And I couldn’t get past the first four lines of Howl. I told Gerry Nicosia I didn’t understand Howl and he stared at me like I was mad. You call yourself a poet? (He didn’t say that specifically). I think he let it go because I was a new friend and a Chinese immigrant and I didn’t know anything about anybody for that matter. But seriously, if you’re living in San Francisco and writing poetry…?
I can’t relate to a bunch of guys getting high fucking each other being thrown in jail and psychiatric wards. My life experiences are that of middle class motherhood hard-working family first self last type of things. And if Allen Ginsberg is alive today I don’t think we’d be friends.
I watched Howl the movie last night. James Franco as Allen Ginsberg somehow did not convince me. Again, what do I know? My gut feeling said so. But the cartoons that accompanied the reading stimulated my dilatory comprehension. The voice lifted the words from the pages and I laughed and sighed and cringed until his holy holy and I saw what he saw and heard what he was saying and I was blessed and forgiven.
