Editing Howl (poem) (section)

== Composition of the poem ==
According to Ginsberg's bibliographer and archivist [[Bill Morgan (archivist)|Bill Morgan]], it was a terrifying [[peyote]] vision that was the principal inspiration for "Howl". This occurred on the evening of October 17, 1954, in the [[Nob Hill, San Francisco|Nob Hill]] apartment of Sheila Williams, Ginsberg's girlfriend at the time, with whom he was living. He had the experience of seeing the façade of the [[Sir Francis Drake Hotel]] in the San Francisco fog as the monstrous face of a child-eating demon. Ginsberg took notes on his nightmarish vision, and these became the basis for Part II of the poem.<ref>{{cite book |last=Morgan |first=Bill |title=The Typewriter Is Holy: Complete, Uncensored History of the Beat Generation |location=New York |publisher=Free Press |year=2010 |pages=86–87 |isbn=978-1416592426}} In the introduction Morgan says: "[F]or the last two decades of Allen Ginsberg's life, I assisted him daily as his bibliographer and archivist. During that period, I managed to track down nearly everything that he had ever published and a good deal of what had been printed about him. It was a mammoth task. Every day, as I walked to the apartment that served both as Allen's home and office, I wondered what new treasures I'd uncover. ... After I sold his archive to Stanford University for a million dollars, Allen referred everyone with questions about their papers to me" (p. xvi).</ref>

In late 1954 and 1955, in an apartment he had rented at 1010 [[Montgomery Street]] in the [[North Beach, San Francisco|North Beach]] neighborhood of San Francisco, Ginsberg worked on the poem, originally referring to it by the title "Strophes".{{sfn|Morgan|2010|pp=92, 96}} Some drafts were purportedly written at a coffeehouse called [[Caffe Mediterraneum]] in [[Berkeley, California]]; Ginsberg had moved into a small cottage in Berkeley a few blocks from the campus of the [[University of California, Berkeley|University of California]] on September 1, 1955.{{sfn|Morgan|2010|p=97}} Many factors went into the creation of the poem. Shortly before its composition, Ginsberg's therapist, Dr. Philip Hicks, had encouraged him to realize his desire to quit an unsatisfying market-research job and pursue poetry full-time, and to accept his own homosexuality.<ref name = JournalsMidFifties7>{{cite book |last=Ginsberg |first=Allen |title=Journals Mid-Fifties: 1954–1958 |editor-last=Ball |editor-first=Gordon |publisher=HarperCollins |year=1995a |isbn=0060167718}}</ref><ref name = "Breslin">James Breslin. "Allen Ginsberg: The Origins of ''Howl'' and ''Kaddish.''" ''Poetry Criticism''. Ed. David M. Galens. Vol. 47. Detroit: Gale, 2003.</ref>{{sfn|Morgan|2010|p=92}} At that point in his evolution as a poet, Ginsberg was experimenting with a syntactic subversion of meaning called [[parataxis]], exemplified in the poem "Dream Record, 1955" about the death of [[Joan Vollmer]]. It was a technique that became central in "Howl".<ref name = "JournalsMidFifties7"/><ref>{{cite book |last=Miles |first=Barry |title=Ginsberg: A Biography |location=London |publisher=Virgin Publishing Ltd. |year=2001 |isbn=0-7535-0486-3 |page=182}}</ref>

Ginsberg showed "Dream Record, 1955" to [[Kenneth Rexroth]], who criticized it as too stilted and academic;<ref>{{cite web |title=Revisiting Allen Ginsberg's 'Howl' at 50 |last=Vitale |first=Tom |url=https://www.keranews.org/2006-05-20/revisiting-allen-ginsbergs-howl-at-50 |date=20 May 2006 |publisher=KERA News}} Rexroth told Ginsberg, "It still sounds like you're wearing Columbia University [[Brooks Brothers]] ties."</ref> Rexroth urged Ginsberg to free his voice and write from the heart.{{sfn|Ginsberg|1995a|p=9}}{{sfn|Miles|2001|p=183}} Ginsberg took this advice and attempted to write a poem with no restrictions. He was under the influence of both [[William Carlos Williams]] and his "imagist preoccupations",<ref name=Notes_for_Howl>{{cite book |editor-last=Allen |editor-first=Donald M. |title=The New American Poetry, 1945–1960 |year=1960 |last=Ginsberg |first=Allen |chapter=Notes for ''Howl'' and Other Poems |publisher=Grove Press |lccn=60006342 |pages=414–418}}</ref> as well as [[Jack Kerouac]] and his emphasis on spontaneity.{{sfn|Raskin|2004|pp=129, 167}}{{sfn|Ginsberg|1995a|p=167}} Ginsberg began the poem in the [[Triadic-line poetry|stepped triadic]] form he took from Williams but, in the middle of typing the verses, his poetic voice altered such that his own unique style (a long line based on breath organized by a fixed base) started to emerge.<ref name = "JournalsMidFifties7"/>{{sfn|Miles|2001|p=184}}

The lines he wrote in this first burst of inspiration would later be included in Parts I and III of "Howl".{{sfn|Miles|2001|p=187}} These parts are noted for their tumbling, hallucinatory style; for relating stories and experiences of Ginsberg's friends and contemporaries; and for frankly discussing sexuality, specifically [[homosexuality]], which subsequently provoked an obscenity trial. Although Ginsberg referred in the poem to many of his friends and acquaintances (including [[Neal Cassady]], Jack Kerouac, [[William S. Burroughs]], [[Peter Orlovsky]], [[Lucien Carr]], and [[Herbert Huncke]]), the primary emotional drive was his sympathy for [[Carl Solomon]], to whom "Howl" was dedicated. He had met Solomon in a [[mental institution]] and developed a friendship with him.{{sfn|Raskin|2004|pp=96–99}} Ginsberg later stated that his sympathy for Solomon was connected to bottled-up guilt and sympathy for his own mother's [[schizophrenia]] (she had been [[lobotomy|lobotomized]]), an issue he was not yet ready to address directly.{{sfn|Raskin|2004|pp=156–157}}

When the poem was published in the collection, ''Howl and Other Poems'' (1956), Ginsberg's Dedication page stated that "Several phrases and the title of ''Howl''" were taken from Kerouac.{{sfn|Ginsberg|1959|p=3}} As confirmation of the title's origin, [[Ann Charters]] wrote in her 1973 Kerouac biography that Ginsberg mailed a draft of the poem to Kerouac in the summer of 1955. The latter liked it immensely and replied with enthusiasm, "I received your Howl."<ref>{{cite book |last=Charters |first=Ann |title=Kerouac: A Biography |year=1973 |publisher=Straight Arrow Books |location=San Francisco |lccn=72095055 |isbn=0879320559 |pages=233–234}}</ref> But then in 2008, Peter Orlovsky suggested a different origin. He told the co-directors of the film ''[[Howl (2010 film)|Howl]]'' that a short moonlit walk with Ginsberg—during which Orlovsky sang a rendition of the [[Hank Williams]] song "[[Howlin' at the Moon]]"—may have been the encouragement for the poem's title: "I never asked him [Ginsberg], and he never offered," Orlovsky recalled, "but there were things he would pick up on and use in his verse form some way or another. Poets do it all the time."<ref>{{cite magazine |title=Remembering Peter Orlovsky |magazine=[[The Advocate (magazine)|The Advocate]] |date=2 June 2010 |url=https://www.advocate.com/arts-entertainment/books/2010/06/02/remembering-peter-orlovsky}}</ref>