Tuesday, as I waited for election returns, I thought of Allen Ginsberg’s poem “Howl,” written in 1955, so full of despair at what he had seen around him. I wondered what I would howl when I found out whether or not Democrats had gained a majority in the House of Representatives and, therefore, become able to provide checks and balances the architects of our government designed to limit a president who could otherwise become a king or dictator, having a “regime,” as the current president likes to call being in office.

When I searched for the poem in the Poetry Foundation archives, the webpage included a link to another poem by Ginsberg, one titled “Footnote to Howl.” I re-read “Howl” and read “Footnote to Howl” for the first time. As I read, I realized I was beginning to insert my own words into the text of Ginsberg’s Howl, Part I. Here is the section of the poem I was reading when that happened followed by the excerpt with words I inserted and finally an edited version of just my words. In the case of “Footnote to Howl,” a much shorter poem, I wrote my own under the poem I had copied onto a new document.

Howl

by Allen Ginsberg

                           For Carl Solomon

[Excerpt from Part I]

I

I 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,

who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz,

who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and saw Mohammedan angels staggering on tenement roofs illuminated,

who passed through universities with radiant cool eyes hallucinating Arkansas and Blake-light tragedy among the scholars of war,

who were expelled from the academies for crazy & publishing obscene odes on the windows of the skull,

who cowered in unshaven rooms in underwear, burning their money in wastebaskets and listening to the Terror through the wall,

who got busted in their pubic beards returning through Laredo with a belt of marijuana for New York,

who ate fire in paint hotels or drank turpentine in Paradise Alley, death, or purgatoried their torsos night after night

with dreams, with drugs, with waking nightmares, alcohol and cock and endless balls,

incomparable blind streets of shuddering cloud and lightning in the mind leaping toward poles of Canada & Paterson, illuminating all the motionless world of Time between,

Peyote solidities of halls, backyard green tree cemetery dawns, wine drunkenness over the rooftops, storefront boroughs of teahead joyride neon blinking traffic light, sun and moon and tree vibrations in the roaring winter dusks of Brooklyn, ashcan rantings and kind king light of mind,

who chained themselves to subways for the endless ride from Battery to holy Bronx on benzedrine until the noise of wheels and children brought them down shuddering mouth-wracked and battered bleak of brain all drained of brilliance in the drear light of Zoo,

who sank all night in submarine light of Bickford’s floated out and sat through the stale beer afternoon in desolate Fugazzi’s, listening to the crack of doom on the hydrogen jukebox,

who talked continuously seventy hours from park to pad to bar to Bellevue to museum to the Brooklyn Bridge,

NOTE: Ginsberg’s first part goes on longer, but I felt that I had come to an end of a poem I might write. Click here to continue reading Ginsberg’s famous poem.

Here is how the excerpt looked when I inserted words I wanted to howl into Ginsberg’s sentence structure:

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, I saw the FOX News minds serrated by hatred and harangues and a United States President’s anointing the station as the only real news source other than him

dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix, waving their flags at rallies full notions to make them happy like “Nationalist” with the word “White” understood behind the bigoted lips,

angel headed hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night, armed right-wing militants burning for an armed struggle at our border, in our synagogues, churches, mosques, and Zen and Buddhist temples,

who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz, whose blond-haired and blue-eyed paid to be cheerleaders women sat in front of the mass of red hat wearing mongers of fear and certainty that our country is being invaded by a 1,000 walking refugees from Honduras and Guatemala fleeing violence and bedded down for rest in charitable Mexico City,

who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and saw Mohammedan angels staggering on tenement roofs illuminated, would-be militia and cheerleaders whose brains have been altered by words to make them fearful, fearful, fearful when their days are filled with news of US White Nationalists terrorists killing, and killing and killing,

who didn’t pass through universities with “radiant cool eyes hallucinating Arkansas and Blake-light tragedy among the scholars of war,”

who instead call the educated elites and allow a billionaire heiress to decimate the idea of a quality education for all,

who cowered in unshaven rooms in underwear, burning their money in wastebaskets and listening to the Terror through the wall, who bow to a man who calls truthful news fake news and his own lies the only truths,

who got busted in their pubic beards returning through Laredo with a belt of marijuana for New York, who voted in people who vow to build a wall to stop the other from making this a gentle country yet legalized marijuana and smoke it, common denominator perhaps between the contemptuous would be militia and the progressives who want humaneness and diversity,

who ate fire in paint hotels or drank turpentine in Paradise Alley, death, or purgatoried their torsos night after night

with dreams, with drugs, with waking nightmares, alcohol and cock and endless balls, who ask for teens to abstain and if they don’t and get pregnant to keep their children or adopt them out in a country that offers fewer and fewer services for the poor or anyone really that aren’t privatized and limited, go die in the ER or at the hangs of the newly self–appointed citizen militia who shoots if they don’t think you look like you live where you are going home,

incomparable blind streets of shuddering cloud and lightning in the mind leaping toward poles of Canada & Paterson, illuminating all the motionless world of Time between, from Texas to Georgia with Kansas and North Dakota in between, shouting and flag waving to protect themselves – from what?—and rally and rally and rally because reality TV is fun and they get camera time and listen to their rude leader chew others up and spit the insults back at the crowd that cheers him, cheers him, cheers him.

Peyote solidities of halls, backyard green tree cemetery dawns, wine drunkenness over the rooftops, storefront boroughs of teahead joyride neon blinking traffic light, sun and moon and tree vibrations in the roaring winter dusks of Brooklyn, ashcan rantings and kind king light of mind, golden waves of grain eaten by coal, thinking if a hurricane or tornado or tsunami whipped their homes, their factories, their hospitals their leader would help them for sure because they are not the brown people, and he says his numbers are great with the black and the brown and the Asian and Latino voter, who says nothing about high school kids threatened by shooters and worshippers threatened by shooters and public figures not him threatened by bombs,

who chained themselves to subways for the endless ride from Battery to holy Bronx on benzedrine until the noise of wheels and children brought them down shuddering mouth-wracked and battered bleak of brain all drained of brilliance in the drear light of Zoo, who think they are protected by their black robe of fear and their belly fire pit of build the wall, lock them up, keep them out, slogans,

who don’t know that no one has ever won by becoming an island,

who sank all night in submarine light of Bickford’s floated out and sat through the stale beer afternoon in desolate Fugazzi’s, listening to the crack of doom on the hydrogen jukebox,

who talked continuously seventy hours from park to pad to bar to Bellevue to museum to the Brooklyn Bridge, who shake their heads and what the rest of us don’t believe, how could we not believe that life is coming to an end because the white majority will soon be a minority, when it is the lives of the ecosystem under threat by businesses that frock and drill and asphalt pave the way to our demise because we are these people think above and beyond the ecosystem that cradles us with boards that are rotting, with lullabies that are discordant, with births of twisted arms and stunted legs, with life a Halloween drama, the ghost story they will tell themselves some day when no one is left to work for and no one is left to guy the products of the billionaires and they can have all of their hotel rooms and golf courses to themselves and drag their own heavy luggage in and out of busted elevators, walk their golf carts over pitted war torn greens full of floods and the char of forest fires, who will not be saved for all their ungodly rants in the name of Jesus who said to love thy brother, meaning the world.

And here is how the draft began to look when I took ownership of the words Ginsberg’s poem had inspired in me.

Who Said Love Thy Brother?

Thinking About Ginsberg’s “Howl” After Watching Donald Trump Call a Reporter Performing His Fourth Estate Job “A Rude Person,” a “Terrible Person” Who Shouldn’t Be Allowed to Work for CNN

By Sheila Bender

I saw the bloodthirsty, serrated FOX news-watching minds of my country storm into the sands biled with vitriol, harangues and slander spewed by the man behind the curtain of his suit, the one and the only, according to him, the best with the most numbers, smarts, everything he needs to con his unholy union of greed and fear,

who wave their flags at words like “Nationalist” from lips bloated with bigotry, militants cruising for an armed struggle at our border, in our synagogues, churches, mosques, Zen and Buddhist temples, whose blond-haired, blue-eyed cheerleaders sit in front of the masses of red hats cheering for the man who will send 5,000 heavily armed soldiers to turn back 1,000 walking refugees from Honduras and Guatemala now bedded down for rest in charitable Mexico City,

who didn’t pass through universities with “radiant cool eyes hallucinating Arkansas and Blake-light tragedy among the scholars of war,”

who allow a billionaire heiress to desecrate the idea of a quality education for all, who bow to an orange man who calls truthful news fake, his own lies truth, the whole truth, does he swear himself God,

who voted to legalize marijuana and smoke it, common denominator of the oppressed and ailing in a country that offers less and less for the poor, the sick, the disabled, the hungry, the illiterate, go die in the ER or at the hands of the self–appointed citizen who shoots if he or she doesn’t think you look like you live where you are going home, from Texas to Georgia and Kansas and North Dakota in between, coal soot skies, golden waves of grain delivering Round-up poisoned oats to our kitchens,

who think if a hurricane or tornado, typhoon, or flood, earthquake or fire whipped their homes, their factories, their hospitals into toothpicks and splinters their leader would help them because they are not brown,

who say nothing about high school kids and worshippers threatened by shooters and public figures (not him) threatened by bombs,

who think they are protected by their long robe of fear and their belly-pit fire to build-the-wall, lock-them-up, keep-them-out,

who forget that no one has won by becoming an island, that help is not on the way for those who cry wolf, above and beyond the ecosystem that cradles us with boards that are rotting, with lullabies that are discordant, with births of twisted arms and footless legs, with life like the ghost story they will tell themselves when no one is left to work for and no one is left to buy the products of the billionaires, their steaks, golf courses and hotel rooms all to themselves when they drag their own heavy luggage in and out of busted elevators, walk their golf carts over pitted war-torn greens full of floods and the char of forest fires,

who will not be saved for all their ungodly rants in the name of their savior.

****

Having gotten used to Ginsberg’s sentence structure and repetitions, I turned to “Footnote to Howl,” for inspiration. The sentences in the poem are less packed than in “Howl,” but its message is as spirited and as noteworthy — even when we are fallen angels we are holy.

In place of the word “holy” from that poem, I most often used the word “restored,” because that is how I felt after hearing much of the election returns, and I copied Ginsberg’s cadence.

Before my draft, here’s “Footnote to Howl” from The Poetry Foundation website:

Footnote to Howl

by Allen Ginsberg

Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!

The world is holy! The soul is holy! The skin is holy! The nose is holy! The tongue and cock and hand and asshole holy!

Everything is holy! everybody’s holy! everywhere is holy! everyday is in eternity! Everyman’s an angel!

The bum’s as holy as the seraphim! the madman is holy as you my soul are holy!

The typewriter is holy the poem is holy the voice is holy the hearers are holy the ecstasy is holy!

Holy Peter holy Allen holy Solomon holy Lucien holy Kerouac holy Huncke holy Burroughs holy Cassady holy the unknown buggered and suffering beggars holy the hideous human angels!

Holy my mother in the insane asylum! Holy the cocks of the grandfathers of Kansas!

Holy the groaning saxophone! Holy the bop apocalypse! Holy the jazzbands marijuana hipsters peace peyote pipes & drums!

Holy the solitudes of skyscrapers and pavements! Holy the cafeterias filled with the millions! Holy the mysterious rivers of tears under the streets!

Holy the lone juggernaut! Holy the vast lamb of the middleclass! Holy the crazy shepherds of rebellion! Who digs Los Angeles IS Los Angeles!

Holy New York Holy San Francisco Holy Peoria & Seattle Holy Paris Holy Tangiers Holy Moscow Holy Istanbul!

Holy time in eternity holy eternity in time holy the clocks in space holy the fourth dimension holy the fifth International holy the Angel in Moloch!

Holy the sea holy the desert holy the railroad holy the locomotive holy the visions holy the hallucinations holy the miracles holy the eyeball holy the abyss!

Holy forgiveness! mercy! charity! faith! Holy! Ours! bodies! suffering! magnanimity!

Holy the supernatural extra brilliant intelligent kindness of the soul!

Berkeley 1955

Here’s what the poem inspired in me:

 Footnote on Mid-term Election Eve, United States November 6, 2018

After Allen Ginsberg

Restore! Restored! Restoring! My country ‘tis of thee restoring. One half of Congress’ checks and balances, restored. The world is holier! Our air, our food, our national parks, the possibility of our democracy, everything we find holy! The future of the young restoring! Our immigrant ancestors and the holy here before them breathing easier in their graves, who knew votes count despite wicked deceit and boastful lies, and social media swayed by foreign powers, the computer now not Ginsberg’s typewriter holy, too, the poem, as he wrote, holy and the voice of the sum of us holy and we the voters holy, ecstasy restoring!

                                                                          Port Townsend, WA 2018

 ****

The poet Theodore Roethke, I believe, or his student Richard Hugo, was known to teach students to write poetry by having them imitate other poets. It was a way to breathe the words the poets had written and metabolize them. It does have interesting results. The poems that come from studying the style of another poet borrow but become something on their own, something that allows the poet to breathe new sounds and new breaths into their work.

Try it—whether you use Ginsberg’s poetry or the poems of another poet. I think you’ll surprise yourself with the permission this exercise allows to be full-throated.