I'm currently taking a creative writing class at my school and we just recently read the poem, Howl by Allen Ginsberg (if you haven't read it, I suggest it strongly). Our teacher assigned us the task of writing our own version of it, Howl 2011 if you will. The assignment got me thinking...for those of you who have read the poem (and even those who haven't), what would you want to put in a poem about your generation? How would you describe yourself and the world you see around you? [I wasn't exactly sure where to put this, so I felt Random Thoughts would work.]
Can you post a link to an online verion of the poem, hun? Then those of us as haven't read it can take your advice and follow your recommendation ...
Indeed I can I just wasn't sure whether I was allowed to. Here you are lovely: http://sprayberry.tripod.com/poems/howl.txt
I managed about a dozen lines My reaction to that ... pretentious, impenetrable, incomprehensible. And above all ... not poetry. For me, poetry is epitomised by Kipling's Big Steamers or The Land; by Alfred Lord Tennyson's The Revenge; or by Horace's Odes III.30
Hi, this is too long and lacking structure. Homework 4 you: write at least 10 Haikus every day for 1 year. Learn the technique of great writers until you can easily copy their style- give 5 poems of a great writer with one of your poems to literature people until they dont recognize which is yours. Then after all this you should be able to write and publish as long as your creativitiy is available.
Beat poetry is a little "out there", okay in this day and age, a lot out there, but it wasn't written for our times. The other thing about beat poetry is it's not meant to be read, but be listened to, it's a performance piece, inflection of voice, pause, and timing are as much of it as the meaning of the words themselves. Reading this with a modern mindset you would naturally be missing 2/3rds of it's impact and meaning.......
It's like a chronological list of famous stories that 20 somethings got up to. It sort of seems to cover a wide range of experiences, but then i think that at that time people were less segregated in their experiences. But you might find the path that each 'who....' will have a modern destination. they start off a similar place, or pick up where they left off i wonder where that traffic light game comes into it.
