Howl by Allen Ginsberg

I've read that it is impossible to underestimate the influence that Ginsberg's Howl has exerted on American poetry over the last 50 years since it was first written. I believe it was Galway Kinnell who said that Howl changed poetry's concern with meter to a preoccupation with breath. Howl marked a watershed moment in American verse. The breath required to read each line is substantial; in the recording on poets.org the effort that Ginsberg makes is audibly discernible, marked by longish pauses, slight coughs, and occasional deep breaths. Of course, Whitman's "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed" provided Ginsberg with a historical model.