uniformity Allen Ginsberg went against norm and wrote explicit poetry for the sake of expressing a counter-culture point of view. The way he used inappropriate language and sexual content was his weapon against the institutions of the time. He performed live readings that captivated and roused the crowd. Ginsberg did not write his poems for public approval, his poem “Howl,” in particular received bad press. The press bad or otherwise only added desire to read this poem (“Allen Ginsberg.”). The explicit language and sexual content Ginsberg used in his poetry was meant to start a revolution of sorts and many thought it did. It questioned the preconceived concepts society had been accepting, such as consumerism, a close-minded view on sexuality, and an intolerant stand on drug use. Many said that the crudeness of his poetry was unnecessary, but it can be argued that his uncensored expression was the basis of his genius.
Allen Ginsberg wrote, “In publishing ‘Howl,’ I was curious to leave behind after my generation an emotional time bomb that would continue exploding in the U.S. consciousness in case our military-industrial-nationalist complex solidified into a repressive police bureaucracy…I thought to disseminate a poem so strong that a clean Saxon four-letter word might enter high school anthologies permanently and deflate
Cited: “Allen Ginsberg.” The Poetry Foundation. Web. 15 Mar. 2013. versions, fully annotated by author. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2006. Print.