The best minds of our generation...
Last night (5/8) HQ filled to overflowing for what was described on the Sacramento Poetry Center website as "American River College students present an interpretive reenactment of the 1955 'Six Poets at Six Gallery' poetry reading during which Allen Ginsberg first read his seminal poem Howl."
I've been posting event reviews both here and at the SPC blog because I think it's important to report on those events that make up the local literary scene. The effort is largely one of promotion; getting to people the who what and where of things. Something of an annoying habit has evolved from this process, however. As you might expect, not every reading, not every poet I encounter has been enjoyable. Instead of just coming out and saying that, I've instead found myself articulating such disappointments in private emails with fellow travellers in the poetry community. I do so while keeping a smiling-happyface-isn't-everything-great! approach to the more public posts. This is disingenuous.
In some small effort at honesty, I submit my reaction to last night's Howl, written privately, when it didn't really have to be:
Tonight's reading was a bit of a strain. I'm all for novice efforts at poetry (and encourage them), but the whole effort came off as soul-less. Not one of the readers had any sense of cadence or timing. Just a little of both would have helped a great deal. And it was amusing that Howl, a poem that awakened a generation to the idea of radical revelation in staid times, generated titters and giggles at words like cocksucker, asshole, etc. Allen Ginsberg... meet Beavis and Butthead.
In a recent interview, Neil Young noted that he'd been waiting for a songwriter from this generation to come forth with some musical antithesis to the darkening mood in America brought on by the War in Iraq and the Bush Administration's corruption of empire. No one stepped forward, he said, so he set out, once-again, to produce a protest album. Similarly, I wondered how many present at last nights re-enactment really got how much impact Howl had on a generation as a cry from the wildnerness, in desperate (heartbreaking) times? That time is upon us again. And I'm still waiting for those voices to emerge from the wilderness.
I've been posting event reviews both here and at the SPC blog because I think it's important to report on those events that make up the local literary scene. The effort is largely one of promotion; getting to people the who what and where of things. Something of an annoying habit has evolved from this process, however. As you might expect, not every reading, not every poet I encounter has been enjoyable. Instead of just coming out and saying that, I've instead found myself articulating such disappointments in private emails with fellow travellers in the poetry community. I do so while keeping a smiling-happyface-isn't-everything-great! approach to the more public posts. This is disingenuous.
In some small effort at honesty, I submit my reaction to last night's Howl, written privately, when it didn't really have to be:
Tonight's reading was a bit of a strain. I'm all for novice efforts at poetry (and encourage them), but the whole effort came off as soul-less. Not one of the readers had any sense of cadence or timing. Just a little of both would have helped a great deal. And it was amusing that Howl, a poem that awakened a generation to the idea of radical revelation in staid times, generated titters and giggles at words like cocksucker, asshole, etc. Allen Ginsberg... meet Beavis and Butthead.
In a recent interview, Neil Young noted that he'd been waiting for a songwriter from this generation to come forth with some musical antithesis to the darkening mood in America brought on by the War in Iraq and the Bush Administration's corruption of empire. No one stepped forward, he said, so he set out, once-again, to produce a protest album. Similarly, I wondered how many present at last nights re-enactment really got how much impact Howl had on a generation as a cry from the wildnerness, in desperate (heartbreaking) times? That time is upon us again. And I'm still waiting for those voices to emerge from the wilderness.
posted by Richard Hansen at
10:46 AM
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