'Howl' is alive with rhythm and reason and risk, working together. It does what you hope every good poem should do: knocks language about a bit, twists language with new reason, and says something in such a way that makes you lift your head from the page and think about the world anew. A testament to the power of 'Howl' is that it is still being printed - the edition I have is the fifty-ninth such printing - since its first publication in 1956 (which instigated an obscenity trial). The committal to print is an important part of the development of poetry, of why poetry is more than a throwaway rant or the la-di-da of a happy pop lyric. And yet, this notion that a poem is language arranged in a form that has the power to speak - to shock - beyond the immediate person is under heavy and consistent assault in contemporary poetry circles.
Ironically, it is performance poetry that is eating away at the universal characteristics of poetry. Voice has become, not something that is welded into lines of language on a once-blank page, but a fetishised thing of personal ownership - my voice, with my accent and all I have to say with this voice is to do with me, me, me. That's why the only way you can experience this language is if I personally perform it for you.(via
Bookslut)
# posted by
Gerry Canavan @ 3:00 PM
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