Week 7 - Allen Ginsberg 'Howl'

Ok, so I can't say Howl was an interesting read but it certainly got my attention. The outcry of anger towards the abusive and destructive society. It is graphic, scary, explicit and I guess honest for the world it describes. I'm not surprised that the publisher was arrested following its publication the obscene content was not what I was expecting and held me in shocked silence. 

Ginsberg introduces cultures that many would never experience and his ability to share cultures was carried on throughout his life in his other works and organising of events such as “Gathering of the Tribes for a Human Be-In,”. I do struggle to see how somebody who can write such violent (rubbish) text can also be an advocate for 'flower power' though.. This does not come across as the writing of someone who uses smiles and love to mend problems.

I didn't like or approve of the content of his text at all but I can appreciate his writing style. Once I got over the content I found it easy to read through and digest. Reading poetry was a big change on the other texts though and perhaps this is where it challenged me the most. The language provided a very clear and strong mental imagine of this social space and also introduced glimpses of the physical space. 

I think his idea of Moloch isn't from the traditional sense of god but the idea of the physical space or structure as the god of people controlling their actions and lifes. Is it the buildings or is it society that he is talking about I'm not sure. Is it Moloch as society he is talking about who has designed the prisons and factories and caused the blood and the pain. Moloch is everything and yet seems man made. Social spaces and society can be man made or elected so is this control he is explaining from mans control of self? Is it the cross over to a different culture that shocks.. The introduction into an otherwise unknown, underworld culture of dirt and promiscuity?

Ginsberg mixes the 'street's' with skyscrapers and factories with the madhouse. He describes people at their worst yet he walks with the angels. He talks of soul searching and soul destroying... Perhaps reading it from context, from my experiences in todays society I am taking a different feel for the poem but I guess the basics of how communism, need, judgement or denial can run our lifes is evident whichever decade you are from.....