but I suspected that this was just Allen’s first strike as the conscience of the nation and a provocateur for peace.
Fifty years later, Ginsberg’s indictment still rings in our ears, and his insurgent voice is needed more than ever, in this time of rampant nationalism and omnivorous corporate monoculture deadening the soul of the world.
Allen Ginsberg pointing at “Moloch whose eyes are a thousand blind windows!” This vision of the Sir Francis Drake Hotel was the inspiration for “Howl.” © Harry Redl
ALLEN GINSBERG’S HOWL A Chronology
| 1954 | |
| October 17 | After taking peyote in his apartment at 755 Pine Street, in San Francisco, Allen Ginsberg has a vision in which the Sir Francis Drake Hotel and the Medical Arts buildings transform into the image of the ancient Phoenician god Moloch. |
| 1955 | |
| August | While living in an apartment at 1010 Montgomery Street, Ginsberg writes the first part of “Strophes,” which he soon renames “Howl,” based on his Moloch vision. |
| August 30 | In a letter to Jack Kerouac, Ginsberg mentions that City Lights might publish a small booklet of his poems to be called Howl. |
| October 7 | Allen Ginsberg reads part of “Howl” for the first time in public at the Six Gallery, 3119 Fillmore Street. |
| October 8 | Lawrence Ferlinghetti sends a telegram to Ginsberg asking for the manuscript of “Howl.” |
| 1956 | |
| March 18 | Ginsberg reads the completed text of “Howl” for the first time at the Town Hall Theater in Berkeley, California. |
| March | Ferlinghetti asks the ACLU if it will defend the book in court if he is prosecuted. |
| March | William Carlos Williams writes an introduction for Howl and Other Poems. |
| May 16 | Ginsberg mimeographs about 25 copies of “Howl” to give to his friends. |
| June | City Lights receives the first proofs of Howl and Other Poems from its British printer, Villiers. |
| August | A few advance copies of the book arrive from the printer and Ferlinghetti sends them to Ginsberg, who is working on a ship near the Arctic Circle. |
| November 1 | Official date of publication for Howl and Other Poems, the fourth number in the City Lights Pocket Poets Series. The first printing is 1,000 copies. |
| 1957 | |
| March 25 | San Francisco Collector of Customs Chester MacPhee seizes 520 copies of the second printing of Howl and Other Poems on the grounds that the writing is obscene. (“You wouldn’t want your children to come across it”) An additional 1,000 copies slip through undetected. |
| April 3 | The American Civil Liberties Union informs Chester MacPhee that it will contest the legality of the seizure on the grounds that the book is not obscene. |
| May | Ferlinghetti does a third printing of 2,500 copies in the U.S., to circumvent the jurisdiction of Customs. |
| May 19 | William Hogan of the San Francisco Chronicle writes a piece in favor of “Howl” in his column “Between the Lines” and lends it to Lawrence Ferlinghetti for the purpose of defending Howl and Other Poems. |
| May 29 | Customs releases the copies of Howl and Other Poems after the United States Attorney in San Francisco, Lloyd H. Burke, refuses to institute condemnation proceedings against the book. |
| June 3 | Shigeyoshi Murao is arrested for selling a copy of Howl and Other Poems to undercover inspectors, Russell Woods and Thomas Pagee, and a warrant is issued for the arrest of Lawrence Ferlinghetti by Captain William A. Hanrahan of the San Francisco Police Department’s Juvenile Bureau. |
| June 6 | Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who was in Big Sur when Murao was arrested, turns himself in to the police upon his return and is released after the ACLU posts $500 bail. |
| August 8 | Howl’s jury trial is scheduled to begin at the Municipal Court of the City and County of San Francisco, 750 Kearny Street, with Judge Byron Arnold presiding. |
| August 16 | After a delay, trial by jury is waived and the case is switched to Judge Clayton W. Horn’s court. |
| August 22 | Charges against Shigeyoshi Murao are dismissed by Judge Horn, since the prosecution could not prove that Murao had read the publication or sold it “lewdly.” |
| September 5 | Nine witnesses for the defense testify on the literary merits of Ginsberg’s Howl and Other Poems. |
| September 19 | Rebuttal witnesses and closing arguments are given in the trial. |
| October 3 | Judge Clayton W. Horn finds Lawrence Ferlinghetti not guilty of publishing and selling obscene writings, on the grounds that Howl and Other Poems was not written with lewd intent and was not without “redeeming social importance.” |
| October | To meet the demand created by the trial, a fourth printing of 5,000 copies is ordered. |
“Censorship reflects a society’s lack of confidence in itself. It is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime. Long ago, those who wrote our First Amendment charted a different course. They believed a society can be truly strong only when it is truly free. In the realm of expression, they put their faith, for better or worse, in the enlightened choice of the people, free from the interference of a policeman’s intrusive thumb or a judge’s heavy hand. So it is that the Constitution protects coarse expression as well as refined, and vulgarity no less than elegance. A book worthless to me may convey something of value to my neighbor. In the free society to which our Constitution has committed us, it is for each to choose for himself.”
—Potter Stewart, U.S. Supreme Court Justice
MILESTONES OF LITERARY CENSORSHIP
by Nancy J. Peters
During the century prior to the Howl decision in 1957, freedom of expression in America, with few exceptions, did not extend to any writing that contained overtly sexual references. No matter how beautifully written or ethical its viewpoint, if a work of literature employed frank sexual language
