On Howl

I agree with Yitian that the use of indentation is important to the meaning of the poem, it helps emphasize the chaotic image of the "life on the road" experienced by the beat generation.  I also found the juxtaposition of the concrete, places and things, with abstract concepts to illustrate the conflicted nature of that lifestyle, with drugs and philosophy combined with subways and tenements.  The parallel structure, starting with "who" and indenting the rest of the stanza serves as a description.

Later in the poem, the form changes a bit from the measured, but chaotic form at the beginning to a much more disorganized and unpredictable form.  I think this is meant to parallel the subjects' decent into madness as they find themselves unable to cope with the life they find coming back from war.

Finally, in sections II and III the form returns to a more ordered, almost obsessive form, both in its reference to "Moloch" and the author statement that "I'm with you."  This serves to tie up the ending of the poem, with a somewhat hopeful note that while the beat generation may feel abandoned, they are not alone.

The second to last stanza has what I interpret to be a sort of satire of patriotism, especially the kind of patriotism which is so common in war, using O, for emphasis and using terms like "legions" and "bombs" to describe the state the characters find themselves in.  This perversion of the patriotic ideal matches the feeling of the soldiers returning from WWI, who had experienced horrors in the name of country.

One part that interested me was the section in which he mentions someone jumping off the brooklyn bridge and in the middle of the line he mentions "this actually happened."  This statement serves to grant more credence to this argument, but it also casts a bit of doubt on the rest of the anecdotes provided in the poem.