Deluxe boxset edition of Allen Ginsberg’s classic beat poem HOWL. My freshman English teacher assigned every student in the class a different “classic” poem to read and write about, and naturally I got stuck with HOWL. The teacher snickered and said something like, “here, you’ll appreciate this” (still not really sure what to make of that). I’d never heard of Ginsberg, had no clue what Beat poetry was; I was just pissed off that it was long as hell. But my young impressionable mind was blown by Ginsberg’s rich descriptives, the way he sized up entire swaths of the human population so smartly, leading me eventually to the god William S. Burroughs (my St. Louis roots require that I prefer Burroughs over the other Beats). This deluxe hardcover boxset commemorates the 60th anniversary of the landmark obscenity trial that made Ginsberg a household name, with a recording of the man himself reading HOWL at Chicago’s Big Table on January 29, 1959. Pressed on translucent red 180g vinyl housed in single pocket tip-on jacket with a replica of the original ‘pocketpoem’ and a ton of other bonus materials. Skip the Franco movie and get with this instead. Recommended.

• 180g red vinyl pressing
• old-school tip-on jacket
• deluxe hardcover outer box
• replica ‘pocketpoem’ booklet of Howl & Other Poems
• 8”x10” photo of Allen Ginsberg
• 12” full color booklet containing extensive liner notes by Beat scholar Ann Charters
• replica postcard of the original Howl reading invitation
• limited to 500 copies
• music label: Craft Recordings 2018

reviewed by hannibal chew 03/2018