allen ginsberg's howl is certainly the most important poem of the twentieth century: a liberation of all constraints, the manifesto of a new honesty, a whitmanian distillation of the very essence of america. it has but one flaw: it sucks. it starts sucking from the very first line and continues to suck throughout its epic extent. never has a poem sucked so effortfully or been more thoroughly or unintentionally dedicated to sheer suckiness. where some poems are profound, howl simply sucks. where some poems are witty and delightful, howl sucks and sucks. in its original context, it sucked. and for a new era, it sucks again just as hard. it is certainly a classic, and will be sucking still long after we are all dead.