Some 520 copies of Allen Ginsberg’s Howl, printed in England, were impounded by U.S. Customs on this date in 1957. Publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti was charged with promoting obscenity, and after a long trial (covered in a Life magazine picture story), the book was ruled not obscene in a decision that paved the way for the American publication of Lady Chatterly’s Lover, Tropic of Cancer, and other previously censored books. Ginsberg’s chilling title poem, rich with rage and heartache about conformity, materialism, censorship, inhibition, and madness, also has many Biblical allusions, including an entire section devoted to denouncing Moloch, the abominable god who demands idolatrous sacrifice: “Moloch the incomprensible prison! Moloch the crossbone soulless jailhouse and Congress of sorrows! Moloch whose buildings are judgment! Moloch the vast stone of war!” Ginsberg remained a radical, liberationist, gay, holy Jewish poet until his death in 1997.
“The world is holy! The soul is holy! The skin is holy! The nose is holy! The tongue and cock and hand and asshole holy!”
—Allen Ginsberg
Please see our entry for March 11th to read about the Triangle Fire of 1911, which took place on March 25, 1911.
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I find Jewdayo regularly interesting, often fascinating. I also want to make a comment about Allen Ginsberg. In the 90′s he was hired as a professor at Brooklyn College in the English Department’s creative writing program. Many, me among them, figured that it was a publicity move for the college and that Ginsberg would do little teaching and rarely appear on campus. Instead, he established a vibrant poetry program, taught undergraduate and graduate classes, and had a fervent following. During the Sandinista/Contra-U.S war, I asked him to do a reading for a benefit for Sandinista Nicaragua. He wasn’t in the best of health at the time, but he gladly did it and gave a great performance. He was definitely worthy of admiration.
Bart
In 1984, my family and I taught at Hebei University in Baoding. After we left, I got quite a few letters from former students of mine. They wrote telling me a strange American poet had come to teach summer school. They added that after we had left our apartment, the poet, Allen Ginsberg, had moved into the apartment we had just vacated.