September 25th, Free Speech Forum; Howl for Carl Soloman by Allen Ginsberg

September 25th, Free Speech Forum; Howl for Carl Soloman by Allen Ginsberg

Howl For Carl Soloman: A four part poem about conformity, homo and heterosexuality, opening minds, and inner truths.

This poem was first recited in 1956, and written in the 1950s by Allen Ginsberg. Allen was a confused homosexual. Growing up, his mom had mental breakdowns, attempted suicide once, spent more than one year in a mental institution, ended up getting a lobotomy and dying from a brain hemorrhage. Allen himself ended up in a mental institution before Howl was first published. He claims that while he was there he found heterosexuality, but about a year after he got out, promptly fell in love with a man.

It was first published through City Lights Book Publishers. The owner and manager of the bookstore were both arrested for the publishing the poem, as it was called obscene, rude, and homosexual. Specifically 5 lines:

       who cowered in unshaven rooms in underwear, burn- 

              ing their money in wastebaskets and listening 

              to the Terror through the wall, 

     

who got busted in their pubic beards returning through 

              Laredo with a belt of marijuana for New York, 

       

       with dreams, with drugs, with waking nightmares, al- 

              cohol and cock and endless balls, 

   

  

       who let themselves be fucked in the ass by saintly 

              motorcyclists, and screamed with joy, 

       who blew and were blown by those human seraphim, 

              the sailors, caresses of Atlantic and Caribbean 

              love, 

     

They, the manager and owner of City Lights, took their case to court, and won. During the trial, 9 literary experts talked on behalf of the poem, saying it was poetic license and that the world needed this kind of speech. Exactly, it was claimed to be “redeeming social importance.”

Another reason this poem was such a big deal was that it started the beat generation. In his poem, part four, he says: Holy Peter holy Allen holy Solomon holy Lucien holy Kerouac holy Huncke holy Burroughs holy Cassady, meaning Peter Orlovsky, Carl Solomon, Lucien Carr, Jack Kerouac, Herbert Huncke, William S. Burroughs, and Neal Cassady, who were some of his beatnik friends, a lot of them rumored to be homosexual.

The 1950’s were a time of conformity and idealism, where being the American family was living the life. Allen Ginsberg called upon people, “the best minds of his generation” to see what people are doing and to not be such a conformist.