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Howl
Allen Ginsberg wrote the poem 'Howl' in 1956; in the grey fifties it rang out as a clarion call - at once elegiac and declamatory - a voice for it's times. Today it continues to sing and echo through the babble of the world...
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'Howl'; first recording found: February 1956
The first recording of Allen Ginsberg reading Howl has been discovered at Reed College in which he reads some of the poem to a small student group;"I don't really feel like reading any more. I just sorta haven't got any kine of steam," he said as the recording ends.
Hear the recording at 'Howl' by Allen Ginsberg at Reed College multimedia. Click the Multimedia links, and then choose the poems from the list. If they don't play, choose 'Alternative Player'
Previousy it was thought the first recording was made in Berkeley College, California, a month later in March 1956.
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Howl Against Censorship
Pacifica radio programme about Howl broadcast on the Internet, includes a recording of Ginsberg reading the whole poem and reflections from the poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti who originally published Howl and faced jail 50 years ago.
Listen to...Howl Commemoration on Pacifica radio including a complete reading of Howl by Ginsberg .
Read the text of Howl (read as you listen?)
Download an mp3 of the Howl programme from Pacifica including a complete reading of Howl by Ginsberg . For home and study use only - not for re-publishing.
....and as I downloaded it and played it back through 'Windows Media Player 10', it put 'Howl' in the 'Comedy' category of the play list: ..."divine comedy", perhaps, my little MS friends.......
Poster of Ginsberg - 'Howl Against Censorship': Pacifica.
posted, October 2007; links checked November, 2007
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'Howl' banned again! October 2007.
A 50th anniversary reading to be broadcast on radio has been banned by the intervention of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC are the people who fined CBS $550,000 for the Janet Jackson peekaboob moment - her "wardrobe malfunction" - during the Superbowl interval on tv.
Ginsberg wrote this in Howl Part 1 in 1957: "...who were expelled from the academies for crazy & publishing obscene odes on the windows of the skull..."
In 2007, fifty years later, WBAI, a radio station with attitude decided last week that it couldn't risk a 50th anniversary broadcast of the late poet's recording in it's news coverage, though it did publish the text on it's website. Apparantly you can read but not listen.
The result of draconian fines is a growing tendency toward self-censorship; as ACLU Legislative Counsel Marv Johnson said, "It’s no longer accurate to say free speech has rolled back to the fifties – it’s worse now. A radio station cannot possibly celebrate the First Amendment by being forced to gag its announcers and point to a website. ‘Howl’ captured the essence of a society on the brink of explosion, and the ‘Howl’ obscenity decision marked a forward march toward greater free speech. If the FCC and our lawmakers want to repeat the repression of the 1950s, they should remember that even then the country was inching toward more freedom, not less."
Reports of the banning
:: report by ACLU, 3rd October 2007
:: report in Jersey Writers, 8th October 2007
:: check out ACLU - American Civil Liberties Union
:: check out FCC - Federal Communications Commission
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'A Supermarket in California'
Professor Zebra, who is one smart cookie, leads a reading group in Yorkshire, England in the "climate change" Summer of 2007. "Guys, let's start with the 'A Supermarket in California'.
"What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for I walked down the sidestreets under the trees with a headache self-concious looking at the full moon.
In my hungry fatigue and shopping for images, I went into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming...."
"and you - Garcia Lorca - what are you doing down by the watermelons?"
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Ask Professor Zebra
New to 'Howl' and the poetry of Allen Ginsberg ? Who was Walt Whitman? Who was Lorca? Who was Moloch? Who was Carl Solomon?
Mail your question to Professor Zebra.
Hi Professor Zebra,........
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'Howl' on trial: June 1957
Howl and Other Poems by Allen Ginsberg was published in 1956 as 'Number Four' in 'The Pocket Poet Series' by Lawrence Ferlinghetti's City Lights Books in San Francisco.
Its opening lines sing with the spirit of Walt Whitman's 'body electric, the "long breath" of Herman Melville and the texts of his Jewish up-bringing:
"I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,
digging themselves through the negro streets at dawn loking for an angry fix..."
In the introduction to 'Howl' the poet William Carlos Williams forewarned of the journey ahead of the reader when he said, "Hold back the edges of your gowns, Ladies, we are going through hell"
The US Customs siezed 520 copies of the second printing - which had been done in England - on the grounds of "obsenity" but no case was brought to court. The next printing - done this time in USA - brought about a set-up by the Police Dept. Two officers from their Juvenille Bureau entered the City Lights Bookstore and bought a copy of Howl; This instance of a sale resulted in a case being brought against the bookstore for "peddling" literature likely to be harmful to a minor. The counter assistant , Shig Murao, who had sold the book was arrested and a few days later Lawrence Ferlighetti turned himself in. The case was taken to court in 1957, three years before the Lady Chatterley trial in Britain. Howl was defended by poets and academics as well as lawyers who focussed on it's merits as poetry. The judge said, in pronouncing his verdict, "I conclude the book 'Howl and ther Poems', does have some redeeeming importance, and I find this book is not obscene." |And so we were free to read on...
The copy of Howl in the picture is from the 19th printing of June 1967, by which time 146,000 copies had been printed. It cost six shillings and six pence in London, where I bought it - that's 35p in today's money. By that time, Howl was established as a key text in Western poetry and with Kerouac's 'On the Road' part of the voice of its generation. Compared with the publishing figures of the Internet today, which are measured in millions, such a huge cultural effect from such a seemingy small distribution seems quite odd - perhaps it's what the readers do in return that matters, not how many are printed...the Howl of the long tail?
25th June 2007 - the day of the great Yorkshire floods.
:: Ferlinghetti on the trial: Howl on trial.
:: There's also a book, 'Howl on Trial: the Battle for Freedom of Expression' edited by Bill Morgan & Nancy Peters with an introduction by Lawrence Ferlinghetti; published by City Lights Books, 2006.
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Listen to 'Howl'
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Ginsberg and Waldman reading poems.
Anne Waldman and Allen Ginsberg reading their poetry in 1985 (?). Internet Archive. Waldman reads "Fast Speaking Woman" and other poems. Ginsberg reads "Howl" and other poems. This item is part of the collection: Naropa Poetics Audio Archives recorded by Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics
:: Listen Now!
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I am the King of the May
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Allen Ginsberg reads I am the King of the May about his visit to Prague in 1965. Recorded in the City Lights Bookshop. In the opening shot he is seen sitting next to Neal Cassady.
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Father Death Blues
Jeremy Issacs asks Ginsberg "How shall we remeber you?" He replies by singing 'Father Death Blues' to his own accompaniment on the harmonium. Presumably it is a BBC programme. Listen on You Tube to Father Death Blues
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Phillip Glass & Patti Smith: Ginsberg tribute, 2007.
Last night at St. Lukes, in London, England, the punk-chantreuse and lyric poet Miss Patti Smith and the eminent composer Mr.Phillip Glass, assisted by the London Symphony Orchestra, gave a concert in tribute to Beat poet Allen Ginsberg, late of this earth though still a "strong presense in our lives", on the 50th anniversary of the trial of his iconic poem 'Howl'.
A special dedication was given to the monks of Burma from the musicians and their muse for the evening, Allen Ginsberg, "the naughty Buddhist".
:: Guardian report
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The Beats
More about The Beats in shapesoftime at The Beats
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About and feedback
The 'Howl' page is edited by Marshall Mateer. It was first published in August 2007. It was last updated on the 28th February 2008. If you have any feedback please write to me at info@shapesoftime.net
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Copyright
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