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On October 7,1955, six poets gave a public reading at the Six Gallery, a converted auto garage on Fillmore Street, in San Francisco, that is still considered one of the most important events in twentieth-century American poetry. Michael McClure, Alien Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, and Philip Whalen all read new poems, and Philip Lamantia read the work of John Hoffman, who had recently died of a drug overdose. The event was hosted by poet Kenneth Rexroth, who was nearly fifty and eager to show off the talents of his young, and heretofore unknown, friends. There were about a hundred and fifty people in the audience, including Jack Kerouac, who brought wine and shouted encouragement to the readers. Ginsberg, who was twenty-nine at the time, was next to last. When he launched into the long, mad, incantatory poem titled "Howl," some say American poetry was changed forever.
"I think we all realized that 'Howl' drew a line in the sand," says McClure, who had met Ginsberg the summer before,...