A books adapted to film series. Is the book always better? You decide! "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness..." For National Poetry Month, and our "Books on the Big Screen" series, we will feature a film about one of the most controversial books ever published. "Howl" recounts a young Allen Ginsberg (brilliantly portrayed by James Franco,) and his years that led up to writing Howl, the poem that defined a generation and sparked a trial in 1957 on obscenity, art, and freedom of speech.