Reading it at one’s own pace, in one’s own inner voice, is one way to experience “Howl,” but listening to Ginsberg read it, the ferocity and heat of his words, his near-monotonic New Jersey drone an odd juxtaposition to the teeming life described, is something else altogether. Ginsberg was a counterculture hero until his death, and “Howl” was his crowning achievement. “Howl” was a seismic shock, transcending the confines of literature to become a cultural marker-its publication triggered a precedent-setting obscenity trial, the ramifications of which are still being felt today. Why, you might wonder, is this magazine, whose focus is rock music, running a review of a poem, especially one from six decades ago? For one thing, its impact on a generation-particularly many of those who would put poetry to music in the following decade (see Zimmerman, Robert)-is incalculable. “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…” So begins one of the most famous and controversial poems ever written, Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl,” first published in 1956.
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