My Holy Thoughts on "Howl"

I have read Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl” three times now. What has always attracted me to this poem are the images. Ginsberg crafts long lines of violently realistic images that seem to strike a nerve, but also keep you contemplating. One of my favorite lines and an example of this is, “who burned cigarette holes in their arms protesting the narcotic tobacco haze of Capitalism”. I love this line because the image he makes available is cringe worthy, but there is a larger suggestion about tobacco companies and Capitalism being sought after.

The literary technique Ginsberg uses when he juxtaposes these violent images with things that seem to have no relation is parataxis. Parataxis is the juxtaposition of two dissimilar fragments or images without any clear connection. This technique leaves it up to the reader to make their own connections based on syntax. For me, this technique makes “Howl” all that much more interesting and exciting because it allows “Howl” to function as two poems; Ginsberg’s poem and the reader’s poem. Ginsberg’s “Howl” is his own personal experience. He is connected to it in a much different way than the reader is. These are his stories, his friends, his ideas, and his exhaustions. The reader can never relive or tangibly experience what he has, so there is seemingly a disconnect the reader feels. However, there is another technique Ginsberg uses to allow his reader to feel the same exhaustion the people in his poem feel connecting them a little more. The lines in “Howl” are long and were designed to replicate a breath. Some of the lines are so long they are physically exhausting to read making the reader feel the same way the people in his poem feel, exhausted or beat down.

On another note or perhaps a concluding note, Part II is what makes “Howl” different from other Beat literature for me. Part I is anecdotal. He is describing real life experiences. He describes the people he has met like artists, jazz musicians, drug addicts, and mentally ill. For example, this line describes Neal Cassidy, “who went whoring through Colorado in myriad of stolen night-cars”.

Part I I think is largely like other Beat texts that I have read, derived from personal experience. The crazy, wild, and unbelievable personal experience these authors lived. They retell stories about people who are underrepresented, marked outcasts, and are “beat down”. This all makes for a great story, but it seems sometimes some of these authors don’t go any further than the “retelling”. In my opinion Ginsberg does. In Part II Ginsberg names what it is that makes people “beat down” and marked outcasts. He names it “Moloch” which encompasses the social problems of America. In part II he explores how government, capitalism, and consumerism dehumanizes people. He provides an answer to the craziness in Part I.