Reading Howl

Louisa Solano for the past 25 years has been the proprietor of the Grolier Poetry Book Shop, in Harvard Square. Donald Hall calls it "the greatest poetry place in the universe."

"Allen was the voice of poetry. He was our culture's steadiest bulwark against mediocrity and fascism."

Robert Pinsky, the poet laureate of the United States, teaches in the graduate creative-writing program at Boston University. His most recent book of poetry, The Figured Wheel: New and Collected Poems, 1966-1996, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. He lives in Newton.

"Allen Ginsberg's genius for public life should not obscure his genius as an artist or his study of his art -- I once heard him recite Lycidas by heart."

Peter Wolf, a regular on the local music scene since the '60s, gained international fame as lead singer of the J. Geils band and has since gone on to record several solo albums. He is currently working on an acoustic album and a book. He lives in Boston.

"Allen Ginsberg's poetry -- especially Howl and Kaddish -- always had a profound effect on me.

William Corbett is primarily a poet, but he has also published two memoirs -- including the recently published Furthering My Education -- and a literary travelogue, Literary New England. He is currently working on a similar book about New York City. He lives in Boston.

"Allen had a generosity of spirit, an absolute commitment to the ideals and dreams of his youth. . . . He gave us freedom, freedom to say as accurately as you can what you imagine, freedom to be who you are whoever you are."

Jim Dunn is a writer, guitarist, wit, and student at the Harvard Extension School. He is a familiar face at spoken-word readings around town, and at Lollapalooza '94 he read his poem "Seducing a Nation One Pant Leg at a Time" completely naked. He lives in Cambridge.

"Allen Ginsberg represents the genius of being everywhere. You can trace his history to Blake and Whitman, and you can also trace him to popular culture -- Lenny Bruce's funeral, Chicago in '68. His energy made him beautiful."

Willie Alexander fronted one of Boston's first consequential rock bands in the '60s, played in a post-Lou Reed version of the Velvet Underground, fronted the Boom Boom Band in the late '70s, has recorded spoken-word CDs, and now serves up his mix of beat poetry and avant-rock with the Persistence of Memory Orchestra. He lives in Gloucester.

"As well as a poet, he was a great PR man -- not just for himself but for the whole Beat movement."

Gail Mazur is the founder and director of the Blacksmith House poetry center, where she has been running the poetry series for 25 years. A teacher in the graduate writing program at Emerson College, Mazur has published three books of poetry and is currently working on a fourth. She lives in Cambridge.

"Ginsberg . . . was brilliant, radical, humane -- perhaps the most important poet of our time. What his poems do is "Unscrew the locks from the doors!/Unscrew the doors themselves from the jambs!"

Stephen Mindich is founder and chairman of the Phoenix Media Communications Group, parent of the Boston Phoenix and WFNX radio.

"Broadcasting Howl on WFNX is no different than putting Michelangelo's David on the cover of the Boston Phoenix. Both are works of art. Efforts to limit or curtail the creation or consumption of works such as these does damage to our liberties."

jawn p. is the lead singer and songwriter for the trip-hop band jawn p. and the pawn shop. He is also a fiction writer and poet, and frequently gives spoken-word readings around town. Jawn's music can be heard in the local movie Squeeze. He lives in Malden.

"Allen Ginsberg. . . wasn't afraid to say, Be who you are. "

Frank Bidart is one of America's foremost poets. He teaches creative writing and literature at Wellesley College, and has published four collections of poetry -- with another, Desire, due out in in October. He lives in Cambridge.

"Allen Ginsberg is . . . one of the liberators of poetry in the 20th century. The pathos, freshness, and boldness of his best work have been a touchstone for me."

Patricia Smith is both a successful journalist (a Metro columnist for the Boston Globe) and a popular performance poet. A founder of the Bookcellar reading series, Smith has played a central role in the rising popularity of poetry slams in the Boston area. She has published three books of poetry. She lives in Brookline.

"I always thought that the whole beat movement was a privileged white-male thing. I didn't start to pay attention to Allen until I found myself on the same bill as him -- far from being stuffy and elitist, he came up and kissed me on the cheek. At subsequent readings he helped me, talked about my poetry without trying to turn it into his. I wasn't influenced so much by the work, as the person."

Lloyd Schwartz was awarded the 1994 Pulitzer Prize for his classical-music criticism in the Boston Phoenix. He is the Frederick S. Troy professor of English at UMass/Boston, where he is also a director of the creative-writing program. He co-edited Elizabeth Bishop and Her Art (University of Michigan Press, 1983), and has published two books of his own poetry. He lives in Somerville.

"Ginsberg exploded the idea of what a poem could be, and opened up a whole new possibility of style and content for people who wanted to write poetry and read something more alive than what they were usually getting. He's a great poet who sees the tragedy and the comedy of American life in the 20th century."

Charles Shively, a poet, professor, and nationally recognized gay activist, was a founder of the Boston-based gay anarchist literary magazine Fag Rag in the early '70s and is famous for having burned the Bible at a Gay Pride celebration. He teaches American Studies at UMass/Boston. He lives in Cambridge.