Ginsberg c.1950's |
The Six Gallery Reading
(also known as the Gallery Six reading or Six Angels in the Same
Performance) was a poetry reading which occurred at the Six Gallery on Friday the 7th
October 1955, at 3119 Fillmore Street in San Francisco.
Conceived by Wally Hedrick, this event
was the first important public manifestation of the Beat Generation and helped
to herald the West Coast literary revolution that continued the San Francisco
Renaissance.
Wally Hedrick — a painter and co-founder of the Six
Gallery – approached Allen Ginsberg (then only 29 years old) in mid-1955 and
asked him to organize a poetry reading at the Six Gallery. At first, Ginsberg
refused, but once he had written a rough draft of "Howl", he changed
his "fucking mind", as he put it. Ginsberg advertised the event as
"Six Poets at the Six Gallery". One of the most important events in
Beat myth, the event, in essence, brought together the East and West Coast
factions of the Beat Generation. Of more personal significance to Ginsberg:
that night was the first public reading of "Howl", a poem that
brought worldwide fame to Ginsberg and to many of the poets associated with
him. An account of that night can be found in Kerouac’s 's novel The Dharma Bums, describing how change
was collected from audience members to buy jugs of wine, and Ginsberg reading
passionately, drunken, with arms outstretched.
At the reading, four other talented
young poets—Philip Lamantia, Michael McClure, Gary Snyder and Philip Whalen—who
until then were known mainly within a close company of friends and other
writers (such as Lionel Trilling and William Carlos Williams), presented some
of their latest works. They were introduced by Kenneth Rexroth, a San Francisco
poet of an older generation, who was a kind of literary father figure for the
younger poets and had helped to establish their burgeoning community through
personal introductions at his weekly salon.
Lamantia read poems by his dead friend
John Hoffman. McClure read "Point
Lobos Animism" and "For the
Death of 100 Whales"; Snyder, "A Berry Feast"; and Whalen, "Plus Ça Change."
Snyder |
Lamantia |
McClure |
Whalen |
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