October 7, 1955 Allen Ginsberg read his poem "Howl" at the Six Gallery in San Francisco. The Six Gallery had been an auto repair shop, and now it was an art gallery — the sculptures on display were orange crates covered in cloth and dipped in plaster of paris. The reading was intended to promote the new gallery. The poet Kenneth Rexroth organized the reading, and in preparation, he introduced Gary Snyder to Allen Ginsberg. Ginsberg introduced everyone to Jack Kerouac, and they became the core of the group of writers known as the Beats. For the Six Gallery event, Allen Ginsberg and Gary Snyder sent out postcard invitations, and more than 100 people turned up. Rexroth, Snyder, and Ginsberg were scheduled to read, along with Philip Whalen, Philip Lamantia, and Michael McClure.
They asked the guests to donate money for drinks, and Jack Kerouac headed out and bought four jugs of red wine, which got passed around while the poets read.
Ginsberg was the second to the last to read, and he started at about 11 p.m. He was 29 years old, and he had never participated in a poetry reading before. He started off in a quiet voice. But as he read, he found his rhythm, and he took a deep breath before each of the long lines in "Howl" and then said each line in one breath. Jack Kerouac chanted "Go, go, go" in rhythm while Ginsberg read, and the audience went wild.
The reading got a lot of publicity, and Ginsberg became a celebrity, even more so a year later when he published Howl and Other Poems (1956) and it was banned for obscenity, taken to trial, and managed to defy censorship laws.
"Howl" begins with the famous lines:
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by
madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn
looking for an angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly
connection to the starry dynamo in the machin-
ery of night
This is a must for every Beatnik or member of the darkly inclined.
I once read this poem while deppressed and figured out what Ginsberg was trying to say. Not exactly good for deppressed readers... But i won't spoil that for anyone...
No comments:
Post a Comment