SOURCE: Rexroth, Kenneth. “San Francisco Letter.” In On the Poetry of Allen Ginsberg, edited by Lewis Hyde, pp. 32-33. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1984.

In the following essay, which was first published in 1957, Rexroth, a popular poet often called “Godfather of the Beats,” lauds Allen Ginsberg's “Howl” as “more than the most sensational book of poetry of 1957.”

Allen Ginsberg's Howl is much more than the most sensational book of poetry of 1957. Nothing goes to show how square the squares are so much as the favorable reviews they've given it. “Sustained shrieks of frantic defiance,” “single-minded frenzy of a raving madwoman,” “paranoid memories,” “childish obscenity”—they think it's all so negative. Also—which is much more important—they think there is something unusual about it. Listen you—do you really think your kids act like the bobby soxers in those wholesome Coca-Cola ads? Don't you know that across...