A tribute to Ginsberg�s signature work, which stirred a
generation of angel-headed hipsters to cultural rebellion.
In 1956, City Lights, a small San Francisco bookstore,
published Allen Ginsberg�s Howl and Other Poems with its
trademark black-and-white cover. The original edition cost
seventy-five cents, but there was something priceless about
its eponymous piece. Although it gave a voice to the new
generation that came of age in the conservative years
following World War II, the poem also conferred a strange,
subversive power that continues to exert its influence to
this day. Ginsberg went on to become one of the most eminent
and celebrated writers of the second half of the twentieth
century, and �Howl� became the critical axis of the
worldwide literary, cultural, and political movement that
would be known as the Beat generation.
The year 2006 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the
publication of �Howl,� and The Poem That Changed America
will celebrate and shed new light on this profound cultural
work. With new essays by many of today�s most distinguished
writers, including Frank Bidart, Andrei Codrescu, Vivian
Gornick, Phillip Lopate, Daphne Merkin, Rick Moody, Robert
Pinsky, and Luc Sante, The Poem That Changed America reveals
the pioneering influence of �Howl� down through the decades
and its powerful resonance today.
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