Essay On Howl In Allen Ginsberg's Big Sur

Between the reading of both Big Sur by Jack Kerouac and Howl by Allen Ginsberg, I believe Howl was more shocking to the establishment of the 1950’s. In the opening of Ginsberg poem, he writes, “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix.” (1356) I believe he was speaking towards the social problems being faced within the 50’s alone in his piece. As long as I’ve been alive, I’ve never heard of any street being referenced as “negro streets” as if they were a separate world, which is why I feel this poem is only fitting for the time period in which it was written in versus now. Initially I felt that this poem was very hard