When I first read those opening lines of Howl I realised that poetry was alive again and it spoke to me. Howl opened the door. All my terrible education had done was to reduce it to misery. This was vital, alive and wonderful. What with Bob Dylan, Jack Kerouac and, a little later, Roy Harper, I suddenly had a new vision, new language and a new perspective on life, society and the maniacs who are running our lives. Poetry was a window into my own head.
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked.
I did too. I saw some of my friends seeking, crawling and strung out. I was looking for something to believe in, to search for and to have more meaning than the greedy, violent society we were ruled by. I wanted a life with wisdom, fun, craziness, purpose and harmony with nature.
Follow your inner moonlight; don’t hide the madness.
You can’t hide it. Give vent to your madness.
The weight of the world is love. Under the burden of solitude, under the burden of dissatisfaction.
Love gives me heart. My love of nature gives me despair.
Whoever controls the media, the images, controls the culture.
We are certainly being controlled. I look at Brexit and Trump and I cannot believe how gullible we are.
Democracy! Bah! When I hear that word I reach for my feather Boa!
There you go. They are all part of the same greedy, self-centred, power-seeking establishment. Democracy? When the media is controlled? When the choice is the lesser of two evils?
Poetry is the one place where people can speak their original human mind. It is the outlet for people to say in public what is known in private.
Poetry is the distillation of essence of truth. We can talk about anything in poetry.
America I’ve given you all and now I’m nothing.
We bleed ourselves dry of words, feelings and passion and leave ourselves drained.
It isn’t enough for your heart to break because everybody’s heart is broken now.
That seems pertinent now – post Brexit, in the middle of Trump/Clinton’s war of hatred, and with the wilderness and nature being destroyed at a rate of knots.
The only thing that can save the world is the reclaiming of the awareness of the world. That’s what poetry does.
I hope poetry is enough!!!!
