Reflections on the Role of the Writer: A Piece that Confuses Me

I was going to do my creative essay for my "Role of the Writer in North America" class on the differences between Canadian and American literature, as seen in poetry. I wanted to look at pieces from different time periods to base my comparisons on, but one poem in particular, although considered one of the ‘must-read’ pieces of American poetry, just wouldn’t come clear in my mind, no matter how many times I read it. This poem is “Howl” by Allen Ginsberg. It was to be my American postmodernist poem to discuss, but oh well. I went on to do that essay on global culture, multiculturalism, and Canadian writing instead.

       When I was doing my formal essay, which was modern versus postmodern and the role of the writer, I again looked at “Howl”. This time, I had help from others who had looked at the poem and analysed it for meaning. It would have fit great in my essay, as the postmodern society critique to compare to T.S. Eliot’s modernist poem “The Waste Land”, except that, despite reading what others said about it, I still had difficulty seeing those meanings for myself. Perhaps if it were a music video, like the piece I ended up using (“This Is America” by Childish Gambino, aka Donald Glover), I might have found it easier to see the allusions and meaning.

I keep thinking about it, and so here I am looking at the poem again and trying to figure out why it confuses me. Part of the confusion stems from the analyses I found not having many concrete references from the poem to support the derived meanings being claimed. Another reason, I think, is that the poem is written in such I way that I simply cannot relate to it. I don’t find it pleasant to read. The images he paints are not ones I can see in my mind. When he uses the word “Moloch”, the references (at least those that others tell me are up to three possible ones) mean nothing to me. Frankly, I grow bored when reading it. Perhaps I am simply not the intended audience for the work. I guess I can, at a high-level, understand the poem is a societal critique, but I don’t feel it. Unless Ginsberg’s whole point is that the society that he is criticizing drives one mad, and the poem is the raving of such a madman. If that’s the case, maybe I understand the poem just fine.