Howl and Other Poems

By: Allen Ginsberg

Narrated by: Allen Ginsberg

Length: 59 mins

Publisher's summary

Including:

"Europe, Europe"

"America"

"Howl"

Footnote to "Howl"

"Strange New Cottage"

"In Back of the Real"

Transcription of organ music

"Sunflower Sutra"

"A Supermarket in California"

"Beat Poetry at Royal"

©2020 Allen Ginsberg (P)2020 Allen Ginsberg

Powerful

Prophetic for our modern time in the world. time for true transformation and true love.

Sheer Brilliance

Allen Ginsberg is a national treasure. His passion will ignite your soul. His commentary on America is as relevant as ever, and his liberated speech will set your spirit free!

Poor Quality Audio

The audio recording is all over the place. I wish the audio quality was better.

Not to my taste

This was recommended to me by a friend and it clearly resonated with him, so I bought it as we have similar tastes. The poems are delivered by the original author and the recordings are clearly taken from his public appearances where he performed these pieces. The audio quality was just bad, nothing done to clean these up. I don't know if it would have been possible, some of the recordings are just so muddy and I didn't like the way in which the audience reactions sometimes drowned out the readings. All the poems had the feel of someone taking a stab at automatic writing, very free-associative, stream of consciousness stuff. They are at least cohesive in the sense that they swirl around a particular subject; war, tragedy, personal and pollical greed, injustice, and so on. But I didn't feel like he contributed much to these topics other than raw anger or disgust. The kind of emotions a teenager or one who has long been bitter and never healed from trauma might express. It just was not my thing. I appreciate it for what it was, but it had no use for me. I rarely watch the new or get involved in politics, because it's mostly noise to me that I can no longer afford to pay attention to for my own sanity. So I won't.

Great Work - At Times a Poor Recording Quality

It takes about 10 minutes to get used to the recording. Ginsberg’s cadence is strange at first, but you acclimate to the pace and the speed. At times he doesn’t fully pronounce a stanza, so the listener has to catch-as-catch-can; leaves out a vowel, doesn’t complete a word, seems to at times elide through a line.

Bear in mind while listening that this is a recording of a live performance. At first it sounds like a laugh track. Then you realise it’s actually some audience at a college somewhere, goading him along, feeding into the comedy. One is reminded of Bukowski’s rowdy readings; of course Ginsberg isn’t an abusive misogynist drunk.

“Footnote to Howl” is the best of this set. Truly. It can be found at the ‘21-minutes-remaining’ mark.

-Noah Balfour
02/29/2024

Live Recordings

This is a collection of poetry by Ginsberg and the only thing to redeem the lacking audio quality is that you get to hear Ginsberg read his own poetry. (Which is always better, the author reading his own work) Howl has good audio quality but the other poems are of a lesser quality. But overall, really fun to listen to Ginsberg’s performance.

Needs engineering.

Some of this is inaudible. The irony isn't lost on me. Can it be remastered?

An American Classic

A singular voice in a singular generation. If America forgets Ginsberg and the beats it deserves the things that befall it.

poor quality all around

I could not even listen because of the narrator he was very annoying. I'm asking for a refund.