The 1959 Big Table Chicago reading of “Howl” is our special feature this weekend.
A recording of this historic reading is available here
(“Footnote to Howl” is here)
Also read on that occasion were “Sunflower Sutra”, “A Supermarket in California”, “Transcription of Organ Music”, “America”, “In Back of the Real”, “A Strange New Cottage in Berkeley“, “Europe! Europe!” and “Kaddish, part 1”
The whole reading (Allen’s reading in its entirety) may be listened to here
The event, you may recall, was a benefit for a newly-established magazine, Big Table (born as a result of the flagrant censorship of the student magazine, the Chicago Review)
– fearful of Kerouac, Dahlberg, and Naked Lunch?
fearful of the Beats?
For two detailed accounts of these events see here (the Chicago Reader)
or here (The Village Voice).
Here’s a note from Paul Carroll (almost fifty years later)
“Big Table” – that was Jack Kerouac’s suggestion.
See also other readings of “Howl” on the Allen Ginsberg Project – here, here and here
