Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #441577 in Books
• Published on: 1996-02-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 56 pages

Synopsis
One of the century's most famous and fabulous poems was published in 1956 as the fourth Pocket Poets book. With a new preface by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, HOWL celebrates its fortieth anniversary with this deluxe commemorative hardback, which reproduces the original City Lights edition. HOWL was a prophetic masterpiece that revolutionised American poetry and American consciousness - not least because of the authorities' attempts to suppress HOWL, leading to a historic judgement in the book's favour that paved the way for the publication of other important radical literary works.

Customer Reviews

Don't just read poetry, hear to it!
This CD comprises of Ginsberg reading a selection of the poems from Ginsberg's Howl & other poems including an unabridged live recording of Howl.

The sound quality is good, the words are audible and clear though it is by no means a pristine studio reading (hence no 5 stars).

By listening to this you can get a sense of the fervour and energy Ginsberg had about his poetry. This is what the Beat Generation was about and you can hear it rather than try and work it out from the biographies and second hand accounts.

This is good stuff and I'd recommed it to anyone.

Greatest Literary Feat Of Our Time
When Allen Ginsburg first began reading the poem "Howl" in coffee shops around San Francisco, he was immediately berated by city and state officials for breaking obsenity laws. Instead of backing off, he continued to write and read his poetry despite these official inquries. In doing so he established himself as one of the most out spoken writers of his time. In "Howl" he captures the universal feeling of hopelessness, yet does so with a small glimmer of hope. This feeling can best be described in the opening line of "Howl", "I have seen the greatest minds of my generation destroyed by madness" Truelly a great work, in my humble opinion one of the best ever.

Buy it for Howl, enjoy it for the others...
To be completely honest, I don't find Howl as interesting as I find Ginsberg's other poems. While Howl does reach the soul, I find that Ginsberg's poems America, Sunflower Sutra, and A Supermarket in California are much more effective this and a lot less annoying to read. I found myself plugging away through Howl because it got redundant and boring. The other poems are fresh and more personal than Howl. Howl is a great poem and it is easy to see how it receives so much acclaim, but as a fan of Ginsberg's work, I find that Howl pales in comparison to Ginsberg's America. By all means, purchase this book, but don't buy it with the expectation that Howl is the best poem in there, because it isn't.