Howl, poem in three sections by Allen Ginsberg, first published in Howl and Other Poems in 1956. A “footnote” was added later. It is considered the foremost poetic expression of the Beat generation of the 1950s.
A denunciation of the weaknesses and failings of American society, Howl is a combination lamentation, jeremiad, and vision. The poem opens with a description of the despair and frustration of American youths:
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,
The poem was praised for its incantatory rhythms and raw emotion; critics noted the influences of Ginsberg’s mentor William Carlos Williams (who wrote an introduction to the 1959 edition), Walt Whitman, and William S. Burroughs. Howl also was an unabashed celebration and critique of the masculine. The poem became the anthem of 1950s Beats. Its frank references to heterosexual and homosexual coupling landed its publisher, the poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, in court on charges of distributing obscene material, but he was acquitted in 1957 in a landmark decision.