Howl- Allen Ginsberg

The first thing that struck me about Howl is the way that it's written. Ginsberg writes in a way very similar to the way Walt Whitman did in "Song of Myself", where the words seem to describe the way one would think rather than actually speak. This makes for a more interesting read, and adds to the landscape of this beatnick masterpiece.
The poem is divided into three parts. The first part opens with
"I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness"
He then goes on to explain exactly who these great minds are. To Ginsberg these men are not whom people would typically regard as "Best minds of a generation" material. They are the insane, homeless, drug addicts, drug smugglers, hipsters, and many others. Note Ginsberg's use of obscene language. It's understandable why many people had a problem with Ginsberg in the 1950's America. But his lines containing obscenities are equally as important. there are no restrictions and that's what I admire about it. Again to compare Ginsberg to Whitman, Whitman included lines in "Song of Myself" alluding to gay sex and the bodies of young men, and receieved the same kind of flac, only to later on be wholly embraced. It's interesting that both poems are now anthologized in our textbook. But he goes onto explain that eventually all of these people, who you get the sense are his friends, were eventually used, washed out, "with the absolute heart of the poem of life butchered out of their own bodies good to eat a thousand years".
The second part of the poem explains what made them this way. Ginsberg uses Molloch to project all of his anger and resentment towards the elements of American society that turned his friends completely crazy. The second part just seems to roll on and on, as if Ginsberg is just ranting and raving. He points to the politicians, institutions, wars, and ultimately the American capitalist system as the culprit. One line that I find particularly imporant is when he says,
"They broke their backs lifting Moloch to Heaven! Pavements, trees, radios,
tons! lifting the city to Heaven which exists and is everywhere about
us!"
I interpret this to mean that those that are the power wielders in American capitalism will do anything they can to continue to exploit the friends of Ginsberg and others, in order to protect the status quo, and protect the false American vision of the 1950's, and hence they'll "break their backs lifting Moloch to Heaven!". At the end of this section, everything goes "down the river". I'm not sure exactly what he meansby this but i think he is referring to the apathetic attitude of the powers that be to pay any attention his generation,and that eventually these great minds of his generation "bade farewell! They jumped off the roof! to solitude! waving!
carrying flowers! Down to the river! into the street!"
These men turned to getting wacked out on drugs rather than joining the system they loathe, until eventually they were insane, homeless, poor, wandering the streets. But they CHOSE this so their laughter is "holy" but still of a "mad generation".

The third and final part of the poem, Ginsberg addresses his friend Carl Solomon, a friend of his from the time he spent in a psych ward, and also the one whom the poem is dedicated to in the beginning. He repeats the line "I'm with you in Rockland" at the beginning of every stanza. From this part, I sense Ginsberg's true connection with the people he's been talking about the whole poem. Ginsberg tells you that Solomon was insane and you can feel Solomon's descent into madness in this part, and that eventually Ginsberg and Solomon are united in madness.  I get the sense that Solomon is both a savior and a victim of this generation that Ginsberg is describing. In the end, the reader is left to question whether Ginsberg has been describing real situations and people he knows,or whether this was the product of a dream state of Ginsberg's that he was able to describe and use to characterize this generation of people. Perhaps it's both.
I find this poem extremely important, especially given it's time period. Howl is able to capture Whitman's essence of the American spirit and what that has come to mean in Ginsberg's time, while also bridging the gap to the 60's and giving birth to it's youth movement and drug/counter culture.