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"Howl" In Performance Essay, Research Paper

Six poets at the Six Gallery. Kenneth Rexroth, M.C. Remarkable collection of angels

all gathered at once in the same spot. Wine, music, dancing girls, serious poetry, free

satori. Small collection for wine and postcards. Charming event.

— from postcard printed by Allen Ginsberg to publicize 1955 Six Gallery Reading

The Evening as told by Michael Schumacher in Dharma Lion

On the night of its most historic reading, the Six Gallery seemed to have attracted

every significant member of what would later be termed the San Francisco Poetry

Renaissance. From the beginning, there was a festive atmosphere to the event. To assure a

loose, free spirited reading, Jack Kerouac scurried around the rooms, collecting donations

for wine, the reading itself delayed while he ran out for gallon jugs, which were passed

around throughout the reading.

On-stage, the poets were seated in a semicircle behind the podium. Kenneth Rexroth,

dressed in a bow tie and a cutaway pinstripe suit, opened the evening with a few brief

introductory remarks. Taking notice of the mixture of literary and political interests

represented by those in attendance as well as by those on-stage, Rexroth compared the

climate of San Francisco to that of Barcelona at the time of the Spanish anarchists, where

culture survived despite an oppressive national political environment.

After readings by Philip Lamantia, Michael McClure, Phillip Whalen and a brief

intermission, Allen Ginsberg moved to the podium for his first public reading of

"Howl". A number of persons in attendance–including Kerouac, Ferlinghetti,

Snyder and Whalen–had read “Howl” in Manuscript, but no one was prepared for

the impact of Allen’s dramatic reading of the poem. Allen had been drinking wine

throughout the evening and, by his own later admission, he was intoxicated by the time the

lights dimmed and he began his reading. Somewhat nervous, he started in a calm, quiet

tone, letting the poem’s words achieve their own impact, but before long he gained

confidence and began to sway rhythmically with the music of his poetry, responding to the

enthusiasm of the audience, which was transfixed by "Howl’s" powerful

imagery. Jack Kerouac, sitting at the edge of the platform, pounded in accompaniment on a

wine jug, shouting “GO!” at the end of each long line. The crowd quickly joined

him in punctuating Allen’s lines with shouts of encouragement, and Allen, inspired by

the intensity of the room, responded with an even greater flourish to his reading. By the

time he had concluded, he was in tears, as was Kenneth Rexroth. The audience erupted in

appreciation of the work, as if each person in attendance recognized that literary history

had been made.

The evening as told by Jack Kerouac in Dharma Bums

Anyway I followed the whole gang of howling poets to the reading at Gallery Six (Six

Gallery) that night, which was, among other important things, the night of the birth of

the San Francisco Poetry Renaissance. Everyone was there. It was a mad night. And I was

the one who got things jumping by going around collecting dimes and quarters from the

rather stiff audience standing around in the gallery and coming back with three huge

gallon jugs of California Burgundy and getting them all piffed so that by eleven o’clock

when Alvah Goldbrook (Ginsberg) was reading his, wailing poem "Wail" (Howl)

drunk with arms outspread everybody was yelling "Go! Go! Go!" (like a jam

session) and old Rheinhold Cacoethes (Kenneth Rexroth) the father of the Frisco poetry

scene was wiping tears in gladness.

Meanwhile scores of people stood around in the darkened gallery straining to hear every

word of the amazing poetry reading as I wandered from group to group, facing them and

facing away from the stage, urging them to slug from the jug, or wandered back and sat on

the right side of the stage giving out little wows and yesses of approval and even whole

sentances of comment with nobody’s invitation but in the general gaiety nobody’s

disapproval either. It was a great night

Among the people standing in the audience was Rosie Buchanan, a girl with short

haircut, red-haired, bony, hanesome, a real gone chick and friend of everybody of any

consequence on the beach, who’d been a painter’s model and a writer herself and was

bubbling with excitement at that time because she was in love with my old buddy Cody (Neal

Cassady). "Great, hey Rosie." I yelled, and she took a big slug from my jug and

shined eyes at me. Cody just stood behind her with both arms around her waist. Between

poets, Rheinhold Cacoethes, in his bow tie and shabby old coat, would get up and make a

little funny speech in his snide funny voice and introduce the next reader: but as I say

come eleven thirty when all the poems were read and everybody was milling around wonderin

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