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Ginsberg's eye
in response to the painting by Paul Levy
In Howl, his most famous poem, Alan Ginsberg saw
...the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night.
His beatifically nightmarish vision of America in the 1950s lead to his publisher being put on trial for obscenity.
However, the judge ruled that the poem was not obscene, but had redeeming social value.
tuning into
sound juxtapositions
I hear beat
colour flow shining
clear as Ginsberg’s eye
published in Atlas Poetica 35
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