The idea of writing a 2011 version of “The Howl” stared with this Tweet:
The intent was not to replicate Ginsberg but to honor his style.
Ginsberg’s “The Howl”, as all great poetry, was an impassioned plea, written with specific purposes in mind. We wanted to capture some of Ginsberg’s emotion and also stay true to his style of Poetry. Ginsberg, in trying to write from his heart used his breath as a meter and wrote long lines in stylized free verse. He used many cultural references both timeless and transient. Our intent was to honor his style, but, not take on his particular message.
Our poem was written on Twitter and Polished in email.
The poem you are about to hear / read was a true collaboration. It wrote itself between us. Jenny provided some starter material. Josepf had some hand scratched notes. Fragments were exchanges via email and then turned into audios as we read a version and sent it back. Jenny proved most able editor, capturing word changes read but never documented by Josepf. We met for the first time in Montreal, at a Twitter Meetup, documented here by “JC” the Animated Woman and recorded on YouTube by Mila (aka Vampire Princess) @MilasPage on Twitter.
The Howl – 2011 by Jenny Herner & Josepf Haslam
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9IWLVWUUb0
Section I
I saw the best of my generation possessed of preppies punkers valley girls, coveting bimmers and scissored sweat clothes and desperately seeking Susan,
towheaded silver-tongued seraphs with upcast collars, howling of White Weddings in the chapel of the quarter draw,
who, begat of hippies and dissidents, rebelled with whitebread allegiences, a new establishmentarianism
who Polo’d up and Dockered down straightjacketing themselves to uniform regularity, a suburban monotony of death encompassing hegemony,
who knelt at the altar of wood-paneled MTV in contemplation of Morrissey, who then watched jackasses die like jackasses drowning out their demons in booze and speed in fiery death,
who saw Lennon die and shuttle burst and cried,
who, with the salve of untested optimism and cigarettes, had Champagne for breakfast, expecting infirmity on new millennium’s eve,
who, haling phones big as bread loaves, talked of aid to the Contras and Band Aid and Buckley in Beirut,
who ran barefoot through columned quad at midnight because they had no cars,
with secret recipe basement trash can Kool-Aid concoctions that loosened lips and buttons and gave them courage,
endless beer bong quarters parties bobbing and bowing to The Kinks until the porcelain god demanded its oblations,
and we turn to their saturations, leaving behind Wally and June, Cleaving from suburban disasters of he shed she shed they all shed what they wed in an orgy of marital perversion in the name of freedoms never obtained because they were never known to begin with, man and woman still seeking Moloch,
who in their ignorance thought “the king” who they worshiped in slicked back hair and sequined best, bloated, drugged, tormented, a harbinger of things to come by Death in Graceland,
I saw my generation, nurtured on neighborhood and Mr. Rogers, corrupt themselves, masturbating away their childhood pleasures with Pee Wee Herman, as if that alone could atone for the sins of their catholic priest and the whores in Washington far to the East,
who, on Philadelphia streets, where Rocky runs steps and Merlino numbers, saw Mayor burn and kill whole blocks to the ground because he was so Moved,
who, wrenched themselves from passion’s febrile gravity, choosing lullabies of selfocentric sleepstumbling indifference over heartsick insomniatic delirium, ignoring El’s hand outstretched as a Sistine head-turned Adam,
who sang and gave their hearts to pets because they had no children because they had no time because pursuing American-dream masked fear of failure requires no heart,
who painted themselves into pictures perfect, unseen unloved wretched, where man’s best friend was their only and I love you was cast under rotting rug like dust of forgotten Santa Fe sandstorm,
And we still howl Mr Ginsberg,
yackety yakking screaming vomiting whispering facts and memories and anecdotes and eyeball kicks and shocks of hospitals and jails and wars, whole intellects disgorged in total recall for seven weeks, as
Trade towers fixating us with their falls in slow motion, as stars through atmospheres of innocence burning, and we all fell down, ashes to ashes,
We Who wandered around and around in a New Midnight of unveiled terrorism, wondering where to go, and went, fighting endless wars against phantom weapons of mass destruction leaving our state unified in broken corruption, the Haliburtoning rape of countries for oil’s sake,
fumigating our cancer rates with state-subsidized Fords and Chevy’s while we let the levies break, drowning New Orleans fate, always the focus of corruption, until feeble FEMA’s homeland insecurities reigned, back breaking, shoving Negros into white trailer rows like so many dominoes, and they all fell down
we who still roam hungry, lonesome through Houston streets seeking sex or shop or cybercafe, stalking celebrity for photography to feed endless curiosity, and so take ship to somewhere else,
who disappeared into the fleshpot of Cancun leaving behind nothing but the shadow of Levis and the lava and ash of poetry scattered in fireplace St. Louis,
who let themselves forget Martin Luther King except for national holiday dream, rendered moot by black president and so accomplished and over red rover. Emancipation Proclamation exiled to calendar, checked and marked: funds still insufficient,
we who let our land of opportunity become bread and circuses, national obesity and childhood strokes, fueled by high fructose profits and the spectacle of Nathan’s hot dogs vomiting into tweets,
who, connected in overthrowing Egypt, see themselves overthrown, connected in webs of nonconnection, embracing onanisms faceless with new gods called Klout and Google Plus,
Who facebook and tweet to those who do not listen, they who turned on to 500 channels of nothing, fragmented figments of interest serving none,
Who try to recreate the syntax and measure of poor human prose and stand before you speechless and intelligent and shaking with shame,
rejected, confessing out the soul to conform to the rhythm of thought in his naked and endless head, the madman bum and angel beat in Time, unknown, yet putting down here what might be left to say in time come after death,
who Amplify, Posterous and Tumblr, cultivating dead gardens of regurgitated sameness all sucking the same falling Apple, stalked by Droid, we assimilate, warned of the Borg, yet becoming less, trading flesh and skin for text and tweet,
who increasingly alone frenetically connected in smoke filled coffee house of old, turned to match.com, electronic fragging hashtagging slagging ourselves to mindless salvations, meat markets of meeting frustrations, artless soulless communications,
who, lying prostrate before lying market bubble in Greenspan Bathtub Enlightenment Frenzy, bought McMansions on credit masking utter destitution,
their heroes felled in bloody gloved suicide SUV spectacle and blue dress cigar tryst debate on the meaning of “is”,
their children coddled shooting sexing suing parents in maelstrom of lawsuitrainwreck entitlement delusion where there are no accidents and neighbors lock their doors,
Oh to reclaim our Innocence, expel comfort’s vile golden-handcuff anesthesia, love thy neighbor and walk again with the God of Abraham Isaac and Aerosmith,
Section II
Yet we still howl, Mr Ginsberg; we know your:
Visions! omens! hallucinations! miracles! ecstasies!
gone down American superhighway! hopeless screams and crucifixions!
gone down 100-year flood plains! epiphanies of suicide-watch climate despair!
gone down the rocks of Time! grieving Michael Jackson’s demise and Lady GaGa’s rise,
we, who, Prosac pipe dreaming, corporate fleeced government opiate scheming, Jonesing on Joneses, clueless, Lost, Grinch-hearted, “who-less”,
Awake! arise! progress! our fathers’ countless sins redress, recast American dream before we fall, as Ginsberg cries, to our knees!
To your feet! Arise!
Now is the time, to be free at last,
To wake from complacent coma, wake up!
To wake and to dream
of content and character, our content! our character!
We still need to dream
To save our children, even if not ours, they are all ours! and when they are not safe, we are not safe!
We still need to dream
with fierce urgency of Now,
We still need to dream
Dreams that eat us alive, force us to shed our thick skins our walls our sins, burn through false freedoms’ shrouding, as Phoenixes, all from our ashes,
We still need to dream
to trade tabloid talk-show back-seat lust for love,
to forgive others’ eye specs and free boulders from our blind eyes turned,
to be free at last from conformity’s clutch and escape the Kingdom of More
I have a dream
that we all Howl together, cries of joy not lament
I have a dream
that we recapture our manifest destinies, free at last free at last
I have a dream
where I see you, where you see me
I have a dream
where we take each other’s hands, are, and henceforth shall be free.
Jenny and Josepf, it’s a pleasure to read it along with your voices. This is the poem that was always there, waiting to be uncovered….two poets, one voice.
Beautifully framed in this post. Sweet fruit from the Twitter tree!
So sorry I missed that live. Bravo, you two:)
this was like a roller coaster ride in my past ! – Wow
Keep writing and enjoy the ride