Yes, We’re Open
As I read this poem, Howl, by Allen Ginsberg, I see a man who observed the events of life as they took place all around him. He is a great decoder of the moments in life that people look at but never really see (if I may be so cliché). The poem Howl embodies these moments of life as Ginsberg saw them occurring. The inescapable realness of these moments was enough to shatter the beautiful illusions that these great minds of his generation had let themselves create. For me, Ginsberg’s Howl centers itself on the collapse of these minds under the heaviness that poured down on his generation as they attempted to change or re-imagine their reality.
Each time a line begins with “who” the audience can prepare itself to be thrown into a moment of time, a state of mind or a combination of the two. One of my favorite scenes of life that Ginsberg take us on is “who studied Plotinus Poe St. John of the Cross telep- / athy and bop kabbalah because the cosmos in- / stinctivly vibrated at their feet in Kansas.”(pg. 12) In this scene I see a coup1le of people who were once delegated to a small town in northern Kansas and looking for a way out. I see them having an “epiphany” and jumping on the next train west. They now wander the streets looking for their “angry fix” of truth that they just can’t seem to find. The reality of life as a hipster who let’s “themselves get fucked in the ass” by the events they once dreamed would let them mimic the manic joy of an acid trip settles in. They must now “open antique / stores where they thought they were growing old and cried.” Life doesn’t suck but it doesn’t change all that much. Ginsberg knew this truth and saw it destroying the newly minted ideals of his generation. He sat down and wrote Howl.