From the Vault: Allen Ginsberg's Howl

Description

“I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked …” ~ Allen Ginsberg, from “Howl”

This year marks the 50th anniversary of what is considered one of the greatest American poems ever written. It’s author, not yet 30, joined the ranks of the great poets of the 20th Century, almost as soon as the poem was published. To this day, several years after his death, he is arguably the most well known poet the United States has ever produced. He resides with Robert Frost, Emily Dickinson, Edgar Allen Poe, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and sits next to Bob Dylan.

He personified the “poet” in American minds: rebel, promiscuous, liberal, intelligent, troubled. As Einstein personifies The Scientist, Ginsberg is The Poet.

This week, on From the Vault, we look back at the poem that made the man; We look at the poem that got people arrested for its controversial language when first published; and we do it all, without playing the poem in its entirety, since it is still illegal to air Howl on America’s airwaves unedited.

Broadcast date

05/12/2006

Program Length

59 minutes

Archive number

PZ0673.05

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