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Beat poet Allen Ginsberg's "Howl," a spoken-word epic to the madness of his generation, is many things to many people. Something like how viewers see such different things in a shifting cloud formation.
To many of the best minds of previous generations, when Ginsberg's poem was published in 1955 it was the kind of literary work that no respectable person would have dared mention in polite company.
Yet a decade later, it was required reading for "angel-headed hipsters," and today it remains the most famous poem never assigned to high school English classes.
Instead, it might be considered a literary rite of passage. A rite of passage, that is, under increasing threat of oblivion from youth more comfortable with text messages and video games than pouring heart and soul over Ginsberg's 3,600 sustained words of visionary incantation.
Whatever your angle, don't tell Utah poet and "sonosopher" Alex Caldiero that reading the poem aloud on its 55th anniversary is an exercise in nostalgia.
"Ginsberg is not gone," Caldiero said. "The societal problems the poem deals with are not gone. Nothing about it is gone. In fact, it's as if 55 years has not even passed. The degree that anyone sees this as nostalgia is the degree to which they undermine the effect of the poem for themselves."
The Salt Lake City reading of "Howl: A Neo-Bop Opera in Five Acts" promises much for skeptical viewers to undermine, if that's possible. With jazz music accompaniment, visual projections, dancers and a chorus of seven singers to back up Caldiero's athletic recitation of Ginsberg's visceral verse, the event promises to be a "Howl" with real bite.
Caldiero is a poet/artist in residence at Utah Valley University and grant recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts. He has channeled Ginsberg's famous poem in public recitations on a five-year anniversary basis since 1995, the work's 40th anniversary. Doing the readings every year would be too taxing, both physically and spiritually, he said.
This "trans-special realm" version, as the press materials describe it, represents the fourth and grandest incarnation he's ever attempted. Extraneous to the poem, but not irrelevant to the work, is an added act featuring testimony and proceedings from the 1957 trial of Lawrence Ferlinghetti, the publisher arrested and charged for publishing what was then considered an obscene work. Cast in the role of Judge Clayton W. Horn is local book seller Ken Sanders.
"This one is a crucial reading, because it brings to study all the rhythmic possibilities of the poem," Caldiero said. "When I say 'opera' I mean basically that there's a story line and drama. In many ways, it functions like a Greek tragedy with chorus."
Forget, for a moment, the poem's enduring cachet with the cool set. Forget also the poem's inherent conflict between the irrepressible human spirit and the forces of the nation's emerging military-industrial complex symbolized as "Moloch."
For Caldiero, "Howl" represents the dividing line between poetry as a silent exercise to read to yourself while sitting in the library, and poetry as a live, improvisatory experience bound to a moment in time. Its omnibus tour of themes — the threat of war, gender in society, drug abuse and the ways we treat the mentally ill — remain relevant, too, Caldiero argues.
In recitation instructions, Ginsberg dictated that ideally his lines would be read using single breaths, which means a public reading could become a physical and spiritual experience if done right.
That places "Howl" beyond the realm of mere artistic and intellectual exercises, Caldiero said. "Anybody who digs deep enough into this poem will notice a change in their breathing," the poet said. "If they focus on that they will then notice it produces a change in consciousness, a change in thinking and, then, a change in your actions."
Will Lovell, a double bassist, is leading a jazz trio filled out by drums and guitar to accompany Caldiero's vision of the work. He first read the poem in high school, but wasn't cognizant of its full meaning until he heard Caldiero recite it during its last five-year anniversary in 2005.
"Poetry gets real boring for me otherwise," Lovell said. "Working with Alex is not a symphony rehearsal, that's for sure. It's more like a game of poker. I think he [Caldiero] is shooting for a full house."
'Howl: A Neo-Bop Opera in Five Acts'
When • Friday, Oct. 8, 7: 30 p.m.
Where • Main Library, 210 E. 400 South, Salt Lake City
Info • Free. Call 801-521-3819 for more information, or visit http://www.kensandersbooks.com