American Scream
Chapter One
Poetickall
Bomshell
A Person Named Allen Ginsberg
In September 1955, Gary Snyder-then a twenty-five-year-old
unpublished poet and graduate student-wrote to his friend and
fellow poet Philip Whalen in Oregon to say that he had been
backpacking in the Sierras for ten days and that he'd thoroughly
enjoyed the isolation of the outdoors. Now, he was living in a
small cottage in Berkeley, he said, baking his own bread and
studying Japanese. Moreover, he was preparing to read, with several
other poets, at a place called the Six Gallery, perhaps the
leading showcase for young artists in San Francisco. (In 1955
the Six Gallery exhibited the innovative work of Jay DeFeo and
Richard Diebenkorn.) Whalen was in on the "deal," Snyder
wrote. He had pulled a few strings and made all the necessary
arrangements, and he was delighted to be able to report that
they'd share the stage together after so many years of writing
poetry together. Then, too, Snyder was delighted to tell Whalen
that his poems had been well received by the San Francisco literary
underground. They had even reached a "certain subterranean
celebration," Snyder wrote, thanks to Kenneth Rexroth,
the Bay Area's bohemian impresario and ... read full excerpt from American Scream: Allen Ginsberg's Howl and the Making of the Beat Generation ebook
