"Allen Ginsberg's Howl & Other Poems was originally
published by City Lights Books in the fall of 1956. Subsequently
seized by U.S. Customs and the San Francisco police, it was the
subject of a long court trial at which a series of poets and
professors persuaded the court that the book was not obscene. Allen
Ginsberg was born June 3, 1926, the son of Naomi Ginsberg, Russian
emigre, and Louis Ginsberg, lyric poet and schoolteacher, in
Paterson, New Jersey. To these facts Ginsberg adds: "High
school in Paterson till 17, Columbia College, merchant marine,
Texas and Denver copyboy, Times Square, amigos in jail,
dishwashing, book reviews, Mexico City, market research, Satori in
Harlem, Yucatan and Chiapas 1954, West Coast 3 years. Later Arctic
Sea trip, Tangier, Venice, Amsterdam, Paris, read at Oxford Harvard
Columbia Chicago, quit, wrote Kaddish 1959, made tape to leave
behind & fade in Orient awhile. Carl Solomon to whom Howl is
addressed, is a intuitive Bronx dadaist and prose-poet.""
