【英语组】A Powerful and Inspiring Poem

Allen Ginsberg, one of the most respected Beat writers and acclaimed American poets of his generation, was born on June 3, 1926 in Newark. His early life was marked by his mother’s psychological troubles, including a series of nervous breakdowns. In 1943, while studying at Columbia University, Ginsberg befriended William Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, and the trio later established themselves as pivotal figures in the Beat Movement.
Ginsberg first came to public attention in 1956 with the publication of Howl and Other Poems. “Howl,” a long-lined poem in the tradition of Walt Whitman, is an outcry of rage and despair against a destructive, abusive society. The poem’s raw, honest language and its “Hebraic-Melvillian bardic breath,” as Ginsberg called it, stunned many traditional critics.