Uncomfortable Armchair Reading - Allen Ginsberg - 'Howl'

I have realised that whatever I write in these blogs is influenced by what is going on around me at that precise moment, but interestingly I seem to create an atmosphere which assists me with my thought processes. Having re-read Allen Ginsberg’s ‘Howl’ I have just started to play Duke Ellington’s take on the Nutcracker suite; there is a link. Poetry is too often thought of as rhyming couplet love sonnets whilst jazz musicians are not expected to play classical ballet scores. Ginsberg’s poem is definitely in the ‘classical’ jazz genre, for me it is a thought provoking piece about modern day life – a non rhyming gritty flash imagery comment about life. It is poetry that should be spoken out loud and not the variety to be sent on perfumed parchment. For me the central theme of Ginsberg’s poem is the disillusionment with modern day life; though the poem was dedicated, it is not about one specific ‘hero’ but rather the many variations of people who are not at ease with life. Initially I thought that the poem was about the many people who are shunned because of their actions; people who for many reasons do not quite fit the mould. However, it is also about the people who have tried to fit the mould. For me it is ultimately a poem about the suffering of man; it is about suicide and life and despair and hope. It is gritty and at times uncomfortable reading.

I think that I ought to expand this thought as this poem creates a persona, or memorial for the crazies who have jumped off the Brooklyn bridge; in a strange way it honours these fallen soldiers for whom life has caused such despair – it is just a thought but maybe I was initially mistaken and the poem is not about the despair of the tormented souls but rather of the poet, and by extension the reader’s despair as they are unable to help or even truly understand the plight. It is the howl of the bystander, the friend, the relative, the poet as well as all the others who despair. I find it a perversely noble poem.

Following this logic, for me the poem cannot be fixed upon the generation for whom it was written; it is transcendent – I read it today, fifty-five years after it was written and can relate and take meaning from it. I suspect that this poem could be appreciated by past, present and future if they were prepared to open up to it as it is not disposable literature – it is steeped with emotion, it spits out thoughts and images – so many variations of despairing, disillusioned, unhinged, tortured, mad people in a modern day developed world are recounted.

This poem could be set and be written for the society of the 1960s; the generation of naked protest; of wide eyed drug induced hippies and the philosopher tramps preaching from cardboard boxes under railway bridges to invisible audiences – there are wide spread photographs. But I find this attitude problematic as it suggests that this raw despair and disillusionment was somehow unique to the sixties. I am sure that people today despair, as they would have done a thousand years ago. The reasons for, the attitudes towards it and the patterns of behaviour displayed may alter – but I am sure all have and will howl.