Subscribe to the Biography Newsletter

Like Biography on Facebook

 PEOPLE
 NOSTALGIA
 CELEBRITY
 HISTORY & CULTURE
 CRIME & SCANDAL
 VIDEO

QUICK FACTS

NAME

Allen Ginsberg

OCCUPATION

Poet

BIRTH DATE

June 3, 1926

DEATH DATE

April 5, 1997
 EDUCATION

Columbia University

PLACE OF BIRTH

Newark, New Jersey

PLACE OF DEATH

New York, New York

AKA

Allen Ginsberg

FULL NAME

Irwin Allen Ginsberg

 SYNOPSIS
 EARLY LIFE AND SCHOOLING
 WRITING 'HOWL'
 HIGHLY INFLUENTIAL ARTIST
 DEATH
 CITE THIS PAGE
QUOTES

1 of 6
“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, angelheaded
hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of
night...”
—Allen Ginsberg

Allen Ginsberg Biography
Poet (1926–1997)

UPDATED:
APR 12, 2019
ORIGINAL:
JUL 27, 2015





Allen Ginsberg is one of the 20th century's most influential poets, regarded as a founding
father of the Beat Movement and known for works like "Howl."
Synopsis

Allen Ginsberg was born on June 3, 1926, in Newark, New Jersey, and eventually became one of
the founding fathers of the Beat Generation with his revolutionary poem "Howl." Ginsberg was a
prolific writer who also championed gay rights and anti-war movements, protesting the Vietnam
War and coining the phrase "Flower Power." Even with his countercultural background, he
became recognized as one of American's foremost writers and artistic icons. He died on April 5,
1997, at age 70.

Early Life and Schooling

Irwin Allen Ginsberg was born on June 3, 1926, in Newark, New Jersey, and grew up in the city
of Paterson. His mother Naomi had immigrated from Russia to the states while his father Louis
was a poet and teacher. The young Ginsberg, who kept a journal from his pre-teen years and took
to the poetry of Walt Whitman in high school, went on to attend Columbia University. While
there he met former Columbia student Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs, who would all
become literary icons of a revolutionary cultural movement. Ginsberg started to focus on his
writing during the mid-1940s while also exploring his attraction to men.

Writing 'Howl'

Ginsberg graduated from Columbia in 1948, but in the following year was involved as an
accomplice in a robbery. To avoid jail time, Ginsberg pleaded insanity, spending time in the
university's mental health facilities. Upon his release, he started to study under poet William
Carlos Williams and worked for a time at a Manhattan ad agency.

In 1954, Ginsberg moved to San Francisco and became part of the countercultural gathering that
would come to be known as the Beat Movement, which used a number of artistic and sensory
modes to eschew rigid rules of society. It was also in the Bay Area where Ginsberg met model
Peter Orlovsky, who would become his companion.
Then in 1955, Ginsberg read excerpts from his poem "Howl" at a gallery, which became a key
manifesto of the Beat Generation and was published the following year by City Lights Bookstore
in the form of Howl and Other Poems. "Howl" was an eye-opening work in its explorations of
sexuality, anguish and social issues in non-traditional poetic form, relying on a freewheeling mix
of influences.

The poem was deemed as being obscene and Ginsberg was tried for its content, though he was
vindicated once the presiding judge ruled the work had merit. The resulting publicity placed
Ginsberg and his work in the spotlight and as icons of anti-censorship. During this time Ginsberg
experienced deep loss as his mother, who had suffered from a history of severe mental health
issues, died in 1956, two days after receiving a lobotomy.

READ NEXT
WRITERS
 Jack Kerouac

 (1922–1969)
 WRITERS

William S. Burroughs

 (1914–1997)
WRITERS
 Ken Kesey

 AUTHOR, JOURNALIST (1935–2001)

Highly Influential Artist

Ginberg's next published work, Kaddish and Other Poems 1958-1960, featured the poem
''Kaddish for Naomi Ginsberg (1894-1956),'' which explored his mother's past and his feelings
about their relationship. It is regarded by many as one of his strongest, most affecting works.

Ginsberg was prolific with his writing during the '60s, with some of his published titles
including Reality Sandwiches (1963) and Planet News 1961-1967 (1969), and also worked with
musical forms as well. Ginsberg also came up with the phrase "flower power," which he used to
describe the peace movements that fueled much of the anti-war demonstrations he took part in,
including his protests against the Vietnam War.

Ginsberg was an advocate of drug use, though he would generally walk away from this position
after he studied yoga and meditation during a 1962 voyage to India. Ginsberg later converted to
Buddhism and founded the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics of the Naropa Institute,
which focused on Buddhist teachings. He was also a world traveler, remaining for extended
periods of time in Latin America and Europe.

Ginsberg won the 1974 National Book Award for his work The Fall of America: Poems of these
States 1965-1971, and over the ensuing years, became increasingly renowned for the importance
and influence of his work, receiving accolades like the 1986 Robert Frost Medal. In the 1980s
and '90s, he continued to write and worked with musical artists like Philip Glass, Bono, Sonic
Youth and the Clash.

Death

Already ailing from hepatitis and congestive heart failure, among other health issues, Ginsberg
was diagnosed with liver cancer in the spring of 1997. He died shortly after on April 5, 1997, in
his East Village loft surrounded by friends and old lovers. He was 70 years old. A massive
collection of his work can be found with the book Collected Poems 1947-1997.

"Howl," Part I, verses 1 - 76

                            

Allen Ginsberg's Poetry Summary and

Analysis of "Howl," Part I, verses 1 - 76
Summary
“Howl” was written by Ginsberg in 1955 and finished in 1956. It was
Ginsberg’s first major work to be performed in public and published. The
poem gained wide celebrity in the Beatnik culture of San Francisco after the
“Six Gallery reading,” an event organized by Ginsberg and the place where
he first read Part I. “Howl” is best known for its first and second parts,
though Ginsberg wrote a third part and a fourth part entitled “Footnote to
Howl.” This fourth part was separate from the first three and titled this
because it was a variation on the structure and rhythm of the first three
parts. The poem’s subtitle, “For Carl Solomon,” dedicates the poem to his
friend whom Ginsberg met in a mental institution. Though Solomon was
never a poet in the traditional sense (he did some minor writing), Ginsberg
found real genius in his life and his insanity. Some of Part I documents
Solomon’s struggle with insanity, while Part II is specifically dedicated to
Solomon’s life and tragedy.
The title of Ginsberg's poem prepares the reader for what to expect.  This
will not be a quiet poem.  It will not be a sonnet or an ode.  It will be a poem
of noise and unsettling images and themes.  Ginsberg wanted “Howl” to
express the pent up frustration, artistic energy, and self-destruction of his
generation, a generation that he felt was being suppressed by a dominant
American culture that valued conformity over artistic license and
opportunity.  For a poet or the individual to howl, meant that that person was
breaking from the habit of conformity to the virtues and ideals of American
civilization and expressing a counter-cultural vision of free expression.

The title also expresses one of the major themes in the poem - that of
madness.  To howl is usually associated with animals howling at the moon,
an image that Ginsberg wanted to convey.  The artists of the Beat generation
were like animals, instinctively wild and only allowed out at night into an
underground scene of literature and jazz not accepted by more cultured
members of society.  The moon is also a symbol associated with madness. 
Medical opinions from the nineteenth century and before believed that
persons who were mad or evil would naturally manifest these tendencies
when the moon was full.  To howl at the moon in poetic and artistic terms,
then, is to announce that madness has entered into society and will not be
silently put away.  This is a theme that Ginsberg would return to throughout
his career.

"Howl" does not keep the traditional meter or rhythm of a poem but is
instead meant to be an extended diatribe or association and stream of
consciousness writing.  Ginsberg uses a triadic verse form, the form used by
his mentor William Carlos Williams, but he extends the lines out to his own
long breath length.  Each line was meant to be spoken in a single breath. 
Ginsberg was specifically trying to use Kerouac's prose and the way his own
rhythms mirrored jazz music as inspiration.
One important thing to note about "Howl" is that it is a male-centric poem. 
Ginsberg speaks from a male point of view, but it is a decidedly homosexual
male point of view.  Like other Beat writers, Ginsberg's poem creates women
that are simply ancillary characters to the male protagonists.  Women are
there for sex, for children, and to be a kind of anchor for men to the "real
world."  This role is not one that is ever glorified.  The male is the hero.  He is
free to experiment in life; with drugs, with sex, with art. 

Ginsberg begins "Howl" by describing his subjects.  This is arguably the most
famous line in all of Ginsberg's poetry: "I saw the best minds of my
generation destroyed by madness...." These "best minds" are Ginsberg's
friends, literary associates, and acquaintances - all of those that would
become associated with the Beat generation, and they are collectively the
protagonists of the story that “Howl” attempts to tell in a broken, stream of
consciousness style. To call “Howl” a “story” is not really accurate. While
there are traces of narrative within the poem as it moves from location to
location, it is meant to be more of a snapshot of Beatnik life. It is the
fractured stories of the fractured lives of the “best minds.” Ginsberg uses the
"who" to start many of the lines and to designate these “best minds” as the
character for the poem.

It is worth reflecting on why Ginsberg believed these people to be the “best

minds” of his generation. Of course, there were several individuals in
Ginsberg’s circle of friends that went on to become known as some of the
greatest figures in twentieth century literature, including Jack
Kerouac and William S. Burroughs. But there were just as many who never
gained literary or artistic fame or who were not even interested in creating
their own art or literature or original thought. These were still the “best
minds” for Ginsberg because they were outside of the group think that
characterized the domestic, militaristic, unthinking patriotism of the time.
Their minds were not captured by America’s hegemonic culture. They were
able to think outside of these restraints and were, therefore, in Ginsberg’s
mind, the best of citizens in a wayward republic.
Analysis
Lines 1 - 26
"Howl" is partly a reflection on what American culture and society of the
1940's and 50's had done to those that would not line up in conformity to
American culture and politics.  Madness is a central theme.  The militaristic,
dominant culture of the time had "destroyed" this generation, driven them
into "madness," and left them vulnerable and "hysterical." (1-2).  This
desperation has left them "angry" and in "poverty" and disconnected from
the spiritual realities of life (3-5).  But these people are also scared of the
authority that has abused them and left them as outcasts.  This is both a
physical hardship that has left them poor and unable to honestly earn a
living because of their political beliefs and artistic calling, and it is a mental
hardship.  Ginsberg describes this as "...listening to the Terror through the
wall" (17).

Yet, for as angry and hysterical as these individuals are because of the
culture that suppresses them, Ginsberg also suggests that they also
represent a certain kind of salvation for the rest of America, though it is a
salvation that has yet to be achieved.  He calls these individuals
"angelheaded hipsters" and suggests that they are "burning" for a
relationship with spiritual things, represented by the starry sky (Lines 5-6). 
He says that these individuals "bared their brains" to these spiritual things. 
While there was a strong spiritual dimension to almost all of the Beat
writings, Ginsberg does not single out a particular belief system as holding
the key to truth.  The "best minds" opened themselves up to "El," which is a
name for God used in the Hebrew Bible by the Jews, and they witnessed
"Mohammedan angels" in their hallucination, a nod towards Islam. 

Lines 12 - 15 put these "best minds" in conflict with the established literary
and intellectual culture and they refer to Ginsberg's own difficulty within
these more refined cultures.  Ginsberg talks of how the "best minds" went to
the most distinguished universities, though he notes that they only "passed
through," denoting that they did not stay or make any kind of significant
academic or intellectual impact on these institutions.  This is because,
Ginsberg insinuates, the artistic visions that the "best minds" produced
would never be accepted by such institutions.  Ginsberg uses the derisive
term "scholars of war" to symbolize how academic culture had ceded their
power to the political and military power of the day.  He then notes how
these "best minds" were expelled from their universities for the kinds of work
they published.  Ginsberg himself had much of his earliest work, including a
draft of a novel, rejected by professors and administration who found his
subject to be unappealing and not worthy of serious thought.  Allen had a
run-in with the President of Columbia after he wrote an obscene message on
his dorm room window, an incident which echoes in the line "Obscene odes
on the windows of the skull..." (14-15). 

The opening of "Howl" also begins by describing the context of these "best
minds."  This is an urban context, bustling cities with frenetic energy.  It
must be remembered that the mid-twentieth century marked a turning point
in population and geography in America.  For the first time, more people
were living in cities than in rural areas.  Many came because of the rise of
corporate and industrial culture that brought jobs and wealth and created
the American middle class, but these urban areas also fostered vibrant art,
music, and literary scenes.  The energy of these movements were what
attracted the Beats to cities like New York, San Francisco, and Chicago.

Ginsberg describes this urban context in a myriad of ways.  He calls them

"negro streets," an allusion to the Beat's fascination with African American
culture, especially jazz music.  Much of the Beat's writing, including "Howl",
is modeled on jazz rhythms and expressions.  Ginsberg sees these urban
contexts as both environments of freedom but also as prisons that can
entrap the mind and ultimately destroy the individual.  In one minute, the
artist can see "angels staggering on the tenement roofs" (10-11) while on
the high of drugs and drunkenness.  The city allows the poet to contemplate
things like jazz, poetry, and art with a community of people that see the
world in the same way.  Yet, the city is also a destructive force full of
injustice.  Ginsberg and his friends repeatedly saw instances of such injustice
as police and authorities kept close watch on their activities and used any
instance possible to make arrests or charge them with crimes.  Being unfairly
targeted, Ginsberg suggests, is what ultimately drove the Beat poets and
artists underground, into a world of drugs and violence and sex.  These
oppressed young men lived in "waking nightmares" of "drugs...alcohol and
cock and endless balls, / incomparable blind streets of shuddering cloud..."
(22-24).  It is not these licentious acts of drug use and homosexuality that
themselves destroy these young men, but it is instead the way in which they
are forced to hide and suppress these acts and the way in which they are
persecuted for them that ultimately cause this urban context to be a context
of destruction and injustice.

Lines 27-46
Location begins to become an important theme in "Howl."  The poem now
starts to move through different locales all over the United States.  This
movement of place is characteristic of Beat literature.  The post World War II
generation that the Beat's were a part of was the first American generation
that had the ability to travel widely with relative ease.  Automobiles had
become easily available to middle and lower class families.  Systems of state
and national highways connected distant locales and, later, the interstate
system which began being built in the 1950's, would connect the entire
country with high speed roads.  This ability to travel to different places, to
see and experience different parts of the country, and to observe a kind of
national life was a central theme to Beat literature.  Though "Howl" is not as
interested in describing America, its people, or its places, the poem is
demonstrative of the Beat impulse to move and to travel.

These lines use New York City as the setting for the continued description of
the "best minds."  New York was a meeting place for many of the Beat
writers such as Ginsberg, Kerouac, and Burroughs.  These figures became
central to connecting other members of the Beat movement from all across
the country.  Lines 27 - 31 paint a picture of a Brooklyn, New York scene. 
The scene plays off of the image of idealistic scenes of nature and civilization
contrasted with the psychedelic experiences and harsh living conditions for
these "best minds."  "Backyard green tree" is contrasted with "cemetery
dawns;" "storefront boroughs" are contrasted with "teahead (a slang term for
a habitual user of marijuana) joyride neon blinking traffic light;" "sun and
moon and tree vibrations" are contrasted with "winter dusks...."  The theme
here is that the New York City of the "best minds" is not the New York City
that others might see and experience.

Ginsberg then moves to the Bronx in lines 32-38, another borough of New
York City.  Again, contrast is the literary tool Ginsberg uses here.  It is the
idea of domesticity that is contrasted with drug abuse and drinking.  The
"best minds" travel to the Bronx near the Bronx zoo.  They are high on
benzedrine and they are confronted with "the noise of wheels and
children...."  This noise of domesticity is not just a symbol of "normal" life; for
the "best minds" this example of domestic life leaves them "mouth-wracked
and battered bleak of brain all drained of brilliance...."  Ginsberg suggests
that a "best mind" cannot live such a domestic life and retain their artistic
and poetic gifts.  This is a theme that Ginsberg will return to, incorporating
women into the picture, during later lines.  Ginsberg then sees the "best
minds" return to a more natural habitat: a Bickford's (a popular short order
diner in New York during the mid-twentieth century) and an empty Fugazzi's
(a bar) where they drink stale beer and listen to "the crack of doom on the
hydrogen jukebox...;" an allusion to the hydrogen bomb and nuclear war, a
stark reality at the end of World War II. This is a reference to Ginsberg’s own
life when, poor and alone in New York City, he took a job at a Bickford’s
sweeping the floors.

The tour of New York continues. In lines 39-40, Ginsberg writes that the “best
minds” “talked continuously seventy hours from park to pad to bar to
Bellevue / to museum to the Brooklyn Bridge.” Talking “continuously seventy
hours” is a reference to the Beat’s prolific use of Benzedrine, a stimulant
drug easily available in over the counter cold remedies. The drug was used
widely by the Beats to help them keep the stream of consciousness style, a
frenetic pace of words and thoughts, that is characteristic of their writing.
Ginsberg wrote a great deal of his poetry while on Benzedrine, including
“Kaddish,” which Ginsberg wrote in a prolific forty hour session. It was this
drug that drove the random metaphysical conversations that are woven
throughout “Howl.” But the drug also caused erratic behavior and sometimes
personal injury. Ginsberg describes these harsh effects of the drug in lines 43
and 44: “...screaming vomiting whispering... / ...eyeball kicks and shocks of
hospitals and jails and wars....”

Lines 27-46
Location begins to become an important theme in "Howl."  The poem now
starts to move through different locales all over the United States.  This
movement of place is characteristic of Beat literature.  The post World War II
generation that the Beat's were a part of was the first American generation
that had the ability to travel widely with relative ease.  Automobiles had
become easily available to middle and lower class families.  Systems of state
and national highways connected distant locales and, later, the interstate
system which began being built in the 1950's, would connect the entire
country with high speed roads.  This ability to travel to different places, to
see and experience different parts of the country, and to observe a kind of
national life was a central theme to Beat literature.  Though "Howl" is not as
interested in describing America, its people, or its places, the poem is
demonstrative of the Beat impulse to move and to travel.

These lines use New York City as the setting for the continued description of
the "best minds."  New York was a meeting place for many of the Beat
writers such as Ginsberg, Kerouac, and Burroughs.  These figures became
central to connecting other members of the Beat movement from all across
the country.  Lines 27 - 31 paint a picture of a Brooklyn, New York scene. 
The scene plays off of the image of idealistic scenes of nature and civilization
contrasted with the psychedelic experiences and harsh living conditions for
these "best minds."  "Backyard green tree" is contrasted with "cemetary
dawns;" "storefront boroughs" are contrasted with "teahead (a slang term for
a habitual user of marijuana) joyride neon blinking traffic light;" "sun and
moon and tree vibrations" are contrasted with "winter dusks...."  The theme
here is that the New York City of the "best minds" is not the New York City
that others might see and experience.

Ginsberg then moves to the Bronx in lines 32-38, another borough of New
York City.  Again, contrast is the literary tool Ginsberg uses here.  It is the
idea of domesticity that is contrasted with drug abuse and drinking.  The
"best minds" travel to the Bronx near the Bronx zoo.  They are high on
benzedrine and they are confronted with "the noise of wheels and
children...."  This noise of domesticity is not just a symbol of "normal" life; for
the "best minds" this example of domestic life leaves them "mouth-wracked
and battered bleak of brain all drained of brilliance...."  Ginsberg suggests
that a "best mind" cannot live such a domestic life and retain their artistic
and poetic gifts.  This is a theme that Ginsberg will return to, incorporating
women into the picture, during later lines.  Ginsberg then sees the "best
minds" return to a more natural habitat: a Bickford's (a popular short order
diner in New York during the mid-twentieth century) and an empty Fugazzi's
(a bar) where they drink stale beer and listen to "the crack of doom on the
hydrogen jukebox...;" an allusion to the hydrogen bomb and nuclear war, a
stark reality at the end of World War II. This is a reference to Ginsberg’s own
life when, poor and alone in New York City, he took a job at a Bickford’s
sweeping the floors.

The tour of New York continues. In lines 39-40, Ginsberg writes that the “best
minds” “talked continuously seventy hours from park to pad to bar to
Bellevue / to museum to the Brooklyn Bridge.” Talking “continuously seventy
hours” is a reference to the Beat’s prolific use of Benzedrine, a stimulant
drug easily available in over the counter cold remedies. The drug was used
widely by the Beats to help them keep the stream of consciousness style, a
frenetic pace of words and thoughts, that is characteristic of their writing.
Ginsberg wrote a great deal of his poetry while on Benzedrine, including
“Kaddish,” which Ginsberg wrote in a prolific forty hour session. It was this
drug that drove the random metaphysical conversations that are woven
throughout “Howl.” But the drug also caused erratic behavior and sometimes
personal injury. Ginsberg describes these harsh effects of the drug in lines 43
and 44: “...screaming vomiting whispering... / ...eyeball kicks and shocks of
hospitals and jails and wars....”

Lines 47-76
Ginsberg then begins to document the travel of the “best minds.” These
travel narratives are best exemplified in Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, the
story of Kerouac and Neal Cassady’s cross country trips from New York to San
Francisco to Mexico City. Ginsberg adds on to this travel mythology by
incorporating the stories of other Beat writers and artists. These lines in the
poem are based on the travels and stories many of Ginsberg’s friends and
acquaintances. They are meant not to document any one example of Beat
life but instead are meant to build a tapestry of experience while on the
road. Together, Ginsberg is saying, these represent the kind of Beatnik life
that was the norm for these “best minds.”
The first location of travel is New Jersey, not too far away from Ginsberg’s
home base of New York City and his original home state. Ginsberg describes
New Jersey as “nowhere Zen” (47) and “ambiguous” (48) and “bleak” (50),
meaning that he saw nothing special in the place, though he would later
memorialize his family’s opportunity in New Jersey in his poem “Kaddish.”
Being in New Jersey, Ginsberg writes, only makes him pine for the far off
places that his friends have left for. Ginsberg seems both awed and jealous
that these persons have been able to leave their home with no strings or
guilt, “leaving no broken hearts....” (52). They have left in many ways, and
Ginsberg writes that some have left as stow aways on freight trains bound
for the West. Line 53 emulates the rhythm of these trains, as if his own verse
is making the click clack sound of trains moving down tracks: “in boxcars
boxcars boxcars racketing through snow....”

While many of the “best minds” stayed within the bounds of American soil,
their thoughts and dreams were often in far off places. Ginsberg is especially
eager to visit the Far East. He calls his eagerness “Eastern sweats....” (49).
For the Beats there was a fascination with Eastern religion, philosophy, and
mystical thought. Ginsberg writes that the “best minds” studied “Plotinus
Poe St. John of the Cross telepathy and bop kabbalah....” (55). These figures
represent some of the best minds and best ideas from previous periods of
history and they fascinated Ginsberg and other Beat writers. Plotinus was an
ancient Greek philosopher who was considered the father of neoplatonism, a
school of philosophy that believed in a singular transcendent being. Poe
referes to Edgar Allen Poe, a poet and writer from the 19th century. Though
Poe, chiefly known for his horror fiction and poetry, might seem out of place
in this list of great minds, Ginsberg had a particular fascination with the
writer. Poe was receiving renewed interest during the middle of the twentieth
century with the publication of his complete works. Ginsberg saw Poe as a
unique American mind. Poe wrote about many of the same themes that
Ginsberg himself engaged: violence, political turmoil, and sexuality. For
Ginsberg, Poe was a “best mind” before his time. He was an artist that
Ginsberg felt would have fit very well into the Beatnik lifestyle of the
twentieth century.
Ginsberg also notes the influence of St. John of the Cross, a Saint from the
middle ages who was chiefly known for his mystical visions. Finally, Ginsberg
cites telepathy, a pseudo-science, and “bop kabbalah,” which he here means
to be a kind of pop culture incarnation of the Jewish mystical tradition.

Ginsberg then continues to document the travels of the “best minds.” They
searched for “visionary indian angels” in Idaho (57); they were “mad” in
Baltimore when they glimpsed the gleaming city (59); they hung around with
“Chinamen” and other foreigners in Oklahoma (61); and they roamed the
streets of Houston “seeking jazz or sex of / soup....” (63-64). These were the
Beat’s American travels, yet Ginsberg says that this was not enough for the
“best minds.” They took the time to “converse about America / and
Eternity...” but Ginsberg calls this a “hopeless task....” Their hopelessness
would send them to farther away places like Africa, a reference to William S.
Burrough’s exile to Tangiers, Morocco (64-65). Their foreign travels also took
them Mexico, Ginsberg tell us in line 66, a reference to his own travels to
that country. Ginsberg then compares these “best minds” to a volcano,
writing that their path from American to Mexico left behind nothing but “the
lava and ash of poetry....” (67).

The poem then returns to the United States, just as Ginsberg did after his
travels to Mexico. This time the setting is the West Coast. Ginsberg says that
the “best minds” “reappeared” and came under scrutiny of the FBI because
of their alternative lifestyle and political views. They drew the attention of
the authorities because they protested the “narcotic tobacco haze / of
Capitalism” and “distributed Supercommunist pamphlets in Union Square...”
(74). Ginsberg both defends their protests and acknowledges the enormity of
the things they were protesting. He notes that the “sirens of Los Alamos
wailed them down...” (75) a reference to the Los Alamos National Laboratory
in New Mexico, the lab which was home to the “Manhattan Project,” the
series of research and experiments that produced the atomic bomb. He also
says that there was a wail “down Wall,” (76) a reference with double
meaning, pointing towards the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, the site of the
remaining wall of the destroyed Jewish Temple where Jews pray in grief for
the restoration of Israel, and it is a reference to Wall Street, the symbol and
home of American capitalism.
"Howl," Part I, verses 77-222
                            
Allen Ginsberg's Poetry Summary and Analysis of
"Howl," Part I, verses 77-222
Summary
The second half of Part I continues with many of the themes of the earlier
lives. It is a documentary style of poetry, taking scenes and snippets from
Ginsberg's own life and interweaving them with incidents of insanity and
anarchy from the lives of his friends.

The use of African-American culture, especially jazz music, is a crucial point

of "Howl." Ginsberg references it in the first lines of the Part I, writing of the
"Negro" streets. Here, writing of some of the crazy and debauched acts of his
friend Neal Cassady, Ginsberg tells the reader that Cassady "leaped on
negroes." The line works in two ways because it tells of an actual event in
Cassady's life, but it also represents the way in which the Beat poets leaped
into African-American culture of the day.
It was a culture that was not accepted by white mainstream America. African-
Americans were not accepted into the institutions of society - schools,
government, or business. In many places there were treated as second class
citizens. Though the Beats could never fully participate in the suffering of
racism because almost all the Beats were white and from that middle or
working class that they rejected, they also felt rejected by the same society
that rejected African-Americans.
Jazz music as it was played in the backroom clubs in seedy and unruly parts
of San Francisco thus became a kind of beat that Ginsberg and his friends
would try and emulate in their work. This is exactly where the term "Beat
poets" came from. They rejected standard form and rhythm and embraced
the syncopated rhythms and improvisational styles of jazz. "Howl"
exemplifies this technique with the absence of formed stanza's and lines.
Ginsberg later said that "Howl" came from a deep place of consciousness
and that he only wanted to write what came naturally from his mind.

Analysis
Lines 77 - 112
Lines 79-81 remind the reader of the resistance to authority that the “best
minds” exhibited. Ginsberg claims that they were violent in their resistance,
attacking the police and resisting arrest. He claims that the “best minds” did
nothing wrong, but it is only that they did nothing wrong in their own minds.
They were arrested, he says, for “pederasty (a sexual relationship between a
boy and an older man) and intoxication....” Ginsberg is not necessarily
saying here that they did nothing wrong, only that he does not believe what
they did were worthy of criminal punishment.

Ginsberg continues documenting the madness, now focusing on the sex lives
of these “best minds.” Pederasty has already been mentioned - a reference
to Ginsberg’s own sexual relationships with several older members of the
Beats - but now he claims that they “howled on their knees in the subway,” a
coy reference to felatio (82) which he also describes in line 86. He claimed
that they were carried “off the roof / waving genitals and manuscripts,” proof
of how tied together work and sex were for these individuals. Ginsberg then
claims that they “let themselves be fucked in the ass,” an upfront and
graphic expression of homosexuality. This expression flew in the face of the
sexual conformity demanded by the dominant straight culture of the times.
Ginsberg makes no apologies for sex. It was not shameful or perverted; in
fact, he says, it was quite pleasurable. They “screamed with joy...” (85). But
their sexual lives were not just pleasure, he writes. They also contained the
pain of loneliness and lost love. Lines 88-90 explore the damage that these
unaccepted forms of sex and love exacted upon the “best minds.” They
“balled in the morning in the evenings” in the secret places they performed
their sexual acts. It was pain not only because they were not accepted by
mainstream society, but also because they could not find peace within their
sexual exploits as well.

Ginsberg’s language and descriptions continue to coarsen. In line 94 - 105,

Ginsberg explores the Beat’s relationship with women. There are few female
characters in most of Beat literature, and in almost none of the writing does
a woman play a role that is not inextricably tied to a male character. Women
are often characterized as there to only serve the desires of men. When a
woman’s needs, or the needs of his family, begin to become too demanding,
it is an excuse or a reason for the man to leave, to loose the chains of
domestic society that keeps him from fully expressing his true and artistic
self.

In line 94, Ginsberg writes that the “best minds” “...lost their loveboys to the
three old shrews of fate....” Ginsberg is probably speaking of himself here.
Ginsberg was often second to the wives of other Beat writers. Kerouac and
Neal Cassady were both Ginsberg’s lover while they also had marriages and
children. The first “shrew” that Ginsberg writes of is “the heterosexual
dollar...” (95). This represents the conflict that these “best minds” felt when
they married and had families. They were expected to settle down and
provide through steady employment, yet all felt nothing could be more
antithetical to the Beatnik style of life. The second “shrew” is the one that
“winks out of the womb....” This shrew is the children that these men are
obligated to provide for. The final “shrew” “...does nothing but sit on her
ass / and snip the intellectual golden threads of the craftsman’s loom....” (96-
97). These lines, of course, represent the wives and the inner hostility that
these men felt for being trapped in a home life.

This hostility towards domesticity is contrasted in the next lines, however,

when Ginsberg describes in lewd detail the voracious sexual appetites of
these men. Wives and children would not stop these “best minds” from
seeking as many sexual partners as possible. These men were searching for
“ultimate cunt” (101) and so they “sweetened the snatches of a million
girls...” (103).

Ginsberg then reveals the source for these explicit stories: “N.C.,” or Neal
Cassady. In fact, Cassady, Ginsberg writes, is the “secret here of these
poems” and Ginsberg describes him as the “cocksman and Adonis of
Denver...” (107). Adonis was a Greek mythological figure associated with
male youth and beauty. Cassady’s exploits are described with a kind of awe
and admiration by Ginsberg. His sexual exploits - with both men and women
- are the things of myth, Ginsberg suggests. Indeed, Cassady often took on a
larger than life persona in much of the Beat literature.

Lines 113-149
The scene suddenly shifts back to New York and Ginsberg begins to relate a
series of events that actually happened to many of his friends during his
time there. He writes of a close friend, Herbert Huncke, who “walked all night
with their shoes full of blood on the snowbank docks...,” (117) a reference to
a time when Huncke, just released from jail, went homeless for many days
before he showed up at Ginsberg’s apartment with bloody feet. Many of
these incidents reference suicide, a fate that befell on several of Ginsberg’s
friends and associates. These were “suicidal dramas” (120), such as when
one of the “best minds” “...jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge” but lived to tell
the story (147). As if acknowledging that the reader will find this hard to
believe, Ginsberg insists that “this actually happened...” (147). Another “best
mind” attempted suicide by cutting his wrist, though he also failed in his
attempt. Instead, he was “forced to open antique stores” and he grew in his
despair over growing old (139-141). Ginsberg suggests here that perhaps
ending one’s life in their prime is better than suffering the indignity of old
age and irrelevance.

These lines of the poem also document a new movement for the “best
minds.” This time, the movement is not from a specific place to place or to a
specific city. Instead, the “best minds” find themselves being slowly
displaced from their homes. Ginsberg says that they “wept at the romance of
the street” (125), meaning that they idealized homeless life. They “sat in
boxes in the darkness” (127) and they scoured for food on the streets (135).
They intentionally set themselves outside of regular timekeeping (136-138)
and became forgotten, outside of “Absolute Reality...” (146).

Lines 150-214
Ginsberg returns to Neal Cassady, whom he had called the poem’s hero in
previous verses. He catalogues some of Cassady’s more daring stunts, like
driving “crosscountry seventytwo hours to find out if I had a vision...” (158).
Ginsberg gives Cassady a deity like persona in the poem and makes him a
Christ-like figure. He says that this “best mind” “journeyed to Denver, who
died in Denver, who came back to Denver / ...who watched over
Denver... / ...and finally went away to find out the Time...” (160-162). Just as
Christ died and rose again, Denver takes on the role of a holy city, and
Cassady is its savior.

Ginsberg continues on the theme of religion and hints that there are times of
regret and a need for forgiveness in these best minds. They “fell on their
knees in hopeless cathedrals praying for each other’s salva- / tion and light
and breasts...” (164-165). Religion, though, is hopeless and always tied up in
sex.

Though he had been documenting and detailing the exploits of many of the
best minds, lines 173-214 document some of the specific events in the life
of Carl Solomon, the person whom Ginsberg dedicated the poem to. Solomon
and Ginsberg became friends during a stint when both were committed to a
mental institution and Ginsberg believed that, though Solomon was more
mentally unstable than Ginsberg, he was a true genius and artist. In line 175,
Ginsberg documents a famous incident in which Solomon “threw potato
salad at CCNY lecturers on Dadaism....” This event was meant to be an
artistic statement by Solomon. Yet, Solomon’s life was tragic, and the next
lines also document that. Solomon later “presented (himself) on the granite
steps of the madhouse... / ...demanding instanta- / neous lobotomy...” (176-
178). Solomon, like the other “best minds,” was ultimately a tragic hero.
Line 201 sees Ginsberg make the first reference to himself, and this
reference signifies a brief change in the poem. While the rest of the part one
of “Howl” is a kind of disjointed narrative, documenting the life and times of
the “best minds,” line 201-202 are conversational. It puts the focus, for just a
brief second, on the man whom Ginsberg hopes to immortalize in the poem -
Carl Solomon. Ginsberg writes “ah, Carl, while you are not safe I am not
safe...,” meaning that it will never be safe for those that society deems
mentally insane. Solomon is like a beacon for the “best minds.” He is the
most mentally insane, yet in Ginsberg’s mind he is also the most brilliant.
Ginsberg is saying that once this most insane mind is understood for its
brilliance, it will then be safe for these other “best minds” to truly be
themselves. Insanity, thus, is equated with brilliance and contrasted with the
conformity of “sane” society.

Lines 215-222
To close Part I, Ginsberg returns to the more general narrative of the “best
minds.” Here, Ginsberg seems to be making his closing statement. The “best
minds,” he says, are truly the most holy and devout and cherished of the
world. He says that “the madman bum and angel beat in Time, unknown, yet
putting down here / what might be left to say in time come after death...”
(215-216). Ginsberg concedes that what the “best minds” are trying to say,
trying to show to society through their life and their art, is something that
might only be appreciated in a place like an afterlife.
But there are glimpses of their brilliance in the world, he says. Their lives and
their words are found “in the ghostly clothes of jazz...” (117). Jazz, he says, is
like the Beats in that it is a music of suffering. It is also a music that can
move America’s own suffering into an expression of love. The power of jazz
music is the same as the power of the testament of the “best minds.

Allen Ginsberg's Poetry Summary and Analysis of

"Howl," Part II
Summary
Part II of Ginsberg’s “Howl” was written separately from Part I, but within the
same period of Ginsberg’s life in San Francisco. Ginsberg writes that Part I
“names the monster...that preys on the Lamb.” The Lamb, in this case, are
the “best minds” and “angel headed hipsters” of Part I.
Part II uses a great deal of metaphor and symbolism to make social and
political points. Thus, it is different from Part I, which was mainly a fractured
narrative of the lives of the Beat generation. Though one could certainly
make social and political inferences from Part I, and Ginsberg does challenge
the power authorities of institutions like higher education, mental health, and
public safety, the social forces that cause the hardships, violence, and
addiction in the lives of the “best minds” are not named beyond vague
references. Part II, however, gives a very specific name for these social
forces - “Moloch.”
The use of the name “Moloch,” a name traditionally associated with specific
gods or rituals from ancient Middle Eastern and Mediterranean religion, is
most commonly used to denote a power or force that demands great
sacrifice. The figure has been used in a variety of modern artistic settings,
including John Milton’s “Paradise Lost” and Fritz Lang’s pioneering film
“Metropolis.” In Ginsberg’s poem, it comes to symbolize all of society’s great
evils: corporate power and domination, militarization, governmental violence
and oppression, just to name a few.
Ginsberg first thought of the name “Moloch” when out in the streets of San
Francisco one evening with a friend and future life-long partner, Peter
Orlovsky. Both took peyote, a drug with mind altering effects, and walked the
streets, having hallucinations. As they walked, Ginsberg saw the St. Francis
Hotel, a landmark building in downtown San Francisco. The lights and shape
of the building and the effects of the peyote, made Ginsberg see, “robot
upstairs eyes & skullface, in smoke....” Ginsberg names this monster Moloch.
The became the symbol of social oppression, the cause of the demise and
insanity of the “best minds.”

Analysis
Lines 1-22
Ginsberg begins Part II with a reference to the death of his friend Bill
Cannastra: “What sphinx of cement and aluminum bashed open their skulls
and ate up / their brains and imagination?” (1-2). Cannastra was a friend of
Ginsberg’s from his New York days. One evening, while riding the subway
train, Bill, attempting a humorous stunt, accidentally fell out of the window of
the train they were on. He was dragged behind the train and killed. Ginsberg
references Cannastra’s death in Part I as well, writing of a “best mind” who
“fell out of the subway window....” Bill’s death, Ginsberg suggests, gives us
the context for the power of the evil Moloch - the power to destroy and to
drive one to insane acts.

Part II is a lengthy description of this “Moloch.” Ginsberg begins by

describing the economic hardships of those who do not have the luxuries and
life of wealthier people. Moloch, representing the values of capitalism, has
the power to give to certain persons and to take away from others. Moloch
becomes a “heavy judger of men!” (7) Ginsberg, who kept a lifelong
affiliation with communism, found such values to be abhorrent and
destructive to society.

Moloch also represents the immoral power of government. In lines eight

through eleven Ginsberg describes Moloch as “the crossbone soulless jail- /
house and Congress of sorrows! Moloch whose buildings are judg- / ment!
Moloch the vast stone of war! Moloch the stunned govern- / ments!” The
word “Congress” is used in a double sense here. It references both the actual
Congress of the United States, a place of “sorrows” in Ginsberg’s thought,
but it also means a collection, or gathering. The United States government, a
body ultimately “of the people” and “by the people” does not collect the
people’s hopes and ambitions as much as it collects their sorrows and
inability to advance.

Moloch is also the soulless dominance of industry and corporate power.

Ginsberg’s ideas of industry, explored more fully in other poems such as
“America,” were drastically different from the capitalism of the United States.
Ginsberg often references leftist politics and policies in his poetry - worker’s
rights, socialist activism, and the distribution of wealth. Ginsberg references
the great cities of the world that industry had built But they are not signs of
beauty and progress as others might see them. They are landscapes of
nightmares. “Moloch whose eyes are a thousand blind windows! Moloch
whose skyscrap- / ers stand in the long streets like endless Jehovahs!” (15-
16). Industry and capitalism are not just symbols of American values,
Ginsberg suggests. They are the deities of American culture. The attainment
of wealth is a religious pursuit. It is a devotion of the American people.
Moloch’s soul is “electricity and banks,” two of the cornerstones of industry
and business. Ginsberg writes that Moloch’s “poverty is the specter of
genius!” (20). This is to say that American progress, created and sustained
by a particular kind of American ingenuity and “genius,” is actually a force to
impoverishes the American spirit. But it is not only the spirit that is
impoverished. It is a force that creates actual poverty.
Lines 23-45
No one is immune from the power of Moloch, not even Ginsberg himself. He
writes, making a self reference, “Moloch who entered my soul early! Moloch
in whom I am a consciousness / without a body!” (25-26). Ginsberg did not
necessarily mean “Howl” to be a poem of protest, though protest certainly
plays a part. “Howl,” however, is not a specific call <i>against</i> the
Molochs of the world. Instead, this Part II is meant to show us how we are all
part of the powers of Moloch. When Ginsberg suggests that Moloch entered
his soul early, he means that the values of industry, capitalism, patriotism,
etc. were engrained in his being from an early age just as those same values
become a part of the lives of almost all Americans at some point. Resisting
Moloch is useless. All are a part of its consciousness. It is the act of trying to
disentangle one’s self from the power of Moloch that drives one insane.
Moloch becomes a problem for these “best minds” in two ways, then. First,
by being entangled in Moloch’s power they risk losing their own souls and
their own vision. Yet, by trying to escape the cultural hegemony of Moloch,
they can only turn to lives of destruction: alcohol, drugs, or violence.

Lines 29-31 give the most complete description of who Moloch is in the
poem. “...Robot apartments! invisible suburbs! skeleton treasuries! / blind
capitals! demonic industries! spectral nations! invincible mad- / houses!
granite cocks! monstrous bombs!” These lines name all of the perceived evil
in society - the desire for suburban wealth, a national economy without
values or morals, government that seeks only its own interest in policy, a
society that places its geniuses in madhouses and who elevates to the status
of genius those that only create more wealth, industry, and war.

These things have been the death of America. Ginsberg often believed
himself to be a continuation of the American vision of the poet Walt Whitman.
Ginsberg incorporates some of Whitman’s style and structure in “Howl.”
Lines 35 - 38 strongly echo Whitman’s aesthetic. The “visions” and
“miracles” of the American experience have “gone down the American /
river!” The “Dreams! adorations! illuminations! religions! the whole boatload
of sensitive / bullshit!” Ginsberg means here to suggest that Whitman’s
vision of America - that of open spaces, nature, and individuality in the face
of the growing industrialism of the United States - did not win in the end.
Moloch has won. It is a part of all their lives.
But the “best minds” made a choice about how to live in the shadow of
Moloch and Ginsberg ends Part II with this choice in lines 43 through 45.
They chose to leave. Yet, their choice drove them to insanity. Ginsberg sees
both blessing and curse in such a journey. He calls their laughter “holy,” yet
it is still the laughter of a madman. He writes that the “best minds,” “bade
farewell!” to Moloch’s America. Their farewell only led them to destruction,
however. As they left “Down to the river! into the street!” they also went into
insanity and destruction. They “jumped off the roof! to solitude!”
Allen Ginsberg's Poetry Summary and Analysis of
"Howl," Part III
Summary
Part III of “Howl” is the poem’s most direct address to Carl Solomon, the
person to whom the poem is dedicated. Ginsberg met Solomon during a brief
stay in the Columbia Presbyterian Psychological Institute in 1949. In the
poem, Ginsberg names the mental institution Rockland, and the refrain of
the third part of the poem is Ginsberg crying to Solomon that: “I’m with you
in Rockland!”
The third part of the poem slowly builds to a crescendo in lines 43-48, before
subsiding somewhat in the last four lines of poem, 49-52. Ginsberg noted
that the verse in Part III was supposed to build upon each previous verse.
Additionally, the progression of the third part is meant to take the reader on
a journey into Carl Solomon’s madness, much as Solomon took Ginsberg into
his madness during their friendship in New York.

The first half of the poem utilizes a vantage point of the author, empathizing
with Solomon’s condition. The pronoun “you” is used to distinguish the
author from Solomon. This then moves into a perspective from within
“Rockland,” the mental institution, and the reader begins to understand
some of the conditions that might drive a person crazy. The last third of the
poem comes from the perspective of Solomon’s own insanity. Ginsberg
moves from the “you” pronoun to a “we,” meaning that both the writer and
reader have entered into a state of altered mind. The last three lines of the
poem give the intimation of an extraction from the insanity. Solomon’s
immanent presence is no longer assumed and Solomon becomes more of a
dream-like figure.

While Parts II and III seem quite different from each other and, in turn, both
have differences in theme, tone, and structure from Part I, both of these final
parts of the poem play a complimentary role. Part I had been a kind of
documentary of the madness and destruction that had characterized the
lives of Ginsberg’s “best minds.” Part II had then named the cause of this
destruction: Moloch, a symbol for everything that Ginsberg saw as wrong in
American culture. Part III, then, names a savior: Carl Solomon. Yet, Solomon
is also a tragic savior and, in the end, not able to offer much salvation either
for himself or for anyone else. He has been the one chiefly broken by the
Molochs of the world. While there is a holiness in Solomon’s madness, this
holiness goes hand in hand with his tragedy.
Analysis
Lines 1-24
While Part II of “Howl” named the poem’s antagonist, Part III begins with a
cry for the poem’s hero and savior, Carl Solomon. Ginsberg wants Solomon
to know that he is “with you in Rockland!” This was the literal case for a
time, when Ginsberg was voluntarily admitted to the institution where
Solomon lived, but it is meant here as more of a symbolic gesture. It is not
just me that is with you, Ginsberg is trying to say, but all of those that have
been unfairly and unjustly destroyed and driven mad by the strictures and
conformity of a society and government concerned with nothing but its own
survival and profit.

Line six offers an intriguing look into Ginsberg’s own life and history.
Ginsberg would later write that he felt a strong attraction towards Solomon
not only because Solomon was an aspiring writer and artist, but also because
Ginsberg saw much of his mother’s own struggles with insanity in Solomon’s
life. In line six, Ginsberg cursorily admits that he sees a “shade of my
mother” in Solomon. Ginsberg’s mother had been institutionalized for a
variety of psychological disorders, events that marred Ginsberg’s own
childhood. Naomi Ginsberg’s tragic story was the chief cause for the breakup
of Ginsberg’s family and her continued struggle with insanity psychologically
impacted Ginsberg through his entire life.

The first lines of the poem move back and forth from attempts at bonding
and finding similarity, to distinguishing Solomon from the rest of the “sane”
world. Ginsberg writes that Solomon is “madder than I am” (2) and that “we
are great writers on the same dreadful typewriter” (12). Yet he also admits
that Solomon has been truly driven from a normal life. His “faculties of the
skull no longer admit the worms of the senses” (16-17). He laughs at
“invisible humor” (10) and he cries to the nurses and doctors that he is
“losing the game of / the actual pingpong of the abyss” (23-24).

Lines 25-51
One of Ginsberg’s major themes in “Howl,” as well as in other poems, is the
unjustness and inhumanity of the United States’ mental institutions. This is a
theme he returns to again in Part III. He writes, speaking of Carl Solomon,
that “the soul is innocent and / immortal it should never die ungodly in an
armed madhouse” (26-27). Insanity, in Ginsberg’s view, is actually genius
and a system that seeks to lock up such genius is inhuman. To let Solomon’s
“soul” die in an “armed madhouse” is to lose one of the world’s “best
minds.”

The treatment of the insane is also inhuman, and not just in abstract forms.
Ginsberg writes of the shock treatment administered to Solomon in lines 29-
31. Shock treatment, or shock therapy, is a kind of medical treatment for
mental disorders that uses aversion therapy to try and get the patient to
adopt new patters of thinking or lifestyle. In Solomon’s case, the insane
patient would be administered an electric shock when insane thoughts or
attitudes were displayed. It was an attempt to get the patient to act in a
more sane manner. This was pure torture in Ginsberg’s view and, in fact, did
more to drive Solomon insane then it did to cure him.
Beginning with line 30, Ginsberg begins to use religious imagery to describe
Solomon and the reader begins to understand that Solomon is the hero and
savior in Ginsberg’s poem. While Neal Cassady had been the hero in Part I,
Solomon turns out to be the ultimate savior, a person on whom all of the sins
and insanity of the world can be placed in order to redeem the rest of the
“best minds.”
Ginsberg writes that the shock therapy had taken Solomon to “a cross in the
void,” (30) meaning a place of sacrifice within the realm of insanity. Ginsberg
says that Solomon planned and plotted a “Hebrew / socialist revolution
against the fascist national Golgotha” (32-33). This is a kind of retelling of
Christ’s crucifixion narrative. Jesus, a Jew who some historians and
theologians have associated with a socialist or communist meaning, was
crucified by Roman authorities, who some of associated with fascism, on a
hill named Golgotha. In Ginsberg’s retelling, it is Solomon who takes on the
form of Jesus, this time plotting against the fascist national government of
the United States, represented by Golgotha.

Lines 35 and 36 complete this vision, though it takes a Nietzschean turn.

Ginsberg writes that Solomon will “split the heavens of Long Island and
resurrect your / living human Jesus from the superhuman tomb”. Here,
Solomon is directly correlated with a risen Christ who has come back to rule
the world. Ginsberg uses the term “superhuman,” which was also a term
used in Frederick Nietzsche’s writing in the nineteenth century to denote the
secular epitome of human psychological, spiritual, and physical dominance.
Solomon, thus, is both a religious and secular figure of salvation and
triumph.

The final lines of Part III return to a political motif. Ginsberg is now united
with Solomon in his insanity. They have a difficult relationship with their
country. They “hug and kiss the United States under our bedsheets” yet this
is the same country that “coughs all night and won’t let us sleep” (41-42).
The crescendo of the poem in lines 44-48 imagines the United States coming
to bomb the mental institution, an event of both great terror and great
freedom. The United States, its humanity epitomized in the way it treats its
mentally ill, is a “starry-spangled shock of mercy” yet it has also brought
“the eternal / war” (47-48). This parody of “The Star Spangled Banner” is
meant to mock the violence that government afflicts upon its own people
and the people of the world.

The final three lines of the poem return Ginsberg and the reader to a
modicum of reality. The reader realizes that the refrain, “I’m with you in
Rockland” is meant as a symbolic cry. Ginsberg is actually in his “cottage in
the Western / night” (51-52) and Carl Solomon’s appearance in the poem has
been a part of his dreams. The reader is left to wonder, then, if any of what
Ginsberg has written in “Howl” has been reality or, in fact, if it is really just
Ginsberg’s literary dream of a generation broken by a society that refuses to
accept its deviance.

Allen Ginsberg's Poetry Summary and

Analysis of "Footnote to Howl"
Summary
Ginsberg wrote the “Footnote to Howl” as a fourth part to the poem that was
meant to riff and experiment with the forms of long line he had used in
previous sections. The key to understanding the rhythm and structure of
“Footnote” is to hear the poem as if it is being read in a jazz styling. Just as a
trumpet might blow a long succession of one note, using a staccato pacing to
give the musical piece a particular meaning, so too does Ginsberg begin with
a single word, “Holy,” said in succession fifteen times.

Like Part III, the word “Holy” is meant to ground the rhythm of the poem just
as the phrase “I’m with you in Rockland” grounded Part III with a steady beat
of words. But it is also meant to be a variation. Holy does not start every line,
and it is scattered throughout the poem, between words after certain
phrases and before certain others.

The theme of “Footnote” is the sacred and it is meant to offer a competing

vision to the one of destruction that was presented in Part II. While Moloch is
a force that destroys the world, there is a holiness in mankind - exemplified
by Ginsberg and the Beat poets - that offers the hope of salvation. This is a
kind of hidden world that no one else sees. Ginsberg probably even means to
suggest that no one in their right mind - meaning, no one who remains a part
of “normal” society - can even understand the true beauty and holiness that
exists in the world.
In Parts I and III, Ginsberg attributed holy and Christlike attributes to the two
heroes of the poem, Neal Cassady and Carl Solomon. In “Footnote,” he
attributes these qualities to all of the Beat poets. The end of the poem
glorifies their own sacrifices of sanity, status, or wealth as being the path
towards social salvation. While Part I of “Howl” documented the true
wretchedness of the lives of these “best minds,” the “Footnote” finds the
holiness that lies behind such insanity. “Howl” becomes not just an artistic,
social, or political statement but now a religious statement as well. It is the
religion of the Beat generation.
Analysis
The “Footnote to Howl” begins with fifteen iterations of the word “Holy” in
the first two lines. The meaning of this repetition is best understood by
listening to the poem, rather than simply reading it. The words come in a
rapid fire succession, imitating a frenzied religious chant whose purpose is to
dislocate the listener from their environment and to set a new environment
of sacredness. Ginsberg uses the rest of the “Footnote” to explain exactly
what is “Holy.”
Holiness and holy things, such as angels, had played a role in previous
sections of “Howl.” The fifth line of the first part describes the “best minds”
as “angelheaded hipsters,” bestowing them with a certain kind of sacred
quality, though it is a sacredness that seems contrary to the way the rest of
society would understand that word. Other characters in “Howl,” including
Carl Solomon, for whom the poem is dedicated, and Neal Cassady are also
given this sacred mantle of holiness.

The first ten lines of “Footnote” seek to create a new kind of holy order.
Ginsberg begins to name all that is holy, and some of the things he sees as
sacred are the exact things that the rest of the rest of the world would see as
disgusting or lewd: “The skin is holy! The nose is holy! The / tongue and cock
and hand and asshole holy!” The rhythm of these lines are meant to copy
the patterns of a religious chant or hymn. But Ginsberg uses crude sexual
imagery to change the entire idea of holiness.

Ginsberg is also using a motif of prophetic literature here. In the Hebrew

Bible, prophets would often use poetics with religious imagery to help the
Israelites re-frame their lives around holy things. Ginsberg is turning this
prophetic tradition on its head, however. The things that society says is holy
- and Ginsberg names these in previous parts of “Howl,” especially in Part II -
are not what is really holy. Those things, in fact, are just a mirage of
holiness. There is a whole world, Ginsberg says, of holiness that modern
society would consider disgusting: “The bum’s as holy as the seraphim! the
madman is holy as you my soul are / holy!” (7-8).

Ginsberg then becomes even more specific with his cries of holiness. These
holy men, he says, are actually his friends and acquaintances. William S.
Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassady - these are some of the holy men that
Ginsberg calls by name. He calls them all “the hideous human angels!” (13).
He then names the more personal and familial - his mother who died in an
insane asylum, the “cocks of the grandfathers / of Kansas!” (14-15).
The second half of “Footnote” seeks to name the entire underworld of
holiness. The point here is to offer contrast to the destruction and
devastation that Ginsberg envisioned in the Moloch section of Part II of
“Howl.” In that section, Moloch represented the extreme sacrifice through
which humanity was forced to give up either its soul to the powers of
capitalism or war, or it was forced to give up its sanity. The “best minds,”
Ginsberg wrote, were the ones that went insane when the realized they
could not live outside of the destruction of modern society no matter how
hard they tried.

This underworld of holiness is represented by many things, and Ginsberg

seeks to create a whole universe of holiness that lies underneath the false
sacredness of the modern world. Jazz is one of the holy things, a style of
music rejected by white middle class society (16-17). Cities are sacred and
holy; Ginsberg names New York, San Francisco, Seattle, Paris, and Tangiers
as just some of the places that allow the insanity of the “best minds” to live
and work and breathe. Not every place would allow such an underlife, and so
these places are given a more distinct kind of holiness.

As the poem reaches its crescendo, Ginsberg begins to name, in rapid fire
succession, everything that might be considered holy. There is even an
“Angel” in Moloch, and so Ginsberg can find holiness in the tools of industrial
society: “holy the railroad holy the locomotive...holy / the abyss!” (28-30).
Such things can be holy because the “best minds” and “angelheaded
hipsters” have made them holy.

Ginsberg ends the poem with a celebration of humanity. When all is stripped
from the human soul - the strictures of society, the desire for money or
power, the quest for celebrity - then that is what makes something truly holy.
Ginsberg returns to the core of the prophetic tradition, turning the world
back to its right state. “Holy forgiveness! mercy! charity! faith! Holy! Ours!
bodies! suffering! mag- / nanimity!” (31-32). These are the things that are
truly holy and the key to becoming holy is finding these things in the
“intelligent kindness of the soul!” (33). Thus, “Howl” began with devastation
and destruction and ends with a vision of salvation.

Allen Ginsberg's Poetry Glossary

abyss
a deep chasm
artichoke
a type of vegetable
asylum
a mental institution for the insane
benzedrine
a strong stimulant drug
bum
a homeless person; a person not willing to work for their livelihood
capitalism
an economic system characterized by free markets
catatonic
an abnormal psychological condition, usually characterized by a stupor or
comatose like state
cathedral
a large church, usually built in a medieval style
Charon
in Greek mythology, the captain of the ferry that took souls to Hades.
communism
a Marxist form of government based on the communal sharing of property
corridor
a hallway or long aisle
cottage
a small house, usually in a secluded setting.
cower
to hide in fear
delicacy
a luxurious or pleasing food
desolate
abandoned, deserted
disgorge
to violently displace something
dynamo
something that is awe inspiring
ecstasy
a mental state of extreme euphoria or pleasure
El
an ancient Hebrew name for God
ellipse
a plane curve
enumerations
a list of things
faculties
a measure of the ability to reason or to comprehend
FBI
Federal Bureau of Investigation; the United State's federal police force
ferry
a boat that transports people
fix
the act of using illegal drugs to satisfy a craving
flat
a type of apartment, usually having only one large room
foetid
a variant of "fetid"; to have a stale or noxious smell
fornication
an indecent sexual act
Golgotha
in the Biblical New Testament, the place where Jesus Christ was crucified;
the "place of the skull"
graybeard
an old person
grubber
a person bent on accumulating money
Hades
in Greek mythology, the underworld where souls would go after death.
hallucination
a dream like state usually caused by drugs or sickness
heterosexual
a term denoting a sexual relationship between a male and female
hipsters
denotes a person living a lifestyle counter to modern trends
homosexual
a term denoting a sexual relationship between a male and another male, or a
female and another female
hysterical
a state of insanity or extreme emotion
intoxication
the state of being drunk on alcohol
laurel
a type of green foliage used by the Greek's to crown athletic champions
leftist
a term that denotes extreme liberal political positions
legions
a large group of followers
Lethe
in Greek mythology, a river that causes forgetfullness
manuscript
an unfinished draft of a written work
marijuana
an illegal drug derived from the Cannabis plant
marxism
an economic system characterized by the communal sharing of property
migraine
a severe headache
obscene
indescent
odyssey
an epic quest
penumbra
a shroud; something that allows only partial illunination.
petticoat
an old-fashioned term for a woman's underwear
peyote
a drug that causes extreme hallucinations
phonograph
a record player
platonic
a non-sexual relationship
psychotherapy
a type of medical mental treatment
purgatory
in Christianity, a state of limbo for the soul once one has died
radiant
brightly glowing
seraphim
a type of angel or angelic body
shrew
a mean or bitter woman
solipsism
a philosophy that believes the self is the only reality
sordid
dirty or filthy
sphinx
a puzzling or mysterious figure
spinster
an old solitary woman
suicide
taking one's own life
supernatural
a state not of the ordinary world
syntax
the formation of sentences or phrases in a language.
teahead
a term for someone who habitually uses marijuana
tenement
a type of house or building, usually containing multiple people or families
turpentine
an oil used as a thinner or solvent
workers
a term for a unionized force of industrial employees; denotes leftist politics
zen
a style of meditation; a point of enlightenment

Allen Ginsberg's Poetry Themes

Insanity
Ginsberg dealt both literally and metaphorically with insanity throughout his
entire life. His mother, Naomi Ginsberg, was institutionalized on several
occasions, which left a young Allen without his mother or full family for much
of his early life. He would later admit that this absence left a stain on his
development and was responsible for both his fascination and disgust with
the mentally ill.

Insanity, however, is not a state of being true genius is able to escape,

Ginsberg argues. This is the fate of the "best minds" from Ginsberg's poem,
"Howl:" the "best minds" are driven insane by their inability to accept the
models of normality and conformity imposed on them by modern life, and
their inability to escape these same strictures.
Commodification
Ginsberg saw the economic commodification of society as one of the great
ills of modern life. In his poem, "A Supermarket in California," Ginsberg goes
into a supermarket to try and find the natural beauty of the fruits and
vegetables there. Instead, his final conclusion is that modern humanity is no
longer able to see the history of a particular object, fruit being his example.
For instance, a peach is picked from somewhere across the country or
around the world and then shipped directly to that supermarket. The
consumer is no longer able to know where it came from, who it was that
picked that particular fruit, and what social and economic context that fruit
represents.

Ginsberg posits Walt Whitman as one of his heroes and predecessors in his

assessment of modern life. Whitman explored the natural world and the
natural self and all of the desires -- spiritual, sexual, physical -- that made
humanity what it was. The commodification of society means the loss of this
natural meaning and, in Ginsberg's poem, Whitman's vision is lost amidst a
river of forgetfulness.
The Holy Bum
Several beat writers use seemingly opposing symbols to show how society is
never as normal or advanced as it seems. In Ginsberg's writing, this symbol
is the "holy bum." Though this holy bum can go by several different names in
his poetry, the idea of the holy bum is always the same. The holy bum has
had everything that is valuable to him taken away by modern society. Some
of these things can be abstract, such as freedom, liberty, or the ability to
express oneself artistically or sexually. Other times, the holy bum has had
his literal property or freedom taken by a justice system bent on destroying
him and the things he stands for.

Ironically, it is in the act of destruction that the bum then becomes holy. He
becomes holy because he is detached from the "normal" things of this world.
He is then able to embody the sacred values of humanity, such as mercy,
kindness, charity, and freedom. The holy bum is holier than anything in
religion or government or respectable society because those respectable
things have lost the truth of their being.

Ginsberg's holy bums resemble religious saints. Saints in the Catholic

Church, for instance, usually attained their sainthood because they rejected
some aspect of human nature or society in order to follow God's more
perfect way. The holy bums do the same. They feel they cannot live in
respectable society and denounce the evil that such respectability shrouds.
Instead, they are made holy by following a purer path towards enlightened
art and "kindness of the soul."
The Natural World
Ginsberg grew up and remained for much of his life a city dweller. He was
brought up in a New Jersey industrial town, he moved to New York, and after
several years of traveling he settled in New York City and lived there for the
rest of his life. Yet, Ginsberg saw himself as belonging to a tradition of poetry
that stretched back to the Romantic Age, a period that posited the awe of
the natural world as the highest and holiest forum of artistic and social
expression. Ginsberg attempted to denounce in his poetry the acts of
humanity that sought to circumvent and tame nature. The atom bomb is one
example Ginsberg uses in several of his poems, including "Howl" and
"America."
Ginsberg's poetry often attempts to compare the natural world with the
monolithic military industrial complex that characterized the social and
political life of Americans after the second World War. In "A Strange New
Cottage in Berkeley," for example, Ginsberg uses imagery of modern
conveniences like toilets or coffee pots as a contrast to the wild everyday
beauty of the plants he finds in his backyard. In Part II of "Howl," Ginsberg
denounces the industrialized world that destroys nature and ultimately
destroys the soul of humankind.
Moloch
Moloch represents the modern institutions of finance, war, industry, and
government that have conspired to destroy all good for the sake of profit.
Ginsberg's Moloch, like the ancient middle eastern god, is a creature of
sacrifice. Moloch asks all individuals to sacrifice their souls, their freedom,
and even their lives for a false patriotism and devotion.
Moloch appears in Part II of "Howl." After Ginsberg has described the
destruction of his generation's "best minds" in Part I, he turns to describing
the thing that caused such destruction. Moloch is "unobtainable dollars" and
a "judger of men!" It is "pure machinery," and "armies," and "poverty."
Moloch, in short, is all of the devastation that Ginsberg sees in American
society caused by greed or war or blind patriotism. What makes Moloch so
powerful is not just its evil, but also the way in which profit and war and
pollution are lifted up as ideals of advancement and cultural power. In
Moloch, Ginsberg sees a generation sacrificing its soul to a set of false
values.
The Prophetic Tradition
Though Ginsberg did not remain a particularly devout Jew, the tenets and
traditions of Judaism -- and of other world religions -- did serve as major
themes in much of his work. The prophetic tradition of the Hebrew Bible is an
especially important theme.

In the prophetic literature of the Hebrew Bible, a prophet is called by God to

announce to the people of Israel that they have been wicked and that they
must repent in order to call on God's favor and save their people. In some of
the prophetic stories, the people do turn back to God and are saved. In some
of the other stories, they do not and destruction and captivity are the result.
In "America," Ginsberg used that same prophetic tradition to proclaim an end
to divine favor for his country.

Ginsberg called on America to repent for its reliance on greed and industry,
its propensity for war and political witch hunts, and its inherent hate for
those who fell outside of the white middle-class mainstream. Ginsberg sees
nothing but more war and destruction on the horizon if America does not
change its ways. He uses himself as a prime example of the intolerance the
country exhibits toward its own people. Like a prophet himself, Ginsberg is
the wild and untamed visionary calling down destruction on a world that has
rejected hope and love.
Hypocrisy of Modern Society
Romantic poetry often denounced the modern world's ability to create a
more perfect society through enlightened thought and technology, and
Ginsberg's work extends this tradition, positing a false sense of "progress" as
indicative of society's hypocrisy. Ginsberg aimed much of this criticism
specifically toward his own country, the United States. The US claimed to be
the most dominant and progressive society on the face of the earth in the
aftermath of World War II. Yet, when Ginsberg looked at his country he saw
nothing but injustice in the most dominant institutions. Government sought
only to advance its own militaristic conquests, leaving some of its people
literally starving and impoverished. Universities rejected anyone who did not
support the dominant interpretations of culture or art. The media glorified
celebrity and encouraged shallowness at the expense of serious problems.
All of this represented a country's misaligned values and, for Ginsberg, a
flagrant display of hypocrisy.