howl

The first line of Allen Ginsberg’s landmark Beatnik poem, Howl, is iconic in American poetry: “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked.” What’s lesser known is the fourth and final section of that lengthy poem which Ginsberg subtitled, “Footnote to Howl.” In it, he describes a multitude of things that are “holy” to him.

As a composer who came up in the choral tradition, I couldn’t read Ginsberg’s footnote without immediately thinking of the countless settings of the Sanctus text that I’ve sung over the years. As someone who doesn’t come from a particular faith background—as well as a person who exists in society’s margins—I connected deeply with the contents of his list of things that are holy. Sacred to Ginsberg are things like his mentally ill mother, his partner of over 40 years (Peter), the body, the soul, the saxophone, the city, and suffering itself. It’s a lengthy, beautiful, and embracing list, and I’d encourage anyone who’s unfamiliar with the footnote to this epic American poem to seek it out and find yourself in it somewhere.

I titled this piece howl as a means of paying tribute to one of my favorite poets of all time (have you heard his one about Walt Whitman?) and the poem that made him (in)famous. However, it’s also a reference to the idea that shouting to the heavens that something is holy—which is what I always felt was happening in the Sanctus text—felt like the same long, loud cry Ginsberg references in the title of his poem. So, for all intents and purposes, this is my Sanctus, and it’s dedicated with love and admiration to three composers—Frank Martin, Arvo Pärt, and Jocelyn Hagen—whose settings of that text (their “Sancti”?) are among my favorite choral works of all time (and may or may not be quoted in my work).

-Joshua Shank