The Poem That Changed America: "Howl" Fifty Years Later

About this book

A tribute to Ginsbergs signature work which stirred a generation of angel-headed hipsters to cultural rebellion. In 1956 City Lights a small San Francisco bookstore published Allen Ginsbergs Howl and Other Poems with its trademark black-and-white cover. The original edition cost seventy-five cents but there was something priceless about its eponymous piece. Although it gave a voice to the new generation that came of age in the conservative years following World War II the poem also conferred a strange subversive power that continues to exert its influence to this day. Ginsberg went on to become one of the most eminent and celebrated writers of the second half of the twentieth century and Howl became the critical axis of the worldwide literary cultural and political movement that would be known as the Beat generation. The year 2006 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Howl and The Poem That Changed America will celebrate and shed new light on this profound cultural work. With new essays by many of todays most distinguished writers including Frank Bidart Andrei Codrescu Vivian Gornick Phillip Lopate Daphne Merkin Rick Moody Robert Pinsky and Luc Sante The Poem That Changed America reveals the pioneering influence of Howl down through the decades and its powerful resonance today.