I, like so many others, adore Howl. It's not a very difficult poem to like. So I was excited that my boyfriend bought me a book of Allen Ginsberg's poetry for Christmas. Unfortunately, this was a collection of last poems before death, which often have a ragged, disorderly feeling to them. More than the organization of the poetry, however, it was the poetry itself that was so difficult for me to enjoy.
Ginsberg is a man who understands death is coming. It's threaded throughout his works. However, he is also a man whose poetry has regressed; the vast majority of the poetry contained within this collection is of a scatological or political nature. I certainly have no issue with the latter, but his stance on politics is so shallowly stated that it feels like they were written more by a political teenager than a seventy year old man. Lines such as "Native gooks work cheaper, rich get richer..." hardly enlighten.
I'm not sure what happened to Ginsberg's poetry. It's lost its edge, and, much more distressingly, the talent contained within his earlier works. Mostly, it feels like a lot of scribbled words anyone could write during their spare time, more than the final work of one of the great poets of the beat generation.
1/5
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