Howl and Other Poems (The Pocket Poets Series, Number Four)

Allen Ginsberg, (Introduction) William Carlos Williams

ISBN 10: 0872860175 / ISBN 13: 9780872860179

Published by City Lights Books, 1959

About this Item

(City Lights Pocket Poets series). Allen Ginsberg's poem, 'Howl,' landed on the shores of America's shipwrecked consciousness as a manifesto and testimony. The book, HOWL AND OTHER POEMS, was subsequently seized by U.S. customs and the San Francisco police. It was the subject of a long court trial at which a series of poets and professors persuaded the court that the book was not obscene. Ginsberg knew what was obscene, and he wrote it down in a delirious, impassioned fit of poetic reverie. It is both THE legendary and notorious poem of 20th-century American literature. Bibliography. 60p.

Seller Inventory # 3216439

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Howl and Other Poems (The Pocket Poets Series, Number Four)
• Publisher: City Lights Books
• Publication Date: 1959
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0872860175
• ISBN 13: 9780872860179
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: New
• Seller catalogs:
  • POETRY

About this title

Synopsis

The landmark, original publication of Allen Ginsberg’s HOWL & Other Poems

HOWL & Other Poems, the prophetic book that launched the Beat Generation, was published by Lawrence Ferlinghetti at City Lights Books in 1956. Considered the single most influential work of post-WWII United States poetry, the City Lights edition of HOWL has remained in print for more than 60 years, with well over 1,000,000 copies in print.

 A strident critique of middle-class complacency, consumerism, and capitalist militarism, HOWL also celebrates the pleasures and freedoms of the physical world, including a tribute to homosexual love. In addition to “Howl,” poems in the book include: “A Supermarket in California,” “Sunflower Sutra,” “America,” “In the Baggage Room at Greyhound,” “Transcription of Organ Music,” and “Wild Orphan,” among others.

A History of HOWL:

City Lights founder Lawrence Ferlinghetti first heard Allen Ginsberg read “Howl” at the Six Gallery event in San Francisco, 1955, which featured writers Philip Lamantia, Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen, and Michael McClure, introduced by poet Kenneth Rexroth. Jack Kerouac was present, but did not read, encouraging and cheering the other poets on. Ferlinghetti was so impressed by Ginsberg’s performance, he immediately telegrammed him, referencing Ralph Waldo Emerson’s response to Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, “I greet you at the beginning of a great career. When do I get the manuscript?”

 When the first edition of HOWL arrived from its British printers, it was seized almost immediately by U.S. Customs, and shortly thereafter the San Francisco police arrested its publisher and editor, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, together with the City Lights Bookstore manager, Shigeyoshi Murao. The two were charged with disseminating obscene literature, and the case was sent to trial. Ferlinghetti partnered with the ACLU to launch a defense of HOWL, and a parade of distinguished literary and academic witnesses appeared in court to persuade the judge of its merits. In the end, famously conservative Judge Clayton Horn ruled that the poem was not obscene, but rather, as he stated emphatically, HOWL was a work of “redeeming social significance.”

 The landmark decision signaled a sea change in American culture, and the City Lights edition of HOWL became a vital cornerstone in the ongoing struggle for free expression and representation. It continues to attract generation after generation of readers.

About the Author

Allen Ginsberg is the author of Howl and Other Poems, which was originally published by City Lights Books in the fall of 1956.