Modern Poet’s On-screen “Howl” As Good as Aptly Named Poem

One of my favorite poems by writer Allen Ginsberg is not his most well-known. In “Walt Whitman in the Supermarket,” Ginsberg creates an absurdist, dreamlike world where the speaker encounters the gentle bearded Bard amidst the aisles of canned goods and packaged meats in a sensually-disconnected consumerist society. “Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors close in an hour. Which way does your beard point tonight? (I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the supermarket and feel absurd.),” he writes.

 The controversy surrounding Ginsberg’s most famous poem, however, recently became the title and focal point of a well-wrought film. “Howl” chronicles the creative life of Ginsberg’s earlier years, from his San Francisco poetry readings to the obscenity trial focused on the poem, the verdict of which was not guilty for his publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

Born June 3, 1926, Ginsberg was one of the most recognizable figures often associated with the 1950s Beat Generation and did not compose “comforting” poetry. His verse is no “Chicken Soup for the Soul.” Wrought with disillusionment and desperation, Ginsberg established himself as the voice of a generation that questioned injustice, dogma, and the harsh demands of life in a burgeoning post-war military-industrial society.

The poem begins with some of the most memorable lines in modern American poetry: “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, angel-headed hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night, who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz...”

The lines meander and flow like the sentiment they contain, and these aren’t short, compact, fixed form, rhyming lines. Instead, they resemble the long lines of Whitman, the poet Ginsberg’s speaker references in the aforementioned poem. Read aloud, the poems exact the improvisational rhythm of jazz.

The images of the corresponding film meander and flow in the same way. The filmmakers take risks, creating a montage of colorful, surreal imagery and letting that imagery overtake the screen while Ginsberg, played by actor James Franco, reads for a crowd of listeners. The imagery is juxtaposed against the black and white scenery of Ginsberg performing zealously at the helm of his audience, which included well-known fellow writers and friends.

 The acting and filmmaking certainly is a refreshing turn from some of the simplistic commercial fare so rampant at the movie theater these days. Unfortunately, the viewing public must prefer the former—if duration and venue are any indication, because the movie played only one week at a single theater in Memphis.

Another obstacle might be lack of familiarity with Ginsberg, and perhaps the disillusionment and boldness exhibited in his work do not suit all palates. When I taught his work last spring in a junior-level undergraduate modern poetry class, I felt as if I had to make an argument for Ginsberg’s defense. His merit as an artist and his importance in terms of historical context, however, are undeniable—and should not be judged merely on matter of taste.

 The like or dislike of poetry is not the issue. Ginsberg is one of those rare, energetic, insightful, incisive poets emblematic of a particular era, and one would do well to read at least a sampling of his work in order to be better culturally literate.

Although desperate and disillusioned, Ginsberg—and his poetic speakers—also exhibited optimism and positivity in other ways. He celebrated sensuality and enlightenment. Eventually, he used his writing as a voice for social change after becoming well known and reading in myriad venues.

Ginsberg’s last years were plagued by illness, and he died in his New York apartment of terminal liver cancer in 1997 at the age of 70 surrounded by loved ones. In a fitting tribute, the modern poet William Carlos Williams had written of Ginsberg in the introduction to his poem “Howl”: “This poet sees through and all around the horrors he partakes of in the very intimate details of his poem. He avoids nothing but experiences it to the hilt. He contains it. Claims it as his own—and, we believe, laughs at it and has the time and effrontery to love a fellow of his choice and record that love in a well-made poem."