One evening, Joe and I went to City Lights Bookstore and I bought Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl”, he bought Kerouac’s “On the road”. Across the alley, we went to sit upstairs in the Vesuvio saloon. With an Anchor Steam beer, I read it.
There was a directness in this, flow and honesty that grabs hold. I can understand why it made such an impression when it came, to a world where poetry previously had been so strict, so full of rules. But so much has happened since then. For me it doesn’t reach all the way.
I thought, and took a sip of my beer. Still. It felt like such a San Francisco thing to do.
Katja Malmborg 