On this day in 1957, U.S. Customs agents seized 520 copies of Allen Ginsberg's Howl on the grounds of obscenity. Ginsberg had given the poem its first, legendary reading a year and a half earlier, at Six Gallery in San Francisco. In the audience were many later-famous Beat writers, among them Jack Kerouac, thumping on his wine jug and shouting "Go, Go," at the end of every long line. After the reading Kerouac told Ginsberg he was going to be famous all over San Francisco, with Kenneth Rexroth correcting this to "famous from bridge to bridge." Lawrence Ferlinghetti, already running City Lights Bookstore at this point, wrote Ginsberg a telegram: "I greet you at the beginning of a great career ... FULL STORY »
