As part of the defence team it is important to state that Allen Ginsberg is innocent of the obscenity charges he is being tried for. Ginsberg wrote Howl and Other Poems with the intention of showing real life in the 1950s for youth. America needs to realise that many people were experiencing the same life as Ginsberg. Howl and Other Poems reshapes societies views on literary value as well as showing the real aspects of America people are trying to hide from. Ginsberg makes society question what they really know and what people want them to know which creates social importance. In the poem America Ginsberg questions is what we know only what the media wants people to know; “America this is the impression I get from looking in the television set” (p. 43). Media shows people what they want to see whereas Ginsberg’s poems show society as it is. There is also social importance in the opening lines “I saw the best minds of my generation be destroyed by madness” (p. 9). It shows that people are struggling to survive in …show more content…
Ginsberg used an irregular meter and catalogues ideas. Repetition is used extensively in his poems. In Howl I each memory begins with “who” (p. 9). This repetition then allowed Ginsberg to catalogue his ideas. Through cataloguing the ideas the poem gained social importance as ideas were grouped together to show different experiences Ginsberg had because of society. Ginsberg has literary value as he recreated poetry to suit his style. In removing the regular meter Ginsberg could say what he wanted without restriction. Ginsberg expresses the difficulty of having to obey tradition in Howl III, “we are great writers on the same dreadful typewriter” (p. 24). Ginsberg recognised poetry is too restricting and Howl and Other Poems breaks all the rules as well as still being important socially. It has literary value because it shows writers that breaking literary rules is a part of