65 years ago tonight was Allen’s legendary first ever reading of “Howl” at the 6 Gallery, in San Francisco.  Located at 3119 Fillmore, a few blocks south of Lombard Street,  in Cow Hollow, San Francisco, the Six gallery so named, as it was opened and run by Six artists,  Wallace Hedrick and Jack Spicer among them.  The evening, billed as 6 poets at the 6 gallery,  was emceed by poet Kenneth Rexroth, the father of the San Francisco poetry renaissance, and poets performing were the Michal McClure, Gary Snyder, Philip Lamantia, Philip Whalen and of course Allen Ginsberg. All except Rexroth were virtually unknown at the time.  Jack Kerouac was in the audience cheering them on, and immortalized it in the Dharma Bums,  and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, just recently part owner of the new City Lights books,  was there too, and  approached Allen after with “I Greet You at the Beginning of a Great Career. Where’s the manuscript?”  Remarkably both Gary Snyder, & Lawrence Ferlinghetti are still alive.
