What is to give light must endure burning. – Victor Frankl
Today we look at Howl. One of its source inspirations, (http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174745) "Song of Myself", by Walt Whitman, invites stylisic and thematic comparison.
Howl is a film based on a now very famous poem–"Howl"–by Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997). At the time of its writing, Ginsberg was a young man coming to terms with his own identity as a homosexual and felt himself at odds with much of American culture, in particular its militarism and capitalistic excesses and its opposition to homosexuality. The poem is personal, autobiographical, raw, and graphic in its depictions of a generation ("the best minds of my generation") living on edge, and finding meaning (or whatever "sensations") in those edges. The poem became famous, at least in part, when government authorities claimed it obscene, and a trial ensued to have its publication banned. Ginsberg wrote the poem in free verse in a style imitative of Walt Whitman's work ("Song of Myself)", in long lines uttered with force, in sometimes broken syntax and with odd juxtapositions of words that reflect the urgency, intensity and spontaneity of Ginsberg's poetic vision. In the trial, prosecutors objected to the poem's profane language and sexual content, and contended it had no literary merit. The defense claimed the language and content were necessary to portray truthfully the culture and attitudes of Ginsberg's subjects.
Having you watch the film Howl (starring James Franco in the role of the poet Allen Ginsberg, author of the poem “Howl”) I am interested in your response to the content of the poem and the film, the poet’s explanations of his work and why he wrote it, and the critical responses expressed during the trial scenes. If you owe a short response, or want to focus on Howl as a final project: In your own words, relate what the poem is about, what you thought of Ginsberg’s discussion of the work, and the opinions aired in court on the matter of its obscenity or no, its artistic merit, the advisability of censoring its publication, etcetera (350 words, short response).
Several links posted here may be useful:
Howl is a film based on a now very famous poem–"Howl"–by Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997). At the time of its writing, Ginsberg was a young man coming to terms with his own identity as a homosexual and felt himself at odds with much of American culture, in particular its militarism and capitalistic excesses and its opposition to homosexuality. The poem is personal, autobiographical, raw, and graphic in its depictions of a generation ("the best minds of my generation") living on edge, and finding meaning (or whatever "sensations") in those edges. The poem became famous, at least in part, when government authorities claimed it obscene, and a trial ensued to have its publication banned. Ginsberg wrote the poem in free verse in a style imitative of Walt Whitman's work ("Song of Myself)", in long lines uttered with force, in sometimes broken syntax and with odd juxtapositions of words that reflect the urgency, intensity and spontaneity of Ginsberg's poetic vision. In the trial, prosecutors objected to the poem's profane language and sexual content, and contended it had no literary merit. The defense claimed the language and content were necessary to portray truthfully the culture and attitudes of Ginsberg's subjects.
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In the Symposium of Plato, an inquiry into the nature of love is made by Socrates and his guests. One story comes from Aristophanes: “Mankind, he said, judging by their neglect of him, have never, as I think, at all understood the power of Love. For if they had understood him they would surely have built noble temples and altars, and offered solemn sacrifices in his honour; but this is not done, and most certainly ought to be done: since of all the gods he is the best friend of men, the helper and the healer of the ills which are the great impediment to the happiness of the race. I will try to describe his power to you, and you shall teach the rest of the world what I am teaching you.”
He goes on to speak of an ancient myth recounted by Homer that humans were originally of three kinds or sexes, each with two heads, four hands, four arms and legs, and so on. There was man, woman, and a combination of the two, the androgyne. These were mighty creatures and they made an attack upon the gods, who repelled them and then sought to curtail their power. Zeus decided to split them in two. Thus, in this myth, we have since spent our lives yearning for our other half, whether male or female:
And when one of them meets with his other half, the actual half of himself, whether he be a lover of youth or a lover of another sort, the pair are lost in an amazement of love and friendship and intimacy, and one will not be out of the other's sight, as I may say, even for a moment: these are the people who pass their whole lives together, and yet they could not explain what they desire of one another. For the intense yearning which each of them has towards the other does not appear to be the desire of lover's intercourse, but of something else which the soul of either evidently desires and cannot tell, and of which she has only a dark and doubtful presentiment. –from Aristophanes's Speech from Plato's Symposium
Figurative language is the primary mode of poetry, language compressed and concentrated and made expressive and evocative through association. Figuration or tropes take different forms, as metaphor, personification, simile, symbol, synecdoche, metonymy, irony, hyperbole, pun. We find literal and figurative language is used to make imagery, the patterns of represented objects, feelings, and ideas we find in poems. We speak of literal and figurative language; the former expresses the ordinary sense or actual denotation of the word or words, and the latter expresses an unusual sense or use for expressive purposes, beauty, vividness, ect. So to call a woman a rose is a figurative use of the word rose (and to give her roses . . .), the two become identified by close association.
In the photograph above, which I found on the Internet, and I don't remember where, it appears someone has literally carved the "dream" of love and home into this woman's back. What does the image suggest figuratively? A tentative response: anguish, we bleed for these, for love, true connection, a happy and safe home. Inwardly and outwardly our thoughts and efforts, whoever we are, resonate with people the world over, however they identify–black, white, brown, yellow, gay, transgender, aged and ill, heterosexual, young, vibrantly healthy–what have you.
The image reminds me of Allan Ginsberg and all the outcasts and rejects of society, including those who struggle for self-acceptance and inclusion and love and respect–or benign tolerance, at the least. Identity politics. The face and body we present, the voice we use, our sexuality, work, lifestyle– we make of ourselves what we can in the pure endeavor to fulfill what calls to us. Often our "differences" put us in conflict with others, and we suffer. Sometimes, too, a collective fight ensues and the culture must change to accommodate the "differences" inherent in people the world over, natural variations of race, color, creed, gender, sexuality, and age.
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Sex Without Love by Sharon Olds
How do they do it, the ones who make love
without love? Beautiful as dancers,
gliding over each other like ice-skaters
over the ice, fingers hooked
inside each other's bodies, faces
red as steak, wine, wet as the
children at birth whose mothers are going to
give them away. How do they come to the
come to the come to the God come to the
still waters, and not love
the one who came there with them, light
rising slowly as steam off their joined
skin? These are the true religious,
the purists, the pros, the ones who will not
accept a false Messiah, love the
priest instead of the God. They do not
mistake the lover for their own pleasure,
they are like great runners: they know they are alone
with the road surface, the cold, the wind,
the fit of their shoes, their over-all cardio-
vascular health—just factors, like the partner
in the bed, and not the truth, which is the
single body alone in the universe
against its own best time.
Desire by Stephen Dobyns
A woman in my class wrote that she is sick
of men wanting her body and when she reads
her poem out loud the other women all nod
and even some of the men lower their eyes
and look abashed as if ready to unscrew
their cocks and pound down their own dumb heads
with these innocent sausages of flesh, and none
would think of confessing his hunger
or admit how desire can ring like a constant
low note in the brain or grant how the sight
of a beautiful woman can make him groan
on those first spring days when the parkas
have been packed away and the bodies are staring
at the bodies and the eyes stare at the ground;
and there was a man I knew who even at ninety
swore that his desire had never diminished.
Is this simply the wish to procreate, the world
telling the cock to eat faster, while the cock
yearns for that moment when it forgets its loneliness
and the world flares up in an explosion of light?
Why have men been taught to feel ashamed
of their desire, as if each were a criminal
out on parole, a desperado with a long record
of muggings, rapes, such conduct as excludes
each one from all but the worst company,
and never to be trusted, no never to be trusted?
Why must men pretend to be indifferent as if each
were a happy eunuch engaged in spiritual thoughts?
But it's the glances that I like, the quick ones,
the unguarded ones, like a hand snatching a pie
from a window ledge and the feet pounding away;
eyes fastening on a leg, a breast, the curve
of a buttock, as the pulse takes an extra thunk
and the cock, that toothless worm, stirs in its sleep,
and fat possibility swaggers into the world
like a big spender entering a bar. And sometimes
the woman glances back. Oh, to disappear
in a tangle of fabric and flesh as the cock
sniffs out its little cave, and the body hungers
for closure, for the completion of the circle,
as if each of us were born only half a body
and we spend our lives searching for the rest.
What good does it do to deny desire, to chain
the cock to the leg and scrawl a black X
across its bald head, to hold out a hand
for each passing woman to slap? Better
to be bad and unrepentant, better to celebrate
each difference, not to be cruel or gluttonous
or overbearing, but full of hope and self-forgiving.
The flesh yearns to converse with other flesh.
Each pore loves to linger over its particular story.
Let these seconds not be full of self-recrimination
and apology. What is desire but the wish for some
relief from the self, the prisoner let out
into a small square of sunlight with a single
red flower and a bird crossing the sky, to lean back
against the bricks with the legs outstretched,
to feel the sun warming the brow, before returning
to one's mortal cage, steel doors slamming
in the cell block, steel bolts sliding shut?
--------------Two Sonnets
To the Evening Star by William Blake (1757-1827)
Thou fair-hair'd angel of the evening,
Now, whilst the sun rests on the mountains, light
Thy bright torch of love; thy radiant crown
Put on, and smile upon our evening bed!
Smile on our loves, and while thou drawest the
Blue curtains of the sky, scatter thy silver dew
On every flower that shuts its sweet eyes
In timely sleep. Let thy west wind sleep on
The lake; speak silence with thy glimmering eyes,
And wash the dusk with silver. Soon, full soon,
Dost thou withdraw; then the wolf rages wide,
And the lion glares thro' the dun forest:
The fleeces of our flocks are cover'd with
Thy sacred dew: protect them with thine influence.
And the Stars by Robinson Jeffers (1887-1962)
Perhaps you did not know how bright last night,
Especially above your seaside door,
Was all the marvelous starlit sky, and wore
White harmonies of very shining light.
Perhaps you did not want to seek the sight
Of that remembered rapture any more.–
But then at least you must have heard the shore
Roar with reverberant voices thro' the night.
Those stars were lit with longing of my own,
And the ocean's moan was full of my own pain.
Yet doubtless it was well for both of us
You did not come, but left me there alone.
I hardly ought to see you much again;
And stars, we know, are often dangerous.
Literature is filled with stories and poems about our quest for love in one or another of its forms. We will spend some time looking at them in the coming weeks.
At Harper's you may read an excellent little piece by an accomplished American poet named Tony Hoagland on why poetry matters and the 20 he offers as instructive. You may find one to write on if you have yet to settle on subject matter for one or another writing: http://harpers.org/blog/2013/04/twenty-little-poems-that-could-save-america/3/
The following poem and song has folk roots going back to slave times in America, and the work of abolitionists like John Brown, whose siege of the federal arsonal in support of a slave insurrection at Harper's Ferry, for which he was tried and executed, gave impetus to the American Civil War. It is an excellent piece for recitation! You can hear it sung on youtube.
Battle Hymn of the Republic by Julia Ward Howe (1819-1910)
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath
are stored;
He hath loosed his fateful lightning of His terrible swift
sword:
His truth is marching on.
I have seen Him in the watch fires of a hundred circling
camps;
They have builded Him an altar in the e evening dews and
Damp;,
I can read his righteous sentence by the dim and flaring
Lamps.
His day is marching on.
I have read a fiery Gospel, writ in burnished rows of steel:
"As ye deal with My contemners, so with you My grace shall
Deal;"
Let the Hero born of woman ,crush the serpent with His
heel,
Since God is marching on.
He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call
retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment
seat,
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him!
Be jubilant, my feet,
Our God is marching on.
In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me;
As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.
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