Louis Ginsberg’s very traditional, metrical verse was of little use to his son, but his father’s interest in literary history was part of Ginsberg’s solid grounding in prosody. Ginsberg’s father had exerted more influence than was immediately apparent. Several factors in Ginsberg’s life were particularly important in this breakthrough poem, written as the poet was approaching thirty and still drifting through a series of jobs, countries, and social occasions. As Ginsberg’s notes make clear, however, it was also the latest specimen in a continuing experiment in form and structure. “Howl,” the poem that carried Allen Ginsberg ( J– April 5, 1997) into public consciousness as a symbol of the avant-garde artist and as the designer of a verse style for a postwar generation seeking its own voice, was initially regarded as primarily a social document.
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