January 5, 2007

GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

eveningsout

'Howl' at the half century

New annotated edition includes handwritten manuscripts

by Anthony Glassman

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... Allen Ginsberg, "Howl," 1956

The opening of Allen Ginsberg's most noted, celebrated,

reviled and cherished work epitomized and energized generations of counter-culture, most notably the Beat Generation. Now approaching the ten-year anniversary of his death and coming out of the 50th anniversary of the original publication of Howl and Other Poems, Harper Collins has released a trade paperback edition of the fully annotated version

of underlying psychological problems is more of a certainty than a probability, but it is that embrace of craziness as well as the fear of it that drove such incredible work.

In Collected Poems, one can trace the chronological development of Ginsberg's work, the evolution of the man as a creative being, slipping from one form of poesy to another a rhyming quatrain (ABCB form, in the case of "In Memoriam: William

who sat in boxes breathing in the darkness under the Bridge and rozs up to balld harpsichords in their lofts,

werent lande

who coughed on the sixth floor of Harles under the tuburcular sky surrounded by orange crates

of theology,

who cooked rotten animals lung heart foot tail boraht

Meet th

of

Dea Pl

"Howl"-origi-

nally put out

twenty years ago in

honor of the poem's 30th anniversary attr as well as a massive /

hardcover volume of Collected Poems 1947-1997. Containing the final 1986 version

of the poem as well

as Photostat copies of Ginsberg's pa-

"BAR

& tortillas dreaming of the pure vegetable kingdom, Hans for prepuce, cacs, aloe was she donned on brother, what

who sang out of their windows in dispair

Sent f threw up the water

their groans into the bloody tollet, moans in

their ears and the blast of colossal steamwhistles, who plunged themselves under meat trucks looking for

an 986,

who jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge this actually

happened and walked away unknown and forgotten into the ghostly daze of Chinatown soup alleyways and firetrucks, not even one free beer,

Who were expelled from the academies for crazy & publishing obscene odes on the windows of

the skull,

who threw their watches off the roof an oasting their ballot for Eternity outside of Time,

and alarm clocks fell on their heads every day for the next decade,

3/4 Who sar all nite racking & rolling over lofty incantation which in the yellow morning were sanvas of gibberish

9, left margin: "Meat truck egg

10 lunged out of subway windows, jumped in the filrisy Passaic, lesped on negroes, Cried al over the street. danced on broken wineglasses barefoot smashed their phonograph records of European 1930's German jazz finished the whisker &

pers, complete with typos, overstrikes and handwritten notes, the "Howl" edition is not only an ode to one of the most famous poems of the 20th century, but also a fitting remembrance for a man who never allowed society to force him into a closet.

While William S. Burroughs is always noted as a Beat writer who was also gay, Burroughs had his own issues with homosexuality. Ginsberg's issues with gayness, however, seemed to revolve mostly around falling in love with emotionally unavailable men, like Neal Cassaday. Jack Kerouac regarded Ginsberg and Cassaday as the dark side and light side of Ginsberg and Lucien Carr's "New Vision," an ideal for American society and literature.

"Howl" was a history of the Beat poets, as well as their collective eulogy. Their heavy drug use often took its toll, and the concept

11: groaning

15: got hi (canceled)

20-2, left margin: Seep 1 Iproposed shift to page ... A.G.]

23-6, left margin: After free Beer [proposed shift to follow verse & shore A.G.)

Cannastra, 1922-1950") to half-rhymes (soul and skull, shades and days in "Fie My Fum") to the unquestionably epic, as was the case with "Howl," Beowulf for the stoned and horny.

Of course, there is little in this world that is so self-indulgent as a newspaper review of poetry (other than, perhaps, a blog). A writer yammering on about the evanescence of the wording or the sylph-like nature of a turn of phrase is all well and good, but it's nothing compared to picking up the book and reading it for oneself.

For fans of poetry, Collected Poems is a steal at $39.95, and for $18.95, the complete annotated "Howl" on Harper Collins' HarperPerennial imprint is the perfect buy for poetry junkies, LGBT history aficionados or people interested in the creative process at work.

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Lets go somewhere romantic for dinner!

Pin-up

Continued from page 8

Released on January 2, the album is the first for Music with a Twist, the brainchild of Matt Farber, co-creator of the Logo LGBT cable network. His Wilderness Media created the brand, which is working with various Sony labels.

The freshman effort really does have something for everyone, with artists ranging from Tori Amos and Nina Simone to Da Brat and Peaches. And yes, Pink is on here too, because one Pink song in a review is never enough.

The 14-track CD features a funky Kirsten Price song, "Magic Tree," as well as Fiona Apple and PJ Harvey's big hits "Sleep to Dream" and "Down by the Water," which in a way is disappointing. For a record label that is going to give queer artists a mainstream venue, they could have picked some

more daring songs from those two chan-

teuses.

Of course, the Tori Amos song, “A Sorta Fairytale," is far from her best-known work, and Nina Simone's "Do I Move You (Version 2)" is not the song that springs to mind when one thinks of the jazz great. Also interesting is the complete avoidance of Kelis' big hit "Milkshake" for a song almost diametrically opposed to it, "Living Proof."

The timing of the album is perfect, as is the variety of songs on it. With the new season of The L Word debuting on January 7 at 10 pm on Showtime, throwing the record to the starving masses shows some good business savvy.

One has to wonder, though, if they will later release a season four album as was done with season three. That disc, which came out on Tommy Boy (why, I will never know) was a two-CD set of music from that season, and seemed a bit heftier than this compilation, although the inclusion of Nina Simone can forgive any sin.

A

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