Plaque placed before the location of Six Gallery on the 50th anniversary of the premiere full-length public reading of HOWL. Photo by Peter Biella, 2014.Licensed by Creative Commons, courtesy Wikimedia Commons.
The Six Gallery reading (also known as the Gallery Six reading or Six Angels in the Same Performance) was an important poetry event that took place on Friday, October 7, 1955,[1] at 3119 Fillmore Street in San Francisco.[2][3]
Background[]
The Six Gallery, founded by Wally Hedrick, Deborah Remington, John Ryan, Jack Spicer, Hayward King, and David Simpson,[4][5] was previously known as the King Ubu Gallery – a reference to Ubu Roi – which was founded by artist Jess Collins]] in 1952. Before its association with art and poetry, it was an auto repair shop.
The Six Gallery functioned as an underground art gallery for the members and a meeting place for poets and literati alike.
As Allen Ginsberg later recalled, the Six Gallery reading began when Wally Hedrick asked Kenneth Rexroth if he knew any poets that would put on a reading.[6] Hedrick, a painter and veteran of the Korean War, approached Ginsberg in the summer of 1955 and asked him to organize a poetry reading at the Gallery. Initially Ginsberg refused. But once he’d written a rough draft of Howl, he changed his “fucking mind,” as he put it.[7]
Peter Forakis created the poster for the reading.[8]
The reading[]
Six Gallery reading poster, by Peter Forakis, 1995. Courtesy Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco.
At the reading, 5 talented young poets — Ginsberg, 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.[9][10][11]
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 Ca Change." Most famously, at this reading Ginsberg premiered his poem Howl.
The large and excited audience included a drunken Jack Kerouac, who refused to read his own work but cheered the other poets on, shouting "Yeah! Go! Go!" during their performances. Still, Kerouac was able to recall much of what occurred at the reading, and wrote an account that he included in his novel The Dharma Bums.
Also in attendance was Lawrence Ferlinghetti (who telegrammed Ginsberg the following day offering to publish his work). Neal Cassady passed around the wine jug and a collection plate. Also there was Ann Charters, then a Berkeley college student. This was the night Charters met Kerouac, later the subject of her best known work, the biography Kerouac (1973).
Recognition[]
HOWL (2010) "ALLEN GINSBERG"
The reading was the 1st important public manifestation of the Beat Generation and helped to herald the West Coast literary revolution that continued the San Francisco Renaissance.
It was commemorated in the 2010 movie, Howl.
The Gallery's 3119 address no longer exists, but a podium and plaque commemorating the 50th anniversary of the reading of "Howl" stand on the sidewalk in front of a restaurant at 3115 Fillmore.
References[]
- ↑ Some sources have erroneously reported the date of the reading as October 13. (One example is Hendin, Josephine G. 2004. Concise Companion to Postwar American Literature and Culture. Pp. 79. New York: Wiley-Blackwell.) However, most scholars agree on the date October 7, as does the plaque honoring the event, pictured here. (The date is confirmed in Morgan, Bill and Nancy L. Peters, eds. 2006. Howl on Trial: The Battle for Free Expression. P. 1. San Francisco: City Lights Publishers; and Raskin, Jonah. 2006. American Scream: Allen Ginsberg's Howl and the Making of the Beat Generation. P. 154. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.)
- ↑ In 1954, Wally Hedrick co-founded The Six Gallery in San Francisco, California with David Simpson, Hayward King, John Allen Ryan, Deborah Remington and Jack Spicer – and by 1955, had "become the official director". ("Oral history interview with Wally Hedrick," Smithsonian Archives of American Art. The transcribed interview took place at Hedrick's home in San Geronimo, California, June 10, 1974; Interviewer: Paul Karlstrom https://archive.is/20121214235927/http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/oralhistories/transcripts/hedric74.htm [accessed November 24, 2014]. In "Remembering Wally Hedrick," artist and professor Carlos Villa writes, "Wally Hedrick was a chief organizer of the Six Gallery..."[1] (accessed November 25, 2014).
- ↑ http://www.foundsf.org/index.php?title=Fillmore:_The_Beats_in_the_Western_Addition
- ↑ Smithsonian Archives of American Art: Oral History Interview With Wally Hedrick At His Home, San Geronimo, California, June 10, 1974 [2]
- ↑ http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-wally-hedrick-12869
- ↑ Matt Theado ed. (2002) The Beats: A literary reference, "The Beats in the West," 61.
- ↑ Jonah Raskin, American Scream: Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl” and the Making of the Beat Generation.
- ↑ "Poster for the 6 Gallery, Poetry Reading". Fine Art Museums of San Francisco. Archived from the original on 2016-03-04. https://web.archive.org/web/20160304085608/https://art.famsf.org/peter-forakis/poster-6-gallery-poetry-reading-october-7-1955-199696.
- ↑ https://archive.is/20121214235927/http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/oralhistories/transcripts/hedric74.htm
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20080828225912/http://www.stretcher.org/archives/e1_a/2004_02_28_e1_archive.php
- ↑ http://www.stretcher.org/archives/e1_a/2004_02_28_e1_archive.php
External links[]
- Drunk Poetry Fans and the First Reading of ‘Howl’", Time magazine, October 7, 2015.
- Literary Kicks: Six Gallery
- About "Howl" in Performance
- Smithsonian Archives of American Art: Oral history interview with Wally Hedrick, 1974 June 10–24
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