0:00:02 > 0:00:10THIS PROGRAMME CONTAINS VERY STRONG LANGUAGE AND SOME SCENES OF A SEXUAL NATURE
0:01:15 > 0:01:17Howl for Carl Solomon.
0:01:20 > 0:01:24I saw the best minds of my generation
0:01:24 > 0:01:26destroyed by madness,
0:01:26 > 0:01:29starving, hysterical, naked,
0:01:29 > 0:01:33dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn
0:01:33 > 0:01:36looking for an angry fix,
0:01:36 > 0:01:38angel-headed hipsters burning
0:01:38 > 0:01:41for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo
0:01:41 > 0:01:44in the machinery of night,
0:01:44 > 0:01:48who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high
0:01:48 > 0:01:53sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats
0:01:53 > 0:01:57floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz!
0:03:54 > 0:03:58Sometimes I feel in command when I'm writing.
0:03:58 > 0:04:02When I'm in the heat of some truthful tears, yes.
0:04:02 > 0:04:04Other times... most of the time, not.
0:04:04 > 0:04:08You know, just diddling around...
0:04:08 > 0:04:10woodcarving, you know, finding a pretty shape,
0:04:10 > 0:04:12like most of my poetry.
0:04:14 > 0:04:18There's only been a few times when I've reached a state of...
0:04:18 > 0:04:21complete control...
0:04:21 > 0:04:23Probably a piece of Howl, and...
0:04:23 > 0:04:25one or two moments in other poems.
0:04:30 > 0:04:33The beginning of the fear for me was...
0:04:36 > 0:04:39..what would my father think of something that I would write?
0:04:39 > 0:04:41At the time, writing Howl,
0:04:41 > 0:04:42I assumed when writing it that
0:04:42 > 0:04:45it was not something that would be published, because
0:04:45 > 0:04:49I wouldn't want my daddy to see what was in there.
0:04:49 > 0:04:52So, I assumed it wouldn't be published, therefore, I could
0:04:52 > 0:04:53write anything that I wanted to.
0:05:46 > 0:05:49I saw the best minds of my generation
0:05:49 > 0:05:52destroyed by madness,
0:05:52 > 0:05:55starving, hysterical, naked,
0:05:55 > 0:05:58dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn
0:05:58 > 0:06:00looking for an angry fix...
0:06:03 > 0:06:05Angel-headed hipsters
0:06:05 > 0:06:08burning for the ancient heavenly connection
0:06:08 > 0:06:11to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night...
0:06:13 > 0:06:15..who poverty and tatters
0:06:15 > 0:06:18and hollow-eyed and high
0:06:18 > 0:06:21sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness
0:06:21 > 0:06:22of cold-water flats
0:06:22 > 0:06:27floating across the tops of cities, contemplating jazz...
0:06:29 > 0:06:32..who passed through universities with radiant cool eyes
0:06:32 > 0:06:33hallucinating Arkansas and
0:06:33 > 0:06:37Blake-light tragedy among the scholars of war...
0:06:38 > 0:06:41..who were expelled from the academies for crazy
0:06:41 > 0:06:46and publishing obscene odes on the windows of the skull,
0:06:46 > 0:06:49who cowered in unshaven rooms in underwear,
0:06:49 > 0:06:51burning their money in wastebaskets
0:06:51 > 0:06:54and listening to the Terror through the wall,
0:06:54 > 0:06:57who got busted in their pubic beards
0:06:57 > 0:07:02returning through Laredo with a belt of marijuana for New York,
0:07:02 > 0:07:04who ate fire in paint hotels or drank
0:07:04 > 0:07:06turpentine in Paradise Alley,
0:07:06 > 0:07:08death
0:07:08 > 0:07:12or purgatoried their torsos night after night with dreams,
0:07:12 > 0:07:14with drugs, with waking nightmares,
0:07:14 > 0:07:20alcohol and cock and endless balls.
0:07:28 > 0:07:30What I wanted to read into the record, Your Honour,
0:07:30 > 0:07:34is not very much, but it is pertinent to our case.
0:07:34 > 0:07:36Why aren't you at the trial?
0:07:37 > 0:07:39Cos...
0:07:39 > 0:07:41the trial's not about me.
0:07:41 > 0:07:45As much as I have to thank them
0:07:45 > 0:07:47completely for my fame...
0:07:47 > 0:07:50It's the publisher, Lawrence Ferlinghetti that was
0:07:50 > 0:07:53busted for selling obscene materials.
0:07:53 > 0:07:59What I want to show is on the first page inside of Howl.
0:07:59 > 0:08:03It says, "All these books are published in heaven."
0:08:03 > 0:08:06And...I don't quite understand that, but anyway,
0:08:06 > 0:08:09let the record show, Your Honour,
0:08:09 > 0:08:11it's published by the City Lights Pocketbook Shop.
0:08:11 > 0:08:14Mr Ferlinghetti could go to jail if convicted?
0:08:14 > 0:08:16I hope not. That would be terrible.
0:08:38 > 0:08:40May I have your name, please?
0:08:40 > 0:08:43- Gail Potter.- And have you done any writing yourself?
0:08:43 > 0:08:45Yes, I have done considerable.
0:08:45 > 0:08:50I was on an NBC station for ten years while I was teaching.
0:08:50 > 0:08:53I was community service director, educational coordinator.
0:08:53 > 0:08:55I have rewritten Faust.
0:08:55 > 0:08:57It took me three years to do that, but I did it.
0:08:57 > 0:08:59I rewrote Everyman.
0:08:59 > 0:09:01SNIGGERING
0:09:01 > 0:09:03That isn't as funny as you might think.
0:09:03 > 0:09:05Pardon me, madam. Ladies and gentlemen,
0:09:05 > 0:09:08this is a trial that involves serious issues.
0:09:08 > 0:09:11Kindly accord the witness the courtesy you would want to be accorded.
0:09:11 > 0:09:14All right. Did you form an opinion as to whether or not the book called
0:09:14 > 0:09:19Howl And Other Poems has any literary merit?
0:09:19 > 0:09:22I think it has no literary merit.
0:09:24 > 0:09:26Go ahead.
0:09:26 > 0:09:28In order to have literary style, you must have
0:09:28 > 0:09:31form, diction, fluidity, clarity.
0:09:31 > 0:09:34Now, I am speaking only of style.
0:09:34 > 0:09:37And in content, every great piece of literature,
0:09:37 > 0:09:40anything that can really be classified as literature, is...
0:09:40 > 0:09:41of some moral greatness,
0:09:41 > 0:09:44and I think this fails to the nth degree.
0:09:44 > 0:09:46I see. Can you think of any other reasons?
0:09:46 > 0:09:49Yes. Use of language.
0:09:49 > 0:09:51In regards to the figures of speech he uses,
0:09:51 > 0:09:52he fails in rhetoric, of course,
0:09:52 > 0:09:55for one thing, because his figures of speech are
0:09:55 > 0:09:57crude, and you feel like you are going through the gutter
0:09:57 > 0:09:59when you read that stuff.
0:10:00 > 0:10:02I didn't linger on it long, I assure you.
0:10:04 > 0:10:05You may cross-examine.
0:10:07 > 0:10:08Step down.
0:10:10 > 0:10:12There's something more you want?
0:10:12 > 0:10:14Step down.
0:10:14 > 0:10:17Mr Ehrlich doesn't want to cross-examine.
0:10:17 > 0:10:19You're through with me?
0:10:19 > 0:10:21Step down.
0:10:22 > 0:10:24What is The Beat Generation?
0:10:26 > 0:10:29There is no Beat Generation.
0:10:29 > 0:10:32It's just a bunch of guys trying to get published.
0:10:35 > 0:10:38Why don't you tell me how you started writing poetry?
0:10:40 > 0:10:44I started writing poetry because I was a dope,
0:10:44 > 0:10:47and my father wrote poetry.
0:10:47 > 0:10:50So I began writing rhymes like him.
0:10:50 > 0:10:53And then I went to Columbia University and I fell in love
0:10:53 > 0:10:56with Jack Kerouac.
0:11:07 > 0:11:12Until I was 18, I was a virgin.
0:11:12 > 0:11:16I was unable to reach out to anybody's body.
0:11:16 > 0:11:17To reach out to desire.
0:11:18 > 0:11:20I just felt...
0:11:20 > 0:11:21chained.
0:11:26 > 0:11:29Jack gave me permission to open up.
0:11:29 > 0:11:31He's a romantic poet.
0:11:32 > 0:11:34And he taught me that writing is personal,
0:11:34 > 0:11:38that it comes from the writer's own person.
0:11:38 > 0:11:39His body,
0:11:39 > 0:11:42his breathing rhythm, his actual talk.
0:11:44 > 0:11:48Eventually I developed a much deeper sense of confession.
0:11:48 > 0:11:49I needed to...
0:11:49 > 0:11:54express my feelings to him, but he didn't want to hear them.
0:11:54 > 0:11:58So I had to find a new way of expressing them...
0:11:58 > 0:12:00a way that would entrance him.
0:12:01 > 0:12:03This is good here.
0:12:03 > 0:12:06"I was offered refreshments which I accepted.
0:12:06 > 0:12:08"I ate a sandwich of pure meat.
0:12:08 > 0:12:10"Enormous sandwich of human flesh, I noticed,
0:12:10 > 0:12:12"while I was chewing on it.
0:12:12 > 0:12:14"It also included a dirty asshole!"
0:12:14 > 0:12:16That's good!
0:12:16 > 0:12:18That's good! The meat and the asshole.
0:12:18 > 0:12:20Allen, all right.
0:12:20 > 0:12:24And then I realized that if I actually, um...
0:12:24 > 0:12:27admitted and confessed the secret tenderness
0:12:27 > 0:12:29of my soul in my writing,
0:12:29 > 0:12:33he would understand nakedly who I was. And so...
0:12:33 > 0:12:35that sincere talk replaced the earlier
0:12:35 > 0:12:38imitative rhyming that I was doing for my father.
0:12:40 > 0:12:45Jack was the first person I really opened up to and said,
0:12:45 > 0:12:47"I'm a homosexual."
0:12:49 > 0:12:54I very soon realized that nobody was really shocked by anything.
0:12:54 > 0:12:58Unless you're out murdering people, you know,
0:12:58 > 0:13:02people would never really be shocked by
0:13:02 > 0:13:04an expression of feeling.
0:13:08 > 0:13:10Really I wrote Howl for Jack.
0:13:14 > 0:13:17Who chained themselves to subways for the endless ride
0:13:17 > 0:13:20from Battery to holy Bronx on Benzedrine
0:13:20 > 0:13:23until the noise of wheels and children brought them down
0:13:23 > 0:13:28shuddering mouth-wracked and battered bleak of brain
0:13:28 > 0:13:32all drained of brilliance in the drear light of Zoo,
0:13:32 > 0:13:35who talked continuously 70 hours
0:13:35 > 0:13:38from park to pad to bar to Bellevue
0:13:38 > 0:13:40to museum to the Brooklyn Bridge...
0:13:42 > 0:13:45A lost battalion of platonic conversationalists
0:13:45 > 0:13:47jumping down the stoops,
0:13:47 > 0:13:50off fire escapes, off windowsills,
0:13:50 > 0:13:54off Empire State, out of the moon...
0:13:56 > 0:13:59Yacketayakking, screaming, vomiting
0:13:59 > 0:14:02whispering facts and memories and anecdotes and
0:14:02 > 0:14:07eyeball kicks and shocks of hospitals and jails and wars...
0:14:11 > 0:14:14..who lit cigarettes in boxcars boxcars boxcars
0:14:14 > 0:14:19racketing through snow toward lonesome farms in grand-father night
0:14:19 > 0:14:23who studied Plotinus, Poe, St John of the Cross,
0:14:23 > 0:14:25telepathy and bop kabbalah
0:14:25 > 0:14:30because the cosmos instinctively vibrated at their feet in Kansas
0:14:30 > 0:14:32who loned it through the streets of Idaho
0:14:32 > 0:14:38seeking visionary Indian angels who were visionary Indian angels,
0:14:38 > 0:14:41who jumped in limousines with the Chinaman of Oklahoma
0:14:41 > 0:14:47on the impulse of winter midnight streetlight small-town rain,
0:14:47 > 0:14:49who reappeared on the West Coast
0:14:49 > 0:14:53investigating the FBI in beards and shorts
0:14:53 > 0:14:57with big pacifist eyes sexy in their dark skin
0:14:57 > 0:15:00passing out incomprehensible leaflets...
0:15:02 > 0:15:04..who burned cigarette holes in their arms
0:15:04 > 0:15:08protesting the narcotic tobacco haze of capitalism...
0:15:11 > 0:15:15..who distributed super-Communist pamphlets in Union Square
0:15:15 > 0:15:17weeping and undressing while the sirens of Los Alamos
0:15:17 > 0:15:20wailed them down and wailed down Wall,
0:15:20 > 0:15:23and the Staten Island Ferry also wailed...
0:15:25 > 0:15:29..who let themselves be fucked in the ass by saintly motorcyclists
0:15:29 > 0:15:32and screamed with joy...
0:15:35 > 0:15:40..who blew and were blown by those human seraphim, the sailors,
0:15:40 > 0:15:44caresses of Atlantic and Caribbean love.
0:15:53 > 0:15:57The problem, when it comes to literature, is this.
0:15:57 > 0:15:59There are many writers who have preconceived ideas
0:15:59 > 0:16:01about what literature is supposed to be,
0:16:01 > 0:16:05but their ideas seem to preclude
0:16:05 > 0:16:08everything that makes them most interesting
0:16:08 > 0:16:10in casual conversation.
0:16:10 > 0:16:12Their faggishness,
0:16:12 > 0:16:13their solitude,
0:16:13 > 0:16:17their neuroses, their goofiness,
0:16:17 > 0:16:18their campiness,
0:16:18 > 0:16:21or even their masculinity at times.
0:16:21 > 0:16:24Because they think that they're going to write something
0:16:24 > 0:16:27that sounds like something else that they've read before,
0:16:27 > 0:16:32instead of sounds like them. Or comes from their own life.
0:16:32 > 0:16:34We all talk amongst ourselves.
0:16:34 > 0:16:36We have a common understanding.
0:16:36 > 0:16:39We say anything we want to say. We talk about our assholes,
0:16:39 > 0:16:40we talk about our cocks,
0:16:40 > 0:16:43we talk about who we fucked last night,
0:16:43 > 0:16:45or who we're going to fuck tomorrow,
0:16:45 > 0:16:48or what kind of love affair we're in, or
0:16:48 > 0:16:51when we got drunk and had a broomstick shoved up our ass
0:16:51 > 0:16:53in the Hotel Ambassador in Prague...
0:16:53 > 0:16:58I mean, everyone tells one's friends about that! Right?
0:16:58 > 0:16:59So...
0:16:59 > 0:17:03the question is, what happens when you make a distinction
0:17:03 > 0:17:06between what you tell your friends and what you tell your muse?
0:17:06 > 0:17:09The trick is to break down that distinction,
0:17:09 > 0:17:15to approach your Muse as frankly as you would talk to yourself or to your friends.
0:17:15 > 0:17:23It's the ability to commit to writing - to write -
0:17:23 > 0:17:26the same way that you are.
0:17:27 > 0:17:30Who balled in the morning, in the evenings,
0:17:30 > 0:17:36in rose gardens and the grass of public parks and cemeteries
0:17:36 > 0:17:41scattering their semen freely to whomever come who may,
0:17:41 > 0:17:44who hiccupped endlessly trying to giggle
0:17:44 > 0:17:48but wound up with a sob behind a partition in a Turkish bath
0:17:48 > 0:17:53with a blonde and naked angel came to pierce them with a sword.
0:17:53 > 0:17:58The act of writing becomes, like, a meditation exercise.
0:17:59 > 0:18:02If you walk down the street in New York for a few blocks,
0:18:02 > 0:18:06you'll get this gargantuan feeling of buildings.
0:18:06 > 0:18:11And if you walk all day, you'll be on the verge of tears.
0:18:11 > 0:18:14But you have to walk all day before you get that sensation.
0:18:15 > 0:18:19What I mean is, if you write all day, you'll get into it.
0:18:19 > 0:18:22Into your body, into your feelings, into your consciousness.
0:18:25 > 0:18:28I don't write enough in that way.
0:18:39 > 0:18:44Who lost their loveboys to the three old shrews of fate
0:18:44 > 0:18:48the one-eyed shrew of the heterosexual dollar,
0:18:48 > 0:18:51the one-eyed shrew that winks out of the womb
0:18:51 > 0:18:55and the one-eyed shrew that does nothing but sit on her ass
0:18:55 > 0:19:00and snip the intellectual golden threads of the craftsman's loom,
0:19:00 > 0:19:04who copulated ecstatic and insatiate with a bottle of beer,
0:19:04 > 0:19:06a sweetheart, a package of cigarettes,
0:19:06 > 0:19:09a candle and fell off the bed
0:19:09 > 0:19:12and continued along the floor and down the hall
0:19:12 > 0:19:14and ended fainting on the wall
0:19:14 > 0:19:16with a vision of ultimate cunt and come
0:19:16 > 0:19:19eluding the last gyzym of consciousness...
0:19:24 > 0:19:27..who faded out in vast sordid movies,
0:19:27 > 0:19:29were shifted in dreams,
0:19:29 > 0:19:32woke on a sudden Manhattan and picked themselves up
0:19:32 > 0:19:36out of basements hungover with heartless Tokay
0:19:36 > 0:19:40and horrors of Third Avenue iron dreams
0:19:40 > 0:19:42and stumbled to unemployment offices...
0:19:47 > 0:19:49..who created great suicidal dramas
0:19:49 > 0:19:52on the apartment cliff-banks of the Hudson
0:19:52 > 0:19:55under the wartime blue floodlight of the moon
0:19:55 > 0:19:59and their heads shall be crowned with laurel in oblivion,
0:19:59 > 0:20:01who wept at the romance of the streets
0:20:01 > 0:20:06with their pushcarts full of onions and bad music,
0:20:06 > 0:20:09who sat in boxes breathing in the darkness under the bridge,
0:20:09 > 0:20:13and rose up to build harpsichords in their lofts...
0:20:19 > 0:20:23..who scribbled all night rocking and rolling over lofty incantations
0:20:23 > 0:20:27which in the yellow morning were stanzas of gibberish,
0:20:27 > 0:20:30who were burned alive in their innocent flannel suits
0:20:30 > 0:20:34on Madison Avenue amid blasts of leaden verse
0:20:34 > 0:20:38and the tanked-up clatter of the iron regiments of fashion
0:20:38 > 0:20:42and the nitroglycerine shrieks of the fairies of advertising
0:20:42 > 0:20:46and the mustard gas of sinister intelligent editors,
0:20:46 > 0:20:51or were run down by the drunken taxicabs of Absolute Reality.
0:20:54 > 0:20:59Would you say that Howl has any literary merit?
0:20:59 > 0:21:00Yes.
0:21:00 > 0:21:05And I presume you understand the whole thing, is that right?
0:21:05 > 0:21:06I hope so.
0:21:06 > 0:21:08It's not always easy to know that one
0:21:08 > 0:21:11understands exactly what a contemporary poet is saying,
0:21:11 > 0:21:13but I think I do.
0:21:13 > 0:21:15Well, let's go into some of this.
0:21:17 > 0:21:21"With dreams, with drugs, with waking nightmares,
0:21:21 > 0:21:25"alcohol and cock and endless balls."
0:21:26 > 0:21:29What significance does that have to you?
0:21:29 > 0:21:30Well...
0:21:32 > 0:21:36..there are uprooted people wandering around the United States,
0:21:36 > 0:21:37dreaming,
0:21:37 > 0:21:39drugged...
0:21:39 > 0:21:41That's clear, isn't it?
0:21:41 > 0:21:44Even their waking hours like nightmares,
0:21:44 > 0:21:46loaded with liquor and...
0:21:46 > 0:21:48enjoying, I take it,
0:21:48 > 0:21:53a variety of indiscriminate sexual experience.
0:21:53 > 0:21:56You understand what "angelheaded hipsters
0:21:56 > 0:21:59"burning for the ancient heavenly connection
0:21:59 > 0:22:03"to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night" means?
0:22:03 > 0:22:06Sir, you can't translate poetry into prose.
0:22:06 > 0:22:09That's why it is poetry.
0:22:09 > 0:22:12But what are "angelheaded hipsters"?
0:22:28 > 0:22:31I was working as a copyboy at Associated Press,
0:22:31 > 0:22:34and I was able to manage things.
0:22:34 > 0:22:37Except that I was living in a 13-a-month, cold-water apartment
0:22:37 > 0:22:39filled with junkies and thieves.
0:22:40 > 0:22:44So the place was being filled with stolen silverware and
0:22:44 > 0:22:49beautiful oaken furniture taken from the lobbies of apartment buildings.
0:22:51 > 0:22:52At a certain point,
0:22:52 > 0:22:56I figured that things were getting too hot, and that...
0:22:56 > 0:23:00I'd better get out of there. You know, get out from under. So...
0:23:00 > 0:23:02I piled myself and all my manuscripts
0:23:02 > 0:23:06into the back of some guy's car that turned out to be stolen.
0:23:06 > 0:23:07You know, he had in the back,
0:23:07 > 0:23:10all these stolen suits and suitcases and silverware,
0:23:10 > 0:23:13and he turned the wrong way up a one-way street,
0:23:13 > 0:23:15at the end of which there was a police car.
0:23:15 > 0:23:19So he swerves his car to take a side road out,
0:23:19 > 0:23:21and skidded and smashed and papers flying...
0:23:21 > 0:23:25my eyeglasses lost, all the clothes upside down.
0:23:25 > 0:23:30I jumped out, looked around, and went back in the car to find my notebooks,
0:23:30 > 0:23:34but I couldn't find my eyeglasses, so I couldn't find my papers.
0:23:34 > 0:23:37The crowd was gathering around. Chaos.
0:23:39 > 0:23:43The easiest way to get out of the whole thing,
0:23:43 > 0:23:44as it turns out,
0:23:44 > 0:23:49was to just go to the Psychiatric Institute on 168th Street.
0:23:52 > 0:23:56I was in the loony bin for eight months.
0:23:58 > 0:24:00I met Carl Solomon there.
0:24:00 > 0:24:04He was thinking about the void also,
0:24:04 > 0:24:05and such problems, and...
0:24:05 > 0:24:09we spent months sitting around asking ourselves whether
0:24:09 > 0:24:11the authority of the doctors
0:24:11 > 0:24:13and their sense of reality was right for us
0:24:13 > 0:24:16or whether we were right, or, you know, what was happening.
0:24:18 > 0:24:20And Carl was having problems
0:24:20 > 0:24:23because he was receiving shock treatment.
0:24:24 > 0:24:28I didn't have any of that, no medication, no shock.
0:24:29 > 0:24:34Cos I'd promised the doctor that I would be heterosexual.
0:24:34 > 0:24:36And that's how I got out.
0:24:38 > 0:24:41Your mother was institutionalized, wasn't she?
0:24:46 > 0:24:51The concrete void of insulin, Metrazol,
0:24:51 > 0:24:53electricity, hydrotherapy, psychotherapy,
0:24:53 > 0:24:57occupational therapy, pingpong and amnesia,
0:24:57 > 0:24:59who in humourless protest,
0:24:59 > 0:25:02overturned only one symbolic pingpong table,
0:25:02 > 0:25:05resting briefly in catatonia,
0:25:05 > 0:25:10returning years later truly bald except for a wig of blood,
0:25:10 > 0:25:12and tears and fingers,
0:25:12 > 0:25:14to the visible madman doom of the wards
0:25:14 > 0:25:16of the madtowns of the East,
0:25:16 > 0:25:21Pilgrim State's Rockland's and Greystone's foetid halls.
0:25:21 > 0:25:25My mother Naomi was in and out of mental institutions
0:25:25 > 0:25:28from the time I was six.
0:25:28 > 0:25:32When I was 21, I had to sign the papers for her lobotomy.
0:25:32 > 0:25:35She died at Pilgrim State Hospital.
0:25:38 > 0:25:40...bickering with the echoes of the soul,
0:25:40 > 0:25:43rocking and rolling in the midnight
0:25:43 > 0:25:45solitude-bench dolmen-realms of love,
0:25:45 > 0:25:49dream of life a nightmare,
0:25:49 > 0:25:54bodies turned to stone as heavy as the moon,
0:25:54 > 0:25:58with mother finally fucked,
0:25:58 > 0:26:03and the last fantastic book flung out of the tenement window,
0:26:03 > 0:26:07and the last door closed at 4am
0:26:07 > 0:26:11and the last telephone slammed at the wall in reply
0:26:11 > 0:26:15and the last furnished room emptied down to the last piece
0:26:15 > 0:26:17of mental furniture,
0:26:17 > 0:26:21a yellow paper rose twisted on a wire hanger in the closet,
0:26:21 > 0:26:24and even that imaginary,
0:26:24 > 0:26:29nothing but a hopeful little bit of hallucination.
0:26:30 > 0:26:34Ah, Carl, while you are not safe
0:26:34 > 0:26:36I am not safe,
0:26:36 > 0:26:42and now you're really in the total animal soup of time.
0:27:37 > 0:27:39After I got out of the mental hospital,
0:27:39 > 0:27:42I had a period of fear where...
0:27:42 > 0:27:45I felt I had to get out of New York.
0:27:46 > 0:27:49I was questioning my sense of reality versus the
0:27:49 > 0:27:52social sense that was being imposed on me.
0:27:52 > 0:27:54It was a position that...
0:27:54 > 0:27:57Many people in the hospital came out with, you know,
0:27:57 > 0:27:59a total self-rejection,
0:27:59 > 0:28:03a rejection of, you know, their own universe.
0:28:03 > 0:28:05Lip service, actually, to...
0:28:06 > 0:28:09supposedly acceptable social patterns.
0:28:10 > 0:28:12But I was falling in love over and over again,
0:28:12 > 0:28:14and I kept writing my poetry about
0:28:14 > 0:28:16the people I was falling in love with.
0:28:16 > 0:28:19All straight men.
0:28:19 > 0:28:21And I hitch-hiked cross-country
0:28:21 > 0:28:24from Denver with my friend, Neal Cassady.
0:28:24 > 0:28:27And Neal was very frenetic,
0:28:27 > 0:28:28very charming,
0:28:28 > 0:28:31and he had six thousand
0:28:31 > 0:28:35girls across the continent that were keeping him very busy.
0:28:35 > 0:28:39OK...um...no. Um...
0:28:40 > 0:28:42Kiss!
0:28:43 > 0:28:46Wait, wait, you have something...
0:28:46 > 0:28:48I'll get that.
0:28:48 > 0:28:49- Better? - Yeah.
0:28:55 > 0:28:58- Get it?- I got it.
0:29:01 > 0:29:05One day, Neal and I were thrown together in bed, at 4am
0:29:05 > 0:29:06By circumstance...
0:29:06 > 0:29:09with no place else to go and no place else to sleep.
0:29:09 > 0:29:14And I remember being a little scared,
0:29:14 > 0:29:16and not quite sure what to do, so...
0:29:16 > 0:29:18I sort of like turned over and
0:29:18 > 0:29:21stiffened my body and got on the edge of the bed.
0:29:23 > 0:29:25And he saw that I was shy.
0:29:26 > 0:29:27At the time I was still...
0:29:27 > 0:29:31scared of feeling with another person.
0:29:35 > 0:29:37So he put his arm around me,
0:29:37 > 0:29:40and pulled me, and
0:29:40 > 0:29:43put my head on his breast, and
0:29:43 > 0:29:45gave me love, actually.
0:30:17 > 0:30:20And then one day, I got a letter saying, finally,
0:30:20 > 0:30:23"We shouldn't consider ourselves lovers...
0:30:23 > 0:30:28"I'm distracted with the wife, as much as I love you."
0:30:29 > 0:30:32So my heart was broken.
0:30:38 > 0:30:39"Dear Allen,
0:30:39 > 0:30:43"What you say is honestly what I've been doing
0:30:43 > 0:30:46"or striving for all my life. Therein lies our,
0:30:46 > 0:30:49"or my confused sense of closeness.
0:30:49 > 0:30:53"Also, I fear therein lies our strength of tie to each other.
0:30:53 > 0:30:54"I say, 'I fear,'
0:30:54 > 0:30:58"for I really don't know how much I can be satisfied to love you.
0:30:58 > 0:30:59"I mean bodily.
0:30:59 > 0:31:03"You know, I sometimes dislike pricks and men and before you
0:31:03 > 0:31:07"had consciously forced myself to be homosexual.
0:31:07 > 0:31:09"You meant so much to me.
0:31:09 > 0:31:12"I now feel I was forcing a desire for you bodily
0:31:12 > 0:31:16"as a compensation to you for all you were giving me.
0:31:16 > 0:31:18"Allen, this is straight.
0:31:18 > 0:31:21"What I truly want is to live with you from September to June,
0:31:21 > 0:31:25"have an apartment, a girl, go to college,
0:31:25 > 0:31:26"see all and do all,
0:31:26 > 0:31:30"and become truly straight, so please, Allen,
0:31:30 > 0:31:32"give this a good deal of thought."
0:31:42 > 0:31:46Who drove cross-country 72 hours to find out if I had a vision
0:31:46 > 0:31:47or you had a vision
0:31:47 > 0:31:50or he had a vision to find out eternity...
0:31:52 > 0:31:55..who journeyed to Denver, who died in Denver,
0:31:55 > 0:31:58who came back to Denver and waited in vain,
0:31:58 > 0:32:02who watched over Denver and brooded and loned in Denver
0:32:02 > 0:32:06and finally went away to find out the time,
0:32:06 > 0:32:09and now Denver is lonesome for her heroes...
0:32:13 > 0:32:16..who fell on their knees in hopeless cathedrals
0:32:16 > 0:32:19praying for each other's salvation and light and breasts,
0:32:19 > 0:32:23until the soul illuminated its hair for a second,
0:32:23 > 0:32:26who sweetened the snatches of a million girls
0:32:26 > 0:32:28trembling in the sunset,
0:32:28 > 0:32:31and were red-eyed in the morning but prepared
0:32:31 > 0:32:33to sweeten the snatch of the sunrise,
0:32:33 > 0:32:36flashing buttocks under barns and naked in the lake...
0:32:38 > 0:32:42..who went out whoring through Colorado in myriad stolen night-cars,
0:32:42 > 0:32:46Neal Cassady, secret hero of these poems,
0:32:46 > 0:32:48cocksman and Adonis of Denver,
0:32:48 > 0:32:52joy to the memory of his innumerable lays of girls
0:32:52 > 0:32:55in empty lots and diner backyards,
0:32:55 > 0:32:59movie houses' rickety rows, on mountaintops in caves
0:32:59 > 0:33:03or with gaunt waitresses in familiar roadside
0:33:03 > 0:33:06lonely petticoat upliftings.
0:33:06 > 0:33:08I think it's a howl of pain.
0:33:08 > 0:33:11Figuratively speaking, his toes have been stepped on.
0:33:11 > 0:33:14He's poetically putting his cry of pain and
0:33:14 > 0:33:17protest into this book, Howl.
0:33:17 > 0:33:20And do you think this book has definite literary value?
0:33:20 > 0:33:23I do. As a matter of fact, I think in a way
0:33:23 > 0:33:26he is employing the jazz phraseology here
0:33:26 > 0:33:28and, may I say, I...
0:33:28 > 0:33:33I think he's also employing the words he heard
0:33:33 > 0:33:37in his life on the road and in his various experiences.
0:33:37 > 0:33:38Thank you.
0:33:38 > 0:33:42Now, do you understand most of the words in this book?
0:33:42 > 0:33:46I think I understand their significance and the general context of it.
0:33:46 > 0:33:47I see.
0:33:49 > 0:33:53Taking on page 13,
0:33:53 > 0:33:55the 14th line.
0:33:55 > 0:33:58"Who howled on their knees in the subway
0:33:58 > 0:34:03"and were dragged off the roof waving genitals and manuscripts."
0:34:03 > 0:34:07Now, do you understand what that paragraph is trying to say,
0:34:07 > 0:34:10as a part of the Howl?
0:34:10 > 0:34:11Not explicitly.
0:34:11 > 0:34:14I would say he was attempting to show the...
0:34:14 > 0:34:18lack of inhibition in the persons he's talking of,
0:34:18 > 0:34:22post-World War II generation...
0:34:22 > 0:34:24those who returned,
0:34:24 > 0:34:29went into college or went into work immediately after World War II
0:34:29 > 0:34:32perhaps were somewhat displaced by the chaos of the war and
0:34:32 > 0:34:36didn't immediately settle down.
0:34:36 > 0:34:39Now, the next paragraph.
0:34:43 > 0:34:46"Who blew and were blown
0:34:46 > 0:34:50"by those human seraphim, the sailors,
0:34:50 > 0:34:54"caresses of Atlantic and Caribbean love."
0:34:54 > 0:34:57Now, you understand what "blew" and "blown" mean?
0:34:57 > 0:35:01Well, I think they are words that have several meanings.
0:35:01 > 0:35:04What meanings do you attribute to the words in this paragraph?
0:35:04 > 0:35:08It can at one level mean... that they were vagabonds,
0:35:08 > 0:35:12that they were being blown about by natural, literal winds.
0:35:12 > 0:35:15On the other hand, perhaps it does have a sexual connotation.
0:35:15 > 0:35:19In reference to oral copulation, right?
0:35:19 > 0:35:20Yes, possibly.
0:35:20 > 0:35:22Now then, do you find that those words
0:35:22 > 0:35:24are necessary to the context
0:35:24 > 0:35:26to make it a work of literary value?
0:35:26 > 0:35:28I thought we had settled this, Your Honour.
0:35:28 > 0:35:30Yes, Mr McIntosh, if you will recall,
0:35:30 > 0:35:32I said I would not allow the use of the word "necessary".
0:35:32 > 0:35:36But you may ask the question, "Are they relevant?"
0:35:36 > 0:35:40Are they relevant to make this a work of literary value?
0:35:40 > 0:35:43- Yes, I would say so. - Now then if you took those words out of there,
0:35:43 > 0:35:46would that spoil the portrayal?
0:35:46 > 0:35:51- That's doing indirectly what Your Honour won't permit him to do directly.- This man is an expert.
0:35:51 > 0:35:53He has to speculate.
0:35:53 > 0:35:57No, Mr McIntosh, I'm afraid I can't go along with you on that.
0:35:57 > 0:36:01Whether the author might have used other or different words,
0:36:01 > 0:36:05you're getting into the realm of speculation there. Objection sustained.
0:36:06 > 0:36:09Going down a little further.
0:36:11 > 0:36:14"Who sweetened the snatches of a million girls
0:36:14 > 0:36:18"trembling in the sunset, and were red-eyed in the morning
0:36:18 > 0:36:22"but prepared to sweeten the snatch of the sunrise,
0:36:22 > 0:36:27"flashing buttocks under barns and naked in the lake."
0:36:32 > 0:36:33What's your question?
0:36:33 > 0:36:35Is that word "snatches" in there...
0:36:35 > 0:36:37Is that...
0:36:37 > 0:36:40relevant to Mr Ginsberg's literary endeavour?
0:36:40 > 0:36:44Yes. I think to use euphemisms in describing this would...
0:36:46 > 0:36:49..seem dishonest to Mr Ginsberg.
0:36:49 > 0:36:52You also said, I believe, literary value sometimes
0:36:52 > 0:36:55is a book which will survive any test of time.
0:36:55 > 0:36:58Do you think Mr Ginsberg's work will survive the test of time?
0:36:58 > 0:37:00He has no way of knowing,
0:37:00 > 0:37:04no more than some people thought Leaves Of Grass would survive.
0:37:04 > 0:37:06I'm asking him for his opinion, to give us an opinion on that book.
0:37:06 > 0:37:08He says that literary value
0:37:08 > 0:37:12depends on surviving the test of time. I want to know if it will.
0:37:12 > 0:37:16If Luther Nichols could answer that, then the Good Lord could use a helper
0:37:16 > 0:37:18and he ought to be up there. How can he tell?
0:37:18 > 0:37:21- I'm asking for his opinion as an expert.- I'll ask him.
0:37:21 > 0:37:23Can you answer the question?
0:37:25 > 0:37:28It calls for a prediction.
0:37:28 > 0:37:32I think that this trial will draw attention to it.
0:37:32 > 0:37:35Howl will have a wider readership than it might otherwise have had,
0:37:35 > 0:37:39and may go down in history as a stepping-stone along the way
0:37:39 > 0:37:41to greater or lesser liberality
0:37:41 > 0:37:44in the permitting of poems of its type.
0:37:57 > 0:38:00Poetry, generally, is a...
0:38:00 > 0:38:04rhythmic articulation of feeling
0:38:04 > 0:38:06and the feeling is
0:38:06 > 0:38:09an impulse that begins inside.
0:38:09 > 0:38:13Like a sexual impulse, you know. Almost as definite as that.
0:38:13 > 0:38:17It's a feeling that begins in the pit of the stomach, right?
0:38:17 > 0:38:21And rises up through the breast, and...
0:38:21 > 0:38:23out the mouth and ears, right?
0:38:25 > 0:38:30And...it comes forth as a croon or a groan or a sigh, right?
0:38:30 > 0:38:33So if you try to put words to that
0:38:33 > 0:38:35by looking around you and
0:38:35 > 0:38:38trying to describe what's making you sigh,
0:38:38 > 0:38:41just sigh in words,
0:38:41 > 0:38:44you simply articulate what you're feeling.
0:38:44 > 0:38:47Who bit detectives in the neck and shrieked with delight
0:38:47 > 0:38:49in police cars for committing no crime,
0:38:49 > 0:38:54but their own wild cooking, pederasty and intoxication.
0:38:54 > 0:38:57Who howled on their knees in the subway
0:38:57 > 0:39:00and were dragged off the roof
0:39:00 > 0:39:04waving genitals and manuscripts.
0:39:09 > 0:39:10In the moment of composition,
0:39:10 > 0:39:14I don't necessarily know what it means.
0:39:14 > 0:39:17It comes to mean something later, after a year or two, I come to realise
0:39:17 > 0:39:21it meant something clear, unconsciously.
0:39:21 > 0:39:23Which takes on meaning in time, you know, like...
0:39:23 > 0:39:25a photograph developing slowly.
0:39:27 > 0:39:29If it's at all spontaneous...
0:39:31 > 0:39:33..I don't know whether it even makes sense sometimes.
0:39:33 > 0:39:36And other times, I do know it makes complete sense...
0:39:38 > 0:39:39I start crying.
0:39:41 > 0:39:42Cos I realise that I'm...
0:39:42 > 0:39:46I'm hitting on an area that's...
0:39:46 > 0:39:47absolutely true.
0:39:47 > 0:39:51In that sense, able to be read by someone
0:39:51 > 0:39:54and wept to, maybe, centuries later.
0:39:54 > 0:39:58In that sense, prophecy,
0:39:58 > 0:40:01because it touches a common key.
0:40:01 > 0:40:05I mean, what prophecy actually is,
0:40:05 > 0:40:12is not knowing whether... the bomb will fall in 1942.
0:40:12 > 0:40:15It's knowing and feeling something
0:40:15 > 0:40:21which someone knows and feels in a hundred years. Hmm?
0:40:21 > 0:40:24And maybe articulating it in a hint that
0:40:24 > 0:40:26they will pick up on in 100 years.
0:40:45 > 0:40:48Who crashed through their minds in jail
0:40:48 > 0:40:50waiting for impossible criminals with golden heads
0:40:50 > 0:40:53and the charm of reality in their hearts...
0:40:56 > 0:40:59..who sang sweet blues to Alcatraz,
0:40:59 > 0:41:04who demanded sanity trials accusing the radio of hypnotism
0:41:04 > 0:41:06and were left with their insanity
0:41:06 > 0:41:08and their hands and a hung jury...
0:41:11 > 0:41:14..who threw potato salad at CCNY lecturers on Dadaism
0:41:14 > 0:41:18and subsequently presented themselves on the granite steps of the madhouse
0:41:18 > 0:41:21with shaven heads and harlequin speech of suicide,
0:41:21 > 0:41:24demanding instantaneous lobotomy...
0:41:26 > 0:41:28..and who were given instead
0:41:28 > 0:41:31the concrete void of insulin Metrazol,
0:41:31 > 0:41:33electricity, hydrotherapy, psychotherapy,
0:41:33 > 0:41:36occupational therapy, pingpong and amnesia...
0:41:41 > 0:41:43..and who therefore ran through the icy streets
0:41:43 > 0:41:45obsessed with a sudden flash
0:41:45 > 0:41:47of the alchemy of the use of the ellipse
0:41:47 > 0:41:51the catalogue, the meter and the vibrating plane...
0:41:56 > 0:41:59..who dreamt and made incarnate gaps in time and space
0:41:59 > 0:42:01through images juxtaposed,
0:42:01 > 0:42:04and trapped the archangel of the soul
0:42:04 > 0:42:05between two visual images
0:42:05 > 0:42:09to recreate the syntax and measure of poor human prose
0:42:09 > 0:42:13and stand before you speechless and intelligent
0:42:13 > 0:42:16and shaking with shame,
0:42:16 > 0:42:17rejected yet confessing out the soul
0:42:17 > 0:42:20to conform to the rhythm of thought
0:42:20 > 0:42:22in his naked and endless head...
0:42:25 > 0:42:28..the madman bum and angel beat in time,
0:42:28 > 0:42:30unknown, yet putting down here
0:42:30 > 0:42:34what might be left to say in time come after death...
0:42:35 > 0:42:39..and rose reincarnate in the ghostly clothes of jazz
0:42:39 > 0:42:42in the goldhorn shadow of the band
0:42:42 > 0:42:46and blew the suffering of America's naked mind for love
0:42:46 > 0:42:53into an eli eli lamma lamma sabacthani saxophone cry
0:42:53 > 0:42:56that shivered the cities down to the last radio
0:42:56 > 0:42:59with the absolute heart of the poem of life
0:42:59 > 0:43:01butchered out of their own bodies
0:43:01 > 0:43:04good to eat a thousand years.
0:43:22 > 0:43:26After I left New York, I spent a year in San Francisco.
0:43:26 > 0:43:29I had an apartment on Nob Hill,
0:43:29 > 0:43:33the tie and suit,
0:43:33 > 0:43:35a job with several secretaries which was...
0:43:35 > 0:43:38beginning to give me pleasure,
0:43:38 > 0:43:39the pleasure of knowing I could do it
0:43:39 > 0:43:43and was no longer intimidated by the social forms,
0:43:43 > 0:43:46to be able to make it in the very dry, business world.
0:43:46 > 0:43:50And that's when I met Peter.
0:44:18 > 0:44:22It was when I met Peter that everything changed for me.
0:44:26 > 0:44:29It was as if the heavens showered with gold.
0:44:30 > 0:44:34Finally somebody loved me like I loved them,
0:44:34 > 0:44:39and for the first time, I felt accepted in my life.
0:44:39 > 0:44:40Completely.
0:44:50 > 0:44:51In San Francisco,
0:44:51 > 0:44:54I had a year of psychotherapy with Dr Hicks.
0:44:56 > 0:44:58I was blocked, I couldn't write...
0:44:58 > 0:45:01I was still trying to act normal.
0:45:01 > 0:45:03I was afraid I was crazy.
0:45:03 > 0:45:06I was sure that I was supposed to be heterosexual
0:45:06 > 0:45:08and that something was wrong with me.
0:45:10 > 0:45:15And Dr Hicks kept saying, "What do you want to do?
0:45:15 > 0:45:18"What is your heart's desire?"
0:45:18 > 0:45:22Finally I said... what I'd really like to do is to
0:45:22 > 0:45:28just quit all this and... get a small room with Peter
0:45:28 > 0:45:30and devote myself to my writing and
0:45:30 > 0:45:34contemplation and fucking and smoking pot and...
0:45:34 > 0:45:37doing whatever I want.
0:45:37 > 0:45:40And he said, "Why don't you do it, then?"
0:45:42 > 0:45:45I mean, what will happen if I grow old...
0:45:45 > 0:45:47and I have pee-stains in my underwear
0:45:47 > 0:45:50and I'm living in some furnished room
0:45:50 > 0:45:53and nobody loves me and I'm... white-haired and...
0:45:53 > 0:45:56I have no money, breadcrumbs are falling on the floor?
0:45:56 > 0:46:00And he said, "Don't worry about that,
0:46:00 > 0:46:04"you're very charming and lovable and people will always love you."
0:46:04 > 0:46:06What a relief to hear that!
0:46:07 > 0:46:10I very soon realized that it was all...
0:46:10 > 0:46:11a fear-trap.
0:46:12 > 0:46:14Illusory!
0:46:16 > 0:46:21What sphinx of cement and aluminium bashed open their skulls
0:46:21 > 0:46:25and ate up their brains and imagination?
0:46:25 > 0:46:29Moloch! Solitude! Filth!
0:46:29 > 0:46:34Ugliness! Ashcans and unobtainable dollars!
0:46:34 > 0:46:36Children screaming under stairways!
0:46:36 > 0:46:39Boys sobbing in armies!
0:46:39 > 0:46:42Old men weeping in the parks!
0:46:42 > 0:46:45Moloch! Moloch!
0:46:45 > 0:46:49Nightmare of Moloch! Moloch the loveless!
0:46:49 > 0:46:51Mental Moloch!
0:46:51 > 0:46:56Moloch the heavy judger of men!
0:46:58 > 0:47:01Peter and I saw Moloch one day when we took peyote
0:47:01 > 0:47:05and were wandering around downtown streets.
0:47:05 > 0:47:09It's a god that you make fire sacrifices to.
0:47:09 > 0:47:14But...in my mind, it was what drove my mother to madness.
0:47:15 > 0:47:19So, I had the line...
0:47:19 > 0:47:23Moloch, whose eyes are a thousand blind windows.
0:47:23 > 0:47:24I had this word.
0:47:27 > 0:47:28And...I also had the feeling
0:47:28 > 0:47:31DA de de DA de de DA de de DA DA. Hmm?
0:47:31 > 0:47:35So then all I had to do was look up and see a lot of windows,
0:47:35 > 0:47:38and say, "Oh, windows, of course."
0:47:38 > 0:47:42But what kind of windows? Right? And...not only that...
0:47:42 > 0:47:44"Moloch, whose eyes"...Right?
0:47:44 > 0:47:48"Moloch, whose eyes", which is beautiful in itself, but...
0:47:48 > 0:47:49You know, what about it?
0:47:49 > 0:47:51"Moloch, whose eyes" what?
0:47:51 > 0:47:53"Moloch, whose eyes".
0:47:53 > 0:47:56Then the next thing I thought was probably...
0:47:56 > 0:47:59"Thousands." OK, but "thousands" what?
0:47:59 > 0:48:00"Thousands blind"...
0:48:00 > 0:48:03And then I had to finish it somehow. So...
0:48:03 > 0:48:05I had to say "windows".
0:48:09 > 0:48:14Moloch, whose eyes are a thousand blind windows!
0:48:16 > 0:48:18Moloch, whose skyscrapers
0:48:18 > 0:48:22stand in the long streets like endless Jehovahs!
0:48:23 > 0:48:27Moloch, whose factories dream and croak in the fog!
0:48:31 > 0:48:34Moloch, whose love is endless oil and stone!
0:48:36 > 0:48:40Moloch, whose soul is electricity and banks!
0:48:40 > 0:48:44Moloch, whose fate is a cloud of sexless hydrogen!
0:48:45 > 0:48:49Moloch, in whom I sit lonely!
0:48:49 > 0:48:52Moloch, in whom I dream angels!
0:48:55 > 0:48:57Crazy in Moloch!
0:48:57 > 0:49:00Cocksucker in Moloch!
0:49:00 > 0:49:04Lacklove and manless in Moloch!
0:49:04 > 0:49:06Moloch, who entered my soul early!
0:49:06 > 0:49:12Moloch, who frightened me out of my natural ecstasy!
0:49:12 > 0:49:14Moloch, whom I abandon!
0:49:15 > 0:49:17Wake up in Moloch!
0:49:17 > 0:49:19Light streaming out of the sky!
0:49:22 > 0:49:24Moloch! Moloch!
0:49:24 > 0:49:25Robot apartments!
0:49:25 > 0:49:27Invisible suburbs!
0:49:27 > 0:49:31Skeleton treasuries! Blind capitals!
0:49:31 > 0:49:33Demonic industries!
0:49:33 > 0:49:36Spectral nations! Invincible mad houses!
0:49:36 > 0:49:39Granite cocks!
0:49:39 > 0:49:41Monstrous bombs!
0:49:41 > 0:49:45They broke their backs lifting Moloch to heaven!
0:49:47 > 0:49:50Pavements, trees! Lifting the city to heaven
0:49:50 > 0:49:54which exists and is everywhere about us!
0:49:54 > 0:49:55Dreams!
0:49:55 > 0:49:57Adorations!
0:49:57 > 0:49:58Illuminations!
0:49:58 > 0:50:00Religions!
0:50:00 > 0:50:03The whole boatload of sensitive bullshit!
0:50:03 > 0:50:07Breakthroughs! Over the river!
0:50:07 > 0:50:09Flips and crucifixions!
0:50:09 > 0:50:11Gone down the flood!
0:50:11 > 0:50:14Highs! Epiphanies! Despairs!
0:50:14 > 0:50:18Ten years' animal screams and suicides!
0:50:18 > 0:50:22Minds! New loves! Mad generation!
0:50:22 > 0:50:24Down on the rocks of time!
0:50:24 > 0:50:27Real holy laughter in the river!
0:50:27 > 0:50:29They saw it all!
0:50:29 > 0:50:33The wild eyes! The holy yells!
0:50:33 > 0:50:34They bade farewell!
0:50:34 > 0:50:37They jumped off the roof! To solitude!
0:50:37 > 0:50:41Waving! Carrying flowers!
0:50:41 > 0:50:43Down to the river!
0:50:43 > 0:50:44Into the street!
0:50:46 > 0:50:49It is my opinion that if it has any literary value,
0:50:49 > 0:50:51it's negligible.
0:50:51 > 0:50:54I endeavoured to arrive at my opinion on an objective basis.
0:50:54 > 0:50:57For example, a great literary work,
0:50:57 > 0:51:00or even a fairly great literary work,
0:51:00 > 0:51:03would obviously be exceedingly successful in form,
0:51:03 > 0:51:06but this poem is really just a weak imitation
0:51:06 > 0:51:10of a form that was used 80 to 90 years ago by Walt Whitman.
0:51:10 > 0:51:15- Do you recall the name of that poem? - Leaves Of Grass was the name of the poem.
0:51:15 > 0:51:18Literary value could also reside in theme,
0:51:18 > 0:51:21and what little literary value there is in Howl,
0:51:21 > 0:51:23it seems to me does come in theme.
0:51:23 > 0:51:26The statement of the idea of the poem was relatively clear,
0:51:26 > 0:51:29but it has little validity, and, therefore,
0:51:29 > 0:51:31the theme has a negative value.
0:51:31 > 0:51:33- No value at all.- Thank you.
0:51:35 > 0:51:37Did I understand you to say that
0:51:37 > 0:51:39Ginsberg used Walt Whitman's style?
0:51:39 > 0:51:41The form.
0:51:41 > 0:51:43The form of the book Leaves Of Grass.
0:51:43 > 0:51:46And because of Ginsberg's using this format,
0:51:46 > 0:51:48it is your opinion that the poem Howl
0:51:48 > 0:51:51has no literary value or... merit, is that true?
0:51:51 > 0:51:53On the basis of form, that's correct,
0:51:53 > 0:51:56because great literature always creates
0:51:56 > 0:51:59its own form for each significant occasion.
0:51:59 > 0:52:00By that, you do not mean that
0:52:00 > 0:52:03Walt Whitman's Leaves Of Grass doesn't quite qualify?
0:52:03 > 0:52:05That is great literature.
0:52:05 > 0:52:08The form was created by Walt Whitman.
0:52:08 > 0:52:10And at the same time, you say, because
0:52:10 > 0:52:11Ginsberg copied that format,
0:52:11 > 0:52:15Howl has no value or merit, am I correct?
0:52:15 > 0:52:19That is correct. An imitation never does have the value of the original.
0:52:19 > 0:52:21Who did Walt Whitman copy?
0:52:21 > 0:52:23To my knowledge, no-one.
0:52:23 > 0:52:24But you don't know,
0:52:24 > 0:52:27isn't that your answer, you don't know, sir?
0:52:27 > 0:52:30That's right.
0:52:30 > 0:52:33As I understand, your next signpost is that the idea
0:52:33 > 0:52:35of Howl is clear, but has little validity.
0:52:35 > 0:52:37Am I quoting you correctly?
0:52:37 > 0:52:40That's the general conclusion, yes.
0:52:40 > 0:52:42The idea of Howl is clear in theme.
0:52:42 > 0:52:44- The idea is clear?- Yes.
0:52:44 > 0:52:47What idea does Ginsberg have in Howl?
0:52:47 > 0:52:50Well, he celebrates the unfortunate life of...
0:52:52 > 0:52:54I can't remember the man's name, Solomon...
0:52:54 > 0:52:57the unfortunate life of the man, Solomon,
0:52:57 > 0:53:00who is a drifter of Dadaist persuasion.
0:53:00 > 0:53:02A drift what?
0:53:02 > 0:53:04Drifter of Dadaist persuasion.
0:53:04 > 0:53:07- He portrays that? - That's correct.
0:53:07 > 0:53:10And does that portrayal have any validity?
0:53:10 > 0:53:12Not as literature, no.
0:53:12 > 0:53:18Carl Solomon! I'm with you in Rockland where you're madder than I am.
0:53:19 > 0:53:24I'm with you in Rockland where you must feel very strange.
0:53:25 > 0:53:30I'm with you in Rockland where you imitate the shade of my mother.
0:53:32 > 0:53:36I'm with you in Rockland where you pun on the bodies of your nurses,
0:53:36 > 0:53:38the harpies of the Bronx.
0:53:38 > 0:53:41I'm with you in Rockland
0:53:41 > 0:53:43where you bang on the catatonic piano
0:53:43 > 0:53:45the soul is innocent and immortal
0:53:45 > 0:53:49it should never die ungodly in an armed madhouse.
0:53:49 > 0:53:51I'm with you in Rockland
0:53:51 > 0:53:54where fifty more shocks will never return
0:53:54 > 0:53:55your soul to its body again
0:53:55 > 0:53:58from its pilgrimage to a cross in the void.
0:53:59 > 0:54:00I'm with you in Rockland
0:54:00 > 0:54:03where you accuse your doctors of insanity
0:54:03 > 0:54:05and plot the Hebrew socialist revolution
0:54:05 > 0:54:08against the fascist national Golgotha...
0:54:09 > 0:54:11I'm with you in Rockland
0:54:11 > 0:54:13where you will split the heavens of Long Island
0:54:13 > 0:54:16and resurrect your living human Jesus
0:54:16 > 0:54:18from the superhuman tomb.
0:54:18 > 0:54:21I'm with you in Rockland where there are 25,000
0:54:21 > 0:54:23mad comrades all together singing
0:54:23 > 0:54:26the final stanzas of the Internationale.
0:54:27 > 0:54:29I'm with you in Rockland
0:54:29 > 0:54:31where we wake up electrified out of the coma
0:54:31 > 0:54:35by our own souls' airplanes roaring over the roof.
0:54:35 > 0:54:37They've come to drop angelic bombs.
0:54:37 > 0:54:41The hospital illuminates itself.
0:54:41 > 0:54:46Imaginary walls collapse.
0:54:46 > 0:54:48O, skinny legions run outside
0:54:48 > 0:54:52O, starry-spangled shock of mercy.
0:54:52 > 0:54:53The eternal war is here
0:54:57 > 0:55:01O, victory forget your underwear, we're free.
0:55:02 > 0:55:06I'm with you in Rockland in my dreams.
0:55:06 > 0:55:09You walk dripping from a sea-journey
0:55:09 > 0:55:11on the highway across America
0:55:11 > 0:55:17in tears to the door of my cottage in the Western night.
0:55:19 > 0:55:24What is your impression of the third portion of Howl?
0:55:24 > 0:55:27My understanding there would be that the poet expresses
0:55:27 > 0:55:29the usual Dadaist line that
0:55:29 > 0:55:33everything is created for man's despair,
0:55:33 > 0:55:35and that everything must be forgotten and destroyed,
0:55:35 > 0:55:38and that Solomon's life has had this kind of rhythm.
0:55:38 > 0:55:42Therefore, there is some validity of theme in that area.
0:55:42 > 0:55:45So there is validity of theme there?
0:55:45 > 0:55:49I am afraid I got my tongue tripped up there...this...
0:55:49 > 0:55:51I should have said "clarity" instead of "validity".
0:55:51 > 0:55:54But you've been using the term "validity"
0:55:54 > 0:55:56the entire time you've been on the stand.
0:55:56 > 0:55:59By the way, Mr Kirk, have you read the Holy Bible?
0:55:59 > 0:56:01I have.
0:56:01 > 0:56:02Tell me, did you read Job?
0:56:02 > 0:56:05I have.
0:56:05 > 0:56:08Isn't Job crying the same cry as Ginsberg's Howl?
0:56:08 > 0:56:10Not at all.
0:56:10 > 0:56:13Do you agree with me that Job does condemn life?
0:56:13 > 0:56:16Job condemns man's condition, yes,
0:56:16 > 0:56:19but he does not go on then, as the Dadaist goes on, to...
0:56:19 > 0:56:21desire to wipe out all human memory
0:56:21 > 0:56:24of everything the human race has ever done
0:56:24 > 0:56:26so that there can be a fresh start made,
0:56:26 > 0:56:28as the Dadaist does.
0:56:28 > 0:56:30You don't believe in that philosophy?
0:56:30 > 0:56:33Not at all. No, it's been dead since about 1922 or '23.
0:56:33 > 0:56:38But that doesn't necessarily mean that someone who does believe that is...wrong, does it?
0:56:38 > 0:56:40No, but that does not create literature.
0:56:40 > 0:56:44Well, what... What creates literature, Mr. Kirk?
0:56:44 > 0:56:47I'd have to return to my three bases of objective criticism.
0:56:47 > 0:56:49Form, theme and opportunity.
0:56:49 > 0:56:53Well... Do you feel that Ginsberg had
0:56:53 > 0:56:55the opportunity in his travels
0:56:55 > 0:56:57to observe life and to write about it?
0:56:57 > 0:56:59A small segment, yes.
0:56:59 > 0:57:02- And this is the segment that he's writing about?- One thing...
0:57:02 > 0:57:05Answer that question, please, yes or no.
0:57:05 > 0:57:10Uh... I'm... I'm confused.
0:57:10 > 0:57:12This is the segment that he is writing about,
0:57:12 > 0:57:13isn't that true?
0:57:13 > 0:57:15I can't answer that either yes or no.
0:57:15 > 0:57:17But you said in his travels,
0:57:17 > 0:57:19he wrote about a small segment of the community.
0:57:19 > 0:57:21Here's where the confusion comes in.
0:57:21 > 0:57:24I believe the travels are Solomon's, not Ginsberg's.
0:57:24 > 0:57:26That's the basis of my confusion.
0:57:26 > 0:57:28Yes, well, Ginsberg is writing it about Solomon.
0:57:28 > 0:57:30It's his own observations.
0:57:30 > 0:57:32You have read that, haven't you?
0:57:32 > 0:57:35I am unable to know whether he has an acquaintance with Solomon.
0:57:35 > 0:57:37That is the thing that is beyond my experience,
0:57:37 > 0:57:39beyond my knowledge.
0:57:39 > 0:57:41Do you evaluate a work by whether the writer knew
0:57:41 > 0:57:43the person he was talking about?
0:57:43 > 0:57:45Absolutely.
0:57:45 > 0:57:48Are you certain that Carl Solomon ever lived?
0:57:48 > 0:57:51- No.- Then you don't know, do you? - Not at all.
0:57:53 > 0:57:55Have you ever read...Voltaire?
0:57:55 > 0:57:58I've read one work, Candide.
0:57:58 > 0:58:01- And what is your opinion of Candide? - As literature? It's great literature.
0:58:01 > 0:58:04And whose style did Voltaire copy?
0:58:04 > 0:58:07- Oh! Your Honour!- Please!
0:58:07 > 0:58:10- Counsel is allowed to make an objection.- If he objects.
0:58:10 > 0:58:12Well, I would like to...
0:58:13 > 0:58:18I don't want to box with him. He's disturbing me.
0:58:18 > 0:58:21I get my mouth open and out fly fists.
0:58:28 > 0:58:31How long have you reflected on Howl?
0:58:31 > 0:58:34I believe two weeks.
0:58:34 > 0:58:37- Two weeks?- Two weeks would be the limit of my opportunity.
0:58:37 > 0:58:39I made my mind up after five minutes.
0:58:39 > 0:58:41And you reflected a long, long time
0:58:41 > 0:58:43on Voltaire's Candide, is that right?
0:58:43 > 0:58:46- Exactly.- Well, do you think that if you had another
0:58:46 > 0:58:49ten years to reflect on Howl, you might change your opinion?
0:58:49 > 0:58:53I am quite certain I would not.
0:58:54 > 0:58:56That is all.
0:58:57 > 0:59:00Where you accuse your doctors of insanity
0:59:00 > 0:59:03and plot the Hebrew socialist revolution
0:59:03 > 0:59:05against the fascist national Golgotha.
0:59:05 > 0:59:07I'm with you in Rockland
0:59:07 > 0:59:09where you will split the heavens of Long Island
0:59:09 > 0:59:14and resurrect your living human Jesus from the superhuman tomb.
0:59:14 > 0:59:17I'm with you in Rockland
0:59:17 > 0:59:20where there are 25,000 mad comrades all together
0:59:20 > 0:59:25singing the final stanzas of the Internationale.
0:59:25 > 0:59:29I'm with you in Rockland where we hug and kiss
0:59:29 > 0:59:32the United States under our bedsheets.
0:59:32 > 0:59:33The United States
0:59:33 > 0:59:37that coughs all night and won't let us sleep.
0:59:37 > 0:59:40I'm with you in Rockland
0:59:40 > 0:59:43where we wake up electrified out of the coma
0:59:43 > 0:59:47by our own souls' airplanes roaring over the roof.
0:59:47 > 0:59:50They've come to drop angelic bombs.
0:59:50 > 0:59:53The hospital illuminates itself.
0:59:53 > 0:59:57Imaginary walls collapse.
0:59:57 > 1:00:01O, skinny legions run outside
1:00:01 > 1:00:04O, starry-spangled shock of mercy
1:00:04 > 1:00:07the eternal war is here!
1:00:07 > 1:00:10O, victory! Forget your underwear!
1:00:10 > 1:00:12We're free!
1:00:13 > 1:00:15I'm with you in Rockland.
1:00:15 > 1:00:17In my dreams
1:00:17 > 1:00:19you walk dripping from a sea-journey
1:00:19 > 1:00:22on the highway across America
1:00:22 > 1:00:26in tears to the door of my cottage
1:00:26 > 1:00:28in the Western night.
1:00:39 > 1:00:41Howl contains words,
1:00:41 > 1:00:43taken just by themselves, Your Honour,
1:00:43 > 1:00:46that are definitely obscene.
1:00:46 > 1:00:49And we have had different literary experts testify that
1:00:49 > 1:00:53the books have literary merit, and that the words
1:00:53 > 1:00:55are necessary to that so-called merit.
1:00:57 > 1:01:00But it's funny - in our law,
1:01:00 > 1:01:02we are allowed to use
1:01:02 > 1:01:04expert witnesses to testify as to literary merit,
1:01:04 > 1:01:07but we are not allowed to bring in,
1:01:07 > 1:01:09we will say, the average man
1:01:09 > 1:01:12to testify that when he reads the book,
1:01:12 > 1:01:13he doesn't understand it.
1:01:13 > 1:01:16He doesn't know what it's all about.
1:01:16 > 1:01:19Perhaps it's over his head.
1:01:19 > 1:01:21Take, for example...
1:01:23 > 1:01:28Frankly, and I made the comment in open court that I'd read it,
1:01:28 > 1:01:30I don't understand it very well.
1:01:30 > 1:01:32In fact, looking it all over,
1:01:32 > 1:01:35I think it's a lot of sensitive bullshit,
1:01:35 > 1:01:37using the language of Mr Ginsberg.
1:01:37 > 1:01:39So then,
1:01:39 > 1:01:43if the sale of a book is not being limited to just
1:01:43 > 1:01:46modern book reviewers and experts on modern poetry,
1:01:46 > 1:01:49but falls into the hands of the general public,
1:01:49 > 1:01:52that is to say, the average reader,
1:01:52 > 1:01:54this court should take that into consideration
1:01:54 > 1:01:58in determining whether or not Howl is obscene.
1:01:58 > 1:01:59Thank you, Your Honor
1:02:01 > 1:02:05All right. I will hear from the defence.
1:02:09 > 1:02:13The United States Supreme Court has said that obscenity
1:02:13 > 1:02:15is construed to mean
1:02:15 > 1:02:17"having a substantial tendency to corrupt
1:02:17 > 1:02:21"by arousing lustful desires."
1:02:24 > 1:02:28Is the word relevant to what the author is trying to say,
1:02:28 > 1:02:32or did he just use it to be dirty and filthy?
1:02:32 > 1:02:36He sees what he terms as
1:02:36 > 1:02:38"an Adonis of Denver, joy to the memory
1:02:38 > 1:02:42"of his innumerable conquests."
1:02:42 > 1:02:43Who went out whoring through Colorado
1:02:43 > 1:02:47in myriad stolen night-cars,
1:02:47 > 1:02:52Neal Cassady, secret hero of this poem,
1:02:52 > 1:02:54cocksman and Adonis of Denver,
1:02:54 > 1:02:59joy to the memory of his innumerable lays of girls
1:02:59 > 1:03:02in empty lots and diner backyards,
1:03:02 > 1:03:05movie houses' rickety rows,
1:03:05 > 1:03:09on mountaintops in caves or with gaunt waitresses
1:03:09 > 1:03:14in familiar roadside lonely petticoat upliftings
1:03:14 > 1:03:19and especially secret gas-station solipsisms of johns,
1:03:19 > 1:03:22and hometown alleys too.
1:03:22 > 1:03:24Now, I suppose he could have said that,
1:03:24 > 1:03:27the secret hero of these poems,
1:03:27 > 1:03:30this "cocksman", this "Adonis of Denver",
1:03:30 > 1:03:34joy to the memory of his innumerable conquests
1:03:34 > 1:03:35at the Waldorf Astoria...
1:03:35 > 1:03:38or at dinner at Chasen's, or after one or two drinks,
1:03:38 > 1:03:41in going to bed at the Stork Club.
1:03:41 > 1:03:43I presume he could have said that...
1:03:43 > 1:03:45but that isn't the kind of person
1:03:45 > 1:03:48he is writing about.
1:03:48 > 1:03:51It is not for us to choose the words.
1:03:51 > 1:03:53Mr Ginsberg, in telling his story,
1:03:53 > 1:03:55is telling the story as he sees it.
1:03:55 > 1:03:56He is using his words.
1:03:56 > 1:04:01There are books that have the power to change men's minds,
1:04:01 > 1:04:03and call attention to situations that...
1:04:03 > 1:04:06are visible but unseen.
1:04:07 > 1:04:10Now whether Howl is or is not obscene is of
1:04:10 > 1:04:14little importance to our world, faced as it is with the threat
1:04:14 > 1:04:18of physical survival, but...
1:04:18 > 1:04:20the problem of what is legally permissible
1:04:20 > 1:04:23in the description of sexual acts or feelings
1:04:23 > 1:04:26in arts and literature is of the greatest importance
1:04:26 > 1:04:28to a free society.
1:04:29 > 1:04:32What is prurient? And to whom?
1:04:32 > 1:04:36And the material so described is dangerous to some
1:04:36 > 1:04:38unspecified, susceptible reader.
1:04:38 > 1:04:42It is interesting that the person applying such standards of censorship
1:04:42 > 1:04:44rarely feels as if their own
1:04:44 > 1:04:48physical or moral health is in jeopardy.
1:04:48 > 1:04:49The desire to censor is...
1:04:49 > 1:04:52not limited, however, to crackpots and bigots.
1:04:52 > 1:04:56There is... in most of us, a desire to
1:04:56 > 1:04:59make the world conform to our own views.
1:04:59 > 1:05:03And it takes all of the force of our own reason as well as
1:05:03 > 1:05:06our legal institutions to defy so human an urge.
1:05:06 > 1:05:08The battle of censorship will not be
1:05:08 > 1:05:11finally settled by Your Honour's decision,
1:05:11 > 1:05:15but you will either add to liberal, educated thinking,
1:05:15 > 1:05:18or by your decision, you will add fuel
1:05:18 > 1:05:19to the fire of ignorance.
1:05:21 > 1:05:23Let there be light.
1:05:24 > 1:05:27Let there be honesty.
1:05:27 > 1:05:32Let there be no running from non-existent destroyers of morals.
1:05:34 > 1:05:37Let there be honest understanding.
1:05:41 > 1:05:43Gentleman, is the matter submitted?
1:05:44 > 1:05:46It is submitted, Your Honour.
1:05:47 > 1:05:49It is so submitted.
1:06:19 > 1:06:20All rise.
1:06:26 > 1:06:28Be seated.
1:06:34 > 1:06:38There are a number of words used in Howl
1:06:38 > 1:06:41that are presently considered coarse and vulgar
1:06:41 > 1:06:43in some circles of the community,
1:06:43 > 1:06:47and in other circles, such words are in everyday use.
1:06:47 > 1:06:49The author of Howl
1:06:49 > 1:06:52has used those words because he believed that
1:06:52 > 1:06:54his portrayal required them as being in character.
1:06:54 > 1:06:59The people state that such words are not necessary
1:06:59 > 1:07:03and that others would be more palatable for good taste.
1:07:03 > 1:07:08The answer is that life is not encased in one formula
1:07:08 > 1:07:10whereby everyone acts the same
1:07:10 > 1:07:13and conforms to a particular pattern.
1:07:13 > 1:07:16No two persons think alike.
1:07:16 > 1:07:19We were all made from the same form
1:07:19 > 1:07:20but in different patterns.
1:07:20 > 1:07:23Would there be any freedoms of press or speech
1:07:23 > 1:07:28if one must reduce his vocabulary to vapid, innocuous euphemism?
1:07:28 > 1:07:31An author should be real in treating his subject
1:07:31 > 1:07:33and be allowed to express his thoughts
1:07:33 > 1:07:36and ideas in his own words.
1:07:36 > 1:07:39In considering material claimed to be obscene,
1:07:39 > 1:07:43it is well to remember the motto, "Honi soit qui mal y pense."
1:07:43 > 1:07:46Evil to him who evil thinks.
1:07:46 > 1:07:49The freedoms of speech and press
1:07:49 > 1:07:51are inherent in a nation of free people.
1:07:51 > 1:07:55These freedoms must be protected if we are to remain free,
1:07:55 > 1:07:59both individually and as a nation.
1:07:59 > 1:08:03Therefore, I conclude that the book Howl And Other Poems
1:08:03 > 1:08:06does have some redeeming social importance,
1:08:06 > 1:08:09and I find the book is not obscene.
1:08:09 > 1:08:11The defendant is found not guilty.
1:08:35 > 1:08:38The crucial moment of breakthrough came when
1:08:38 > 1:08:43I realised how funny it would be, in the middle of a long poem,
1:08:43 > 1:08:45if I said,
1:08:45 > 1:08:47"Who let themselves be fucked in the ass
1:08:47 > 1:08:49"and screamed with joy!"
1:08:49 > 1:08:51Instead of, "and screamed with pain."
1:08:51 > 1:08:53That's the contradiction in that line.
1:08:53 > 1:08:56An American audience would expect it to be pain and,
1:08:56 > 1:09:00instead, it's "screamed with joy!" Which is really true.
1:09:00 > 1:09:01Absolutely, 100%.
1:09:02 > 1:09:06And, again, I have a line, like,
1:09:06 > 1:09:10"Who blew and were blown by those human seraphim,
1:09:10 > 1:09:13"the sailors, caresses of Atlantic and Caribbean love."
1:09:15 > 1:09:20It was an acknowledgement of the basic reality of homosexual joy.
1:09:21 > 1:09:24That was a breakthrough in the sense of
1:09:24 > 1:09:26public statements about
1:09:26 > 1:09:30feelings, emotions, attitudes, you know, that...
1:09:31 > 1:09:35..I wouldn't have wanted my father or my family to see,
1:09:35 > 1:09:39and that I even hesitated to make public.
1:09:44 > 1:09:49The poem is misinterpreted as... a promotion of homosexuality.
1:09:49 > 1:09:52Actually, it's... more like a promotion of
1:09:52 > 1:09:55frankness, about any subject.
1:09:56 > 1:10:00If you're a foot fetishist, you write about feet.
1:10:00 > 1:10:03If you're a stock-market freak,
1:10:03 > 1:10:06you can write about the rising sales-curve erections
1:10:06 > 1:10:08of the Standard Oil chart.
1:10:10 > 1:10:13When a few people are...
1:10:13 > 1:10:17frank about homosexuality in public, it breaks the ice.
1:10:17 > 1:10:20Then people are free to be frank about anything and...
1:10:22 > 1:10:24..that's socially useful.
1:10:33 > 1:10:38Homosexuality is a condition, and because it alienated me
1:10:38 > 1:10:40or set me apart from the beginning,
1:10:40 > 1:10:44it served as a catalyst for self-examination,
1:10:44 > 1:10:46or...
1:10:46 > 1:10:50a detailed realisation of my environment and...
1:10:50 > 1:10:56the reasons why everyone else is different and...
1:10:57 > 1:10:59..why I'm different.
1:11:16 > 1:11:20Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!
1:11:20 > 1:11:28Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!
1:11:28 > 1:11:30The world is holy!
1:11:30 > 1:11:33The soul is holy!
1:11:33 > 1:11:35The skin is holy!
1:11:35 > 1:11:37The nose is holy!
1:11:37 > 1:11:41The tongue and cock and hand and asshole, holy!
1:11:41 > 1:11:44Everything is holy! Everybody's holy!
1:11:44 > 1:11:49Everywhere is holy! Every day is an eternity!
1:11:49 > 1:11:54Everyman's an angel! The bum's as holy as the seraphim!
1:11:54 > 1:11:59The madman is holy as you, my soul, are holy!
1:11:59 > 1:12:03The typewriter is holy! The poem is holy!
1:12:03 > 1:12:06The voice is holy! The hearers are holy!
1:12:06 > 1:12:10The ecstasy is holy! Holy Peter!
1:12:10 > 1:12:12Holy Allen! Holy Solomon!
1:12:12 > 1:12:15Holy Lucien! Holy Kerouac!
1:12:15 > 1:12:18Holy Huncke, holy Burroughs, holy Cassady!
1:12:18 > 1:12:22Holy the unknown buggered and suffering beggars!
1:12:22 > 1:12:25Holy the hideous human angels!
1:12:27 > 1:12:29Holy my mother in the insane asylum!
1:12:30 > 1:12:34Holy the cocks of the grandfathers of Kansas!
1:12:35 > 1:12:38Holy the groaning saxophone!
1:12:38 > 1:12:40Holy the bop apocalypse!
1:12:40 > 1:12:44Holy the jazzbands marijuana hipsters
1:12:44 > 1:12:46peace and junk and drums!
1:12:46 > 1:12:50Holy time in eternity!
1:12:50 > 1:12:53Holy eternity in time! Holy the clocks in space!
1:12:53 > 1:12:56Holy the fourth dimension!
1:12:56 > 1:12:59Holy the Fifth Internationale!
1:12:59 > 1:13:03Holy the Angel in Moloch! Holy the sea!
1:13:03 > 1:13:08Holy the desert! Holy the railroad, holy the locomotive.
1:13:08 > 1:13:12Holy the visions! Holy the hallucinations!
1:13:12 > 1:13:15Holy the miracles! Holy the eyeball!
1:13:15 > 1:13:17Holy the abyss!
1:13:19 > 1:13:21Holy forgiveness!
1:13:21 > 1:13:23Mercy!
1:13:23 > 1:13:25Charity!
1:13:25 > 1:13:26Faith!
1:13:26 > 1:13:27Holy!
1:13:27 > 1:13:28Ours!
1:13:28 > 1:13:30Bodies!
1:13:30 > 1:13:32Suffering!
1:13:32 > 1:13:34Magnanimity!
1:13:34 > 1:13:40Holy the supernatural extra brilliant intelligent kindness
1:13:40 > 1:13:42of the soul.
1:13:55 > 1:13:59# Hey Father Death, I'm flying home
1:13:59 > 1:14:03# Hey, poor man, you're all alone
1:14:03 > 1:14:09# Hey, old daddy I know where I'm going
1:14:09 > 1:14:13# Father Death, don't cry any more
1:14:13 > 1:14:17# Mama's there underneath the floor
1:14:17 > 1:14:22# Brother Death please mind the store
1:14:22 > 1:14:26# Old, Auntie Death I hear your groans
1:14:26 > 1:14:31# Old, Uncle Death I see your bones
1:14:31 > 1:14:36# Oh, Sister Death how sweet your moan
1:14:36 > 1:14:42# Oh, Children Death go breathe your breaths
1:14:42 > 1:14:45# Sobbing breasts'll ease your deaths
1:14:45 > 1:14:51# Pain is gone Tears take the rest
1:14:51 > 1:14:55# Genius Death, your art is done
1:14:55 > 1:14:58# Lover Death, your body's gone
1:14:58 > 1:15:02# Father Death, I'm coming home
1:15:02 > 1:15:07# Guru Death, your words are true
1:15:07 > 1:15:11# Teacher Death, I do thank you
1:15:11 > 1:15:16# For inspiring me to sing this blues
1:15:16 > 1:15:18# Buddha Death, I wake with you
1:15:18 > 1:15:22# Dharma Death, your mind is new
1:15:22 > 1:15:26# Sangha Death we'll work it through
1:15:26 > 1:15:29# Suffering is what was born
1:15:29 > 1:15:32# Ignorance made me forlorn
1:15:32 > 1:15:36# Tearful truths I cannot scorn
1:15:36 > 1:15:42# Father Breath, once more farewell
1:15:42 > 1:15:45# Birth you gave was no thing ill
1:15:45 > 1:15:51# My heart is still as time will tell. #