Problem
Listen to and read Allen Ginsberg's 1955 poem Howl (Links to an external site.) (click link). Compare Ginsberg's famous (and controversial) 20th century poem to Walt Whitman's 19th century poem Leaves of Grass. Why do you think Whitman's poetry was so controversial in the mid-nineteenth century -- consider both his poems' formal qualities and their subject matter as you answer this question. Does Whitman's poems still seem controversial? In what ways? Where do you see Whitman's influence in later poems like How?