Welcome to the Dk PSlam. Find a table or sit on the floor, come up to the mic and share your own works or those of your heroes.
Tonight we join the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the publication of Allen Ginsberg's Howl and Other Poems' The poem itself was a groundbreaking work, and the arrest and trial of its publisher, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, resulted in a landmark decision by the Judge, throwing open the gates to free speech and free expression. It was not the end of censorship, Lenny Bruce was harrassed to death by the authorities, for cussing, until he died in 1966,
and students launched the Free Speech movement with massive campus protests in the 1960's.
'Howl' also marked the birth of the Beats, who brought poetry back to the streets, blew the lid off rhyme and meter, and made poems more like Jazz.
Let's Celebrate Howl tonight, and other poems, stories and songs!
From City Lights
After Allen Ginsberg's reading of "Howl" on October 6, 1955 at the Six Gallery in San Francisco, Lawrence Ferlinghetti sent him a note, repeating Emerson's message to Whitman upon reading Leaves of Grass: "I greet you at the beginning of a great career." But Ferlinghetti added a line: "When do I get the manuscript?
(snip)
The first part of Howl presents a picture of a nightmare world; the second part is an indictment of those elements in modern society destructive of
the best qualities of human nature; such elements are predominantly identified as materialism, conformity, and mechanization leading toward war. The third part
presents a picture of an individual who is a specific representation of what the author conceives as a general condition. . . . `Footnote to Howl' seems to be a
declamation that everything in the world is holy, including parts of the body by name. It ends in a plea for holy living. . . ."
I will open with the last part:
Footnote To Howl by Allen Ginsberg
Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!
Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!
The world is holy! The soul is holy! The skin is holy!
The nose is holy! The tongue and cock and hand
and asshole holy!
Everything is holy! everybody's holy! everywhere is
holy! everyday is in eternity! Everyman's an
angel!
The bum's as holy as the seraphim! the madman is
holy as you my soul are holy!
The typewriter is holy the poem is holy the voice is
holy the hearers are holy the ecstasy is holy!
Holy Peter holy Allen holy Solomon holy Lucien holy
Kerouac holy Huncke holy Burroughs holy Cas-
sady holy the unknown buggered and suffering
beggars holy the hideous human angels!
Holy my mother in the insane asylum! Holy the cocks
of the grandfathers of Kansas!
Holy the groaning saxophone! Holy the bop
apocalypse! Holy the jazzbands marijuana
hipsters peace & junk & drums!
Holy the solitudes of skyscrapers and pavements! Holy
the cafeterias filled with the millions! Holy the
mysterious rivers of tears under the streets!
Holy the lone juggernaut! Holy the vast lamb of the
middle class! Holy the crazy shepherds of rebell-
ion! Who digs Los Angeles IS Los Angeles!
Holy New York Holy San Francisco Holy Peoria &
Seattle Holy Paris Holy Tangiers Holy Moscow
Holy Istanbul!
Holy time in eternity holy eternity in time holy the
clocks in space holy the fourth dimension holy
the fifth International holy the Angel in Moloch!
Holy the sea holy the desert holy the railroad holy the
locomotive holy the visions holy the hallucina-
tions holy the miracles holy the eyeball holy the
abyss!
Holy forgiveness! mercy! charity! faith! Holy! Ours!
bodies! suffering! magnanimity!
Holy the supernatural extra brilliant intelligent
kindness of the soul!
Berkeley 1955