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THE POEM THAT CHANGED AMERICA

Name: THE POEM THAT CHANGED AMERICA
Author: Jason Shinder
ISBN: 0-374-17343-5

“HOWL” FIFTY YEARS LATER

edited by Jason Shinder ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 2006

A moving tribute to Walt Whitman’s truest heir.

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Poet and anthologist Shinder (Tales from the Couch, 2000) rounds up two dozen literati to reflect on the revolutionary impact of Allen Ginsberg’s most famous work.

“Howl” has been outraging the squares and enrapturing the alienated ever since Ginsberg first read portions of it at a San Francisco gallery in 1955. Published in the famous City Lights paperback edition in 1956, it overcame obscenity prosecutions to spread its subversive message overseas (Andrei Codrescu recalls reading it in Romania as a teenager) and across the generations (Alicia Ostriker, Marge Piercy and Eileen Myles are among the younger poets who write here of being inspired by it to break free from literary constraints). “Allen Ginsberg is responsible for loosening the breath of American poetry,” Helen Vendler once wrote; Shinder’s introduction points out that it loosened up a whole lot more. Amiri Baraka captures—in jazzy Beat prose—the poem’s status as a quintessential Beat document; Mark Doty investigates it as an expression of queer sexuality (but not an icon of the gay movement); Rick Moody proclaims its relevance to the punk-rock crowd; and Eliot Katz rather drably explains its political relevance, then and now. Thank goodness for Marjorie Perloff’s excellent explication of its formal qualities, or we might forget that “Howl” is, first and foremost, a truly great poem. (Doty also does a nice job of reminding us how funny it is.) But Ginsberg’s cry of revolt and embrace of excess has always burst the bounds of literature, promising ecstasy and liberation to all kinds of people, from Robert Lowell to Bob Dylan, 1960s radicals to New Age spiritual seekers. It was, perhaps, “the last poem to hit the world with the impact of news and grip it with the tenacity of a pop song,” as Luc Sante notes with characteristic acuity. Variable in quality though they are, taken as a whole the essays here offer a plethora of reasons why.

A moving tribute to Walt Whitman’s truest heir.

Pub Date: April 1, 2006

ISBN: 0-374-17343-5

Page Count: 256

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2006

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100227-4

Page Count: 136

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.