howl

HOWL Against Censorship
PACIFICA.org

you can download mp3 file of ginsberg reading of the howl
http://www.pacifica.org/program-guide/op,segment-page/station_id,4/segme...

HOWL

For Carl Solomon

I

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by
madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn
looking for an angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly
connection to the starry dynamo in the machin-
ery of night,
who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat
up smoking in the supernatural darkness of

'Howl' too hot to hear

50 years after poem ruled not obscene, radio fears to air it

Joe Garofoli
Chronicle Staff Writer
The San Francisco Chronicle

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

Fifty years ago today, a San Francisco Municipal Court judge ruled that Allen Ginsberg's Beat-era poem "Howl" was not obscene. Yet today, a New York public broadcasting station decided not to air the poem, fearing that the Federal Communications Commission will find it indecent and crush the network with crippling fines.