I think Ginsberg has done more harm to the craft that I honor

Hear now the fiery words of James Dickey: “I think Ginsberg has done more harm to the craft that I honor and live by than anybody else by reducing it to a kind of mean that enables the most dubious practitioners to claim they are poets because they think, ‘If the kind of thing Ginsberg does is poetry, I can do that.’” In this declaration, Dickey sets himself in opposition to a giant of his own century, Allen Ginsberg, prophet of the Beat Generation. His words are not gentle—they are charged with anger, for he saw in Ginsberg’s work a loosening of discipline, a lowering of the gates, a transformation of poetry from hard-won mastery into free, careless imitation.

For Dickey, craft was sacred. He believed that a poem was not merely the spilling of words but the forging of them—like steel hammered on the anvil, each line shaped by skill, sweat, and reverence for tradition. To him, Ginsberg’s wild, sprawling style, his unrestrained “Howl” and his chants of freedom, risked convincing others that poetry required no discipline, no structure, no depth of craft—only raw expression. And in this, Dickey saw danger: that the untrained, the lazy, and the shallow would call themselves poets, declaring their casual speech to be art, and so diminish the honor of the craft he devoted his life to.

The ancients, too, wrestled with this tension between freedom and form. In Athens, Aristophanes mocked Euripides for lowering the dignity of tragedy, making it accessible to lesser men. In Rome, Horace counseled young poets to study, labor, and refine, warning against those who thought inspiration alone was enough. The battle between discipline and abandon, between craft and impulse, has always raged in the house of poetry. Dickey’s words are one voice in this eternal argument: he stands for the side of mastery, of labor, of tradition defended against chaos.

Yet the truth is complex. For Ginsberg, too, was not without discipline. His long, breath-driven lines, his prophetic cadence, were crafted in imitation of Whitman and infused with the rhythms of jazz, chant, and prayer. But to Dickey’s eye, these innovations were dangerous because they appeared too easy, too imitable. A reader might think: If this wild stream of words is poetry, then I too can be a poet without training. Thus the revolution of the Beats, though liberating, also gave rise to countless shallow imitators. Here we see the paradox of innovation: it opens the door for genius, but also for mediocrity.

History gives us many parallels. When Impressionist painters first broke the rules of realism, they liberated art from the academy. But soon imitators, with little skill, splashed paint on canvas and called it genius. When Beethoven shattered classical forms, lesser composers mimicked his storm without his depth. So too in poetry: Ginsberg’s revolution, whether rightly or wrongly judged, gave rise to both brilliance and banality. Dickey’s lament is the lament of every craftsman who sees the noble form endangered by careless followers.

But let us not take Dickey’s words as mere attack. Let us instead hear in them a call: to honor craft, to labor, to resist the temptation of laziness disguised as liberation. For true freedom in art is not found in carelessness, but in mastery. Just as the archer must learn the bow before he can shoot freely, the poet must learn the discipline of language before he can release it into flight. Innovation without mastery is noise; innovation built on mastery is music.

The lesson is clear: if you would be a poet, do not deceive yourself into thinking that passion alone is enough. Learn the forms, study the masters, labor with patience. Only then can your freedom be true freedom, and your voice more than mere echo. And if you admire the wildness of innovators like Ginsberg, do not imitate their surfaces only, but understand the depth of tradition they themselves reworked. In this balance lies the path of greatness.

Thus James Dickey speaks as a defender of the ancient guild of poets. He warns that the gates of poetry must not be thrown so wide that the unworthy claim its name without labor. And though one may disagree with his judgment of Ginsberg, his call to honor craft still resounds with power. Let us, therefore, cherish freedom but wed it always to discipline, so that our poems may not be careless shouts, but lasting songs—worthy of the name of poet.