Howl was first performed on October 7th, 1955, at the famous
Six Gallery in
San Francisco. Soon afterwards, it was published by
Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who ran
City Lights Bookstore and the City Lights Press. It is noted for relating stories and experiences of Ginsberg's friends and contemporaries, its tumbling hallucinatory style, and the subsequent obscenity trial that it provoked. It is dedicated to Ginsberg's friend Carl Solomon (1928-1993), whom he met in a mental institution. Carl Solomon is addressed by name throughout the poem, which also includes references to many other Beat figures, including
Neal Cassady,
Jack Kerouac,
William S. Burroughs,
Peter Orlovsky,
Lucien Carr, and
Herbert Huncke.
Artigo completo AquiHowl
I
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical
naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry
dynamo in the machinery of night,
who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the
supernatural darkness of cold-water flats
floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz,
who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and saw Mohammedan angels
staggering on tene- ment roofs
