As a result, when Carl overturns the Ping-
Pong table, he not only protests his treatment at
the asylum, but he also makes a profound state-
ment about the human need to resist the con-
crete void. In line with its repetitive, childish
name (note that Ginsberg could have used the
more stately synonym ‘‘table tennis’’), the game
of Ping-Pong is itself a repetitive, rather childish
endeavor, demanding little in the way of crea-
tivity. Along with his mentor Jack Kerouac,
Ginsberg embraces spontaneity and improvisa-
tion as core values, both for living and for writ-
ing. Because Ping-Pong fundamentally conflicts
with his value system, Ginsberg celebrates Solo-
mon’s overturning of the table as a positive act
of self-actualization, not simply as a negative act
against his oppression.
Yet like Ginsberg’s writing, Solomon’s act does
not present a pure example of improvisation;
‘‘humorless protest’’ requires an element of premed-
itation. Ginsberg’s choice of a Ping-Pong table—
his second reference to ‘‘pingpong’’ in as many
stanzas—for Solomon’s object of protest reflects
the tension Ginsberg feels between the goal of spon-
taneity and the human need for order (repetition
being a defining element of order). Both Ginsberg
and Solomon want to assert their individuality but
can only do so within the context and restrictions of
their environment. For Solomon in the asylum,
those restrictions are quite literal; for Ginsberg,
they are figurative: as a poet, he must frame his
message with enough clarity and logic for readers
to grasp it. Ginsberg challenges the strictures of
classical, iamb-based poetry in ‘‘Howl’’ by taking
liberties with line and meter (and, in the case of
‘‘pingpong,’’ with spelling), but he cannot disregard
the basic need for poetic order. In the very next
stanza after Solomon overturns the Ping-Pong
table, Ginsberg begins with a word other than
‘‘who’’ for the first time in the poem. Taking a cue
from his friend in the asylum, Ginsberg the poet
overturns his own symbolic Ping-Pong table and
affirms his artistic independence.
When Ping-Pong returns in part 3 of the
poem, Ginsberg further develops its symbolic
reach by offering ‘‘pingpong’’ as a metaphor for
both death and love. In Rockland, Solomon
appears seriously ill, perhaps mortally ill, ‘‘losing
the game of the actual pingpong of the abyss.’’
Not surprisingly, the medical treatments he
received in part 1 do not seem to have worked
so well. Ping-Pong here comes to represent not
the concrete void of the asylum but the ultimate
concrete void for humankind—death. Above
and beyond the monotony and triteness we
struggle against in life, Ginsberg tells us that
the ‘‘actual’’ Ping-Pong game exists at a cosmic
level. As Solomon knows, to fight for one’s indi-
viduality against the emptiness of ping-pong is to
fight for one’s soul.
Yet at the same time that he plays Ping-Pong
with death, Solomon also plays ping-pong with
Ginsberg’s love in the poem. The structure of
part 3 mirrors a Ping-Pong game: Ginsberg
serves up an opening statement (‘‘Carl Solo-
mon!’’), followed by a back-and-forth between
Ginsberg the steady companion (‘‘I’m with you
in Rockland’’) and his descriptions of Solomon.
Love appears as a game of call and response, the
repetition possessing a unity unto itself. For a
single person, the loss of individuality entailed
by this repetition creates a sort of spiritual and
emotional death; for a couple, the loss of indi-
viduality creates love as two fuse into one.
Through the shared metaphor of Ping-Pong,
Ginsberg expresses this essential entwinement
of death and love, and he claims his place as
Solomon’s eternal partner in the transcendent
game.
Source:David E. Pozen, ‘‘Ginsberg’sHowl,’’ inExplica-
tor, Vol. 62, No. 1, Fall 2003, pp. 54–57.Sources
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of Heaven and Hell, Oxford University Press, 1975,
pp. xviii–xix.
———, ‘‘A Song of Liberty,’’ inThe Marriage of Heaven
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Callinicos, Alex, ‘‘Anti-War Protests Do Make a Differ-
ence,’’ inSocialist Worker, Vol. 1943, March 19, 2005.
Ferlinghetti, Lawrence, ‘‘Horn on ‘Howl,’’’ inEvergreen
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Garofoli, Joe, ‘‘‘Howl’ Too Hot to Hear: 50 Years after
Poem Ruled Not Obscene, Radio Fears to Air It,’’ inSan
Francisco Chronicle, October 3, 2007, p. A-1.
Ginsberg, Allen, ‘‘Footnote to ‘Howl,’’’ inCollected
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