You wrote of Ginsberg
Ostracized right into the Norton anthologies and classrooms at every
university in America, all based on his presumptive outrageousness.
We should all be so lucky.
My reaction is one of horror. Ginsberg was ostracized. It took a good two
decades for him to win acceptance. I suggest you check when the poem was
actually first published. Then find out when it got into the big
anthologies.
It's this sort of forgetfulness, unaware of the incredible hardships that
poets face in each generation, that make for our strange and apathetic
society's relationship with poetry.
Ginsberg was trashed by the academic community and elsewhere because he was
a homosexual beat poet. He also took drugs. He stood firmly against the war
in Vietnam. For this he was damned, ridicule. Howl can from a tiny press. An
underground press, let's not forget.
Ginsberg struggled mightily against the establishment. You unawareness of
this is disappointing.
Ernest Slyman
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"All around the hours run swift
their foolish errands."
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