Customer Reviews
Howl - By: Spider Monkey, 18 Oct 2008 
'Howl' is a short book of poetry, but each poem enclosed hits you with full force & intensity. They open you up to feeling & for that brief moment in time you are completely immersed in the world Ginsberg creates. I'm unaware of the controversy surrounding these poems, but alll I can say is that these are some great poems that deserve to be read by a much wider audience. Poetry is a unique & powerful experience (both reading & writing) & this collection is no different. Well worth a look.
Direct, honest and passionate - By: Paul Lester, 20 Aug 2006 
This CD gives you a direct insight to the beat generation & the radicalism of the 1950s underground. It takes no prisoners & covers issues such as sexuality,drugs, music & spirituality directly & without apology. Even by today's standards its shocking. Ginsberg is lyrical & passionate. His poetry is honest & direct. None of that "wandering lonely as a cloud" crap
Don't just read poetry, hear to it! - By: , 01 Aug 2001 This CD comprises of Ginsberg reading a selection of the poems from Ginsberg's Howl & other poems including an unabridged live recording of Howl.
The sound quality is good, the words are audible & clear though it is by no means a pristine studio reading (hence no 5 stars).
By listening to this you can get a sense of the fervour & energy Ginsberg had about his poetry. This is what the Beat Generation was about & you can hear it rather than try & work it out from the biographies & second hand accounts.
This is good stuff & I'd recommed it to anyone.
Howl of the Young Generations - By: , 25 Jul 2000 Imagine that you close your eyes & the vibrating sound of the jazz slightly flows over your skin. While you are completely absorbed by that sound, a vortex of emotions gently comes out to shake your steadfastness, no matter who you are & how old you are. This is the sentiment I feel every time I read this book. Above alll I appreciate its universal dimension that, almost half-century after its creation, make me share with the author this boundless feeling of defeat. Whenever you believe in something; whenever you are ready to bet on it; whenever you spend your positive energy to improve it & your trustfulness is betrayed, then, you are sharing the truest feeling of this book with the countless people who experienced it. When you read this book you feel the need of living & the pain of doing it: both of them portrayed in the picture of a gloomy America unables to take care of her sons. The poems convey the hopelessness of the American Dream which proved mendacious. They are made up of concrete images, which express the metaphysical aspects of life. Drug, sex & dead-living bodies seeking what does not exist: these are the most striking figures. In 'Howl' "Children screaming under the stairways! Boys sobbing in armies! Old men weeping in the parks!" represent the varied universe of sufferers who are joined by a metaphysical brotherhood. This union is best represented by the friendship between the narrator & Carl Solomon, the poet to whom the poem is addressed. The theme of a metaphysical brotherhood is also traced in 'A Supermarket in California' where the author dreams of talking to Walt Whitman & asking about the lost America. In 'America', the hopeful land, which was joyfully sung by the old bard in 'Leaves of Grass' a century before, has become the world of atom bomb, of human war, of machinery. Ginsberg says: "America I've given you alll & now I'm nothing", but when he deepens into the problem he realises that he is America & he is talking to himself. Think about what it means...
Buy it for Howl, enjoy it for the others... - By: , 09 Aug 1999 To be completely honest, I don't find Howl as interesting as I find Ginsberg's other poems. While Howl does reach the soul, I find that Ginsberg's poems America, Sunflower Sutra, & A Supermarket in California are much more effective this & a lot less annoying to read. I found myself plugging away through Howl because it got redundant & boring. The other poems are fresh & more personal than Howl. Howl is a great poem & it is easy to see how it receives so much acclaim, but as a fan of Ginsberg's work, I find that Howl pales in comparison to Ginsberg's America. By alll means, purchase this book, but don't buy it with the expectation that Howl is the best poem in there, because it isn't.
