When Allen Ginsberg first presented his poem "Howl" at an October 1955 reading in San Francisco, Beat poet Michael McClure said that "a human voice and body had been hurled against the harsh wall of America."
Ginsberg's poem—112 lines describing drug use, homosexuality, materialism, shifting political tectonics, and rebellion against conformity—caught the attention of publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Ferlinghetti's City Lights Bookstore published Howl and Other Poems in 1956, quickly attracting both celebration and controversy.
