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Allen Ginsberg Birthday Celebration

Allen Ginsberg Birthday Celebration

June 3, 2018 @ 2:00 pm - 6:00 pm

Performances and a Group Reading of Howl!

Sunday, June 3, 2018 / 2-6 PM

Everything is holy! everybody’s holy! everywhere is holy! everyday is in eternity! Everyman’s an angel! Allen Ginsberg

An annual event since the Howl! Festival began way back in 2003, Howl! Happening is pleased to continue the tradition of performances and the reading of “Howl” to celebrate our namesake’s birthday. We are inspired by the late poet-philosopher—a lifelong spokesperson for peace, justice, and freedom of expression—and like Allen, we are not afraid to speak up and support artists and audiences by providing a forum to join in the creative process and make their voices heard.

This year, artists, poets, musicians, and nutty creators of all stripes join together to salute our hero. Bob Rosenthal, Ginsberg’s “right hand man,” will act as master of ceremonies, and David Amram, Ed Sanders, Hettie Jones, Eileen Myles, Peter Hale, poet Simon Pettet, Caiti, Heather Litteer, and Nikhil Melnechuk will be performing. A short film with highlights from Beat & Beyond: A Gathering, the six-day festival held in 2016, honors the poets, musicians, bookstores, and significant individuals whose energy transformed America forever.

Everybody’s serious but me. —Allen Ginsberg

The evening culminates with the annual group reading of “Howl”. Get the down beat and be ready to vocalize your own angst, joy, activism, and solidarity with the madness to create a more just and humane world!

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,  dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,  angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night…. —Allen Ginsberg                                                                           

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