Allen Ginsberg's famous outsider poem turns 50 this year. Who owns it now? A podcast by HILLARY RHODES and JAIME HOLGUIN looks at a conflict between the academy and the those charging the gates.
Making an important statement or just a bit of "goofy anarchy"? Or both? (AP Photo/HO Geoff Hall)
George Steel, executive director of the Miller Theatre event. (AP Photo/HO/Miller Theatre)
Allen Ginsberg -- the man who first howled -- speaking with fellow writer William S. Burroughs. (AP Photo/HO/First Run Features)
Beat writer Allen Ginsberg was 29 and had already been in two mental hospitals when he stood up in front of a crowd at San Francisco's Six Gallery and began to speak.
"I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness," he began. "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..."
The audience loved it. Somehow Ginsberg's words -- a work-in-progress poem written in private -- embodied everything the beatnik revolution stood for in 1955. The poem, "Howl," was antiestablishment at a time when most of the country was embracing a post-World War II conformity. It spoke of drugs and sex, vomit and blood.
But now, upon the 50th anniversary of its publication, the once-shocking poem is being celebrated in many established literary and academic circles. To some, that's a good thing -- it has brought more prominence to a groundbreaking piece of literature that deserves praise. To others, it's an injustice -- "Howl" belongs underground, where it first began.
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Listen to this asap podcast, produced by Jaime Holguin, and decide for yourself.
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Hillary Rhodes is an asap reporter in New York.
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Want to comment? Sound off at soundoffasap@ap.org .
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