Revisiting Allen Ginsberg's 'Howl' at 50 [audio 7min]

Allen Ginsberg said in a 1985 interview that "Howl" began with another poem. Ginsberg, who had studied at Columbia University, sent a poem called "Dream Record, 1955" to poet and essayist Kenneth Rexroth. "It still sounds like you're wearing Columbia University Brooks Brothers ties," Rexroth told Ginsberg. "You know, it's too formal." So, Ginsberg says, "I sat down and just started writing what I thought about." The resulting rush of violent, desperate words, starting with the well-known opening lines "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness," created major ripples in the literary world. "Howl" became an anthem for the nascent counterculture. The poem gave voice to an undercurrent of dissatisfaction and alienation in Eisenhower's America. Allen Ginsberg died in 1997 at the age of 70. He would have been 80 years old this spring. "Howl" is now in its 53rd printing, with 965,000 copies in print.