Howl and Other Poems
The poem that ended American poetry's post-war decorum in one apocalyptic rush. "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness" announced the Beat generation's program: jazz-influenced long lines, Whitman's democratic cataloguing turned to expose the machinery of conformist destruction. The 1957 obscenity trial made it famous; the poem earns its fame. One of the few genuinely world-changing American poems.
Ginsberg's catalog method runs on accumulation, and accumulation is also the weakness: Part III repeats 'I'm with you in Rockland' past incantation into mannerism, and the Footnote shouts 'Holy!' often enough to numb the word. Strip away the courtroom legend and several of the shorter poems read like warm-ups the famous title piece dragged into print.
The case for it and the rest of the canon open with Pro.
