Power of Poetry

The Power of Poetry

Poetry is one of subtlest work of art. It is so delicate, so difficult to analyze that every reader finds different explanations for a certain poem. Meanwhile, Howl is a poem, written like a prose, by Allen Ginsberg. It is the subtlest poem I have ever read that I have to read it a couple of times over again just to get the gist of it and have to research to understand more than half of the verses because of Ginsberg’s references.

Allen Ginsberg wrote Howl in 1954-1955. He was from the Beat Generation. The Beat Generation was a group of post-World War II American writers who emerged in the 1950s. The highlight of the Beat Generation was its deviation from the norm – rejection of traditions, use of illegal drugs, alternative sexualities, revolutions in style, etc. Howl was one of the best known literatures from the Beat Generation. Beat literature was famous for its non-conformity and spontaneity, and is all depicted in Howl. Moreover, Howl told a century’s story within 8 pages of text.

Explicitly implicit, its central theme revolves around sex, narcotics, homosexuality, resistance, and hope. Ginsberg tells us that he has witnessed the destruction of the best minds of his generation. By the phrase ‘the best minds’, he did not mean doctors or scientists, he meant the drug users, the sex addicts, the bums, the misfits, and the poets. It captures the alienation of the dominating America at that time, and also of their resistant to the dominant American Culture. Lastly, the poem speaks about hope – hope that someday, somewhere, somehow, we will reconcile with our loved ones and experience eternal bliss, just like Allen Ginsberg to Carl Solomon.

Poems, as subtle as they can be, have meanings buried beneath it influenced by the happenings before and during the author’s writing. A powerful feature of poems is that you can feel the spontaneous, overflowing emotions through reading it. That’s why it needs to be analyzed to be appreciated.