A report on Allen Ginsberg, Howl (poem) and Beat Generation

Jean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac (March 12, 1922 – October 21, 1969), known as Jack Kerouac, was an American novelist and poet who, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, was a pioneer of the Beat Generation.

Many editors were also uncomfortable with the idea of publishing a book that contained what were, for the era, graphic descriptions of drug use and homosexual behavior—a move that could result in obscenity charges being filed, a fate that later befell Burroughs' Naked Lunch and Ginsberg's Howl.

Both the store and the publishers became widely known following the obscenity trial of Ferlinghetti for publishing Allen Ginsberg's influential collection Howl and Other Poems (City Lights, 1956).

This was followed in quick succession by Thirty Spanish Poems of Love and Exile translated by Kenneth Rexroth and Poems of Humor & Protest by Kenneth Patchen, but it was the impact of the fourth volume, Howl and Other Poems (1956) by Allen Ginsberg that brought national attention to the author and publisher.

In addition to books by Beat Generation authors, the press publishes literary work by such authors as Charles Bukowski, Georges Bataille, Rikki Ducornet, Paul Bowles, Sam Shepard, Andrei Voznesensky, Nathaniel Mackey, Alejandro Murguía, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Ernesto Cardenal, Daisy Zamora, Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Juan Goytisolo, Anne Waldman, André Breton, Kamau Daáood, Masha Tupitsyn, and Rebecca Brown.

Although he did not consider himself to be a Beat poet, and disliked the association, he was dubbed the "Father of the Beats" by Time magazine.

With Rexroth acting as master of ceremonies, Allen Ginsberg, Philip Lamantia, Michael McClure, Gary Snyder, and Philip Whalen performed at the famous Six Gallery reading on October 7, 1955.

Rexroth later testified as a defense witness at Ferlinghetti's obscenity trial for publishing "Howl".

Conceived by Wally Hedrick, this event was the first important public manifestation of the Beat Generation and helped to herald the West Coast literary revolution that continued the San Francisco Renaissance.

At the reading, five talented young poets—Allen Ginsberg, Philip Lamantia, Michael McClure, Gary Snyder, and Philip Whalen—who until then were known mainly within a close company of friends and other writers (such as Lionel Trilling and William Carlos Williams), presented some of their latest works.

Most famously, it was at this reading that Allen Ginsberg first presented his poem Howl.

William Seward Burroughs II (February 5, 1914 – August 2, 1997) was an American writer and visual artist, widely considered a primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodern author who influenced popular culture and literature.

In 1943, while living in New York City, he befriended Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac.

The novel was initially rejected by City Lights Books, the publisher of Ginsberg's Howl; and Olympia Press publisher Maurice Girodias, who had published English-language novels in France that were controversial for their subjective views of sex and antisocial characters.

He was arrested for publishing Allen Ginsberg's Howl, resulting in a First Amendment trial in 1957, where Ferlinghetti was charged with publishing an obscene work—and acquitted.

Ferlinghetti published many of the Beat poets and is considered by some as a Beat poet as well.

Lucien Carr (March 1, 1925 – January 28, 2005) was a key member of the original New York City circle of the Beat Generation in the 1940s; later he worked for many years as an editor for United Press International.

It was also at Columbia that Carr befriended Allen Ginsberg in the Union Theological Seminary dormitory on West 122nd Street (an overflow residence for Columbia at the time), when Ginsberg knocked on the door to find out who was playing a recording of a Brahms trio.

In 1956, when Ginsberg's "Howl" and Kerouac's On the Road were about to be national sensations, Carr was promoted to night news editor.

Lamantia was one of the post World War II poets now sometimes referred to as the San Francisco Renaissance, and later became involved with the San Francisco Beat Generation poets and the Surrealist Movement in the United States.

He was on the bill at San Francisco's Six Gallery on October 7, 1955, when poet Allen Ginsberg read his poem Howl for the first time.

Neal Leon Cassady (February 8, 1926 – February 4, 1968) was a major figure of the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the psychedelic and counterculture movements of the 1960s.

Cassady also appeared in Allen Ginsberg's poems, and in several other works of literature by other writers.

Howl (2010), Jon Prescott, chronicles Allen Ginsberg's creation of the poem "Howl" and the obscenity trial surrounding its publication; Jon Prescott portrays Cassady.

Hedrick was also a key figure in the first important public manifestation of the Beat Generation when he helped to organize the Six Gallery Reading, and created the first artistic denunciation of American foreign policy in Vietnam.

"The Six Gallery reading" took place on October 7, 1955, at the Six Gallery, when Allen Ginsberg, at Hedrick's invitation, read "Howl" for the first time.