Seamus and Mark step into the counterculture with two long poems, ‘Howl’ and ‘Kaddish’, by Allen Ginsberg, a Beat poet-celebrity with a utopian vision for an America rescued from its corrupted institutions and vested interests. Published in 1956, ‘Howl’ influenced post-war culture like no other literary work, a mind-expanded free-verse jeremiad that is also a celebratory poem of absolute ruin, it offered a restless generation a seductive escape from what Lowell called the ‘tranquillised fifties’. In his intensely confessional 1961 poem ‘Kaddish’, a eulogy to his dead mother, Ginsberg offered a graphic account of his traumatic childhood and evolution that plugged directly into his era’s obsession with subjectivity.
Seamus and Mark discuss some of Ginsberg’s influences – including Whitman, Carlos Williams, O’Hara and Blake – and the far-reaching impact of his work, as well as Mark’s own experiences meeting the poet.
This is a short version of the episode. To listen in full, and to all our Close Readings series, sign up here: lrb.me/closereadings
Or follow the free version of Close Readings in Apple Podcasts, Spotify or other podcast apps.
