San Francisco hosted the Six Gallery reading that helped launch the city’s Beat literary scene.
The event took place on October 7, 1955, at the Six Gallery, an artists’ space in the city’s North Beach area. Allen Ginsberg gave the first public reading of “Howl” there, while other participants included Gary Snyder, Philip Lamantia, Michael McClure, and Philip Whalen. Jack Kerouac attended but did not formally read.
The gathering became famous because it united poets, artists, and friends in an informal setting and gave the emerging movement a memorable public moment. Lawrence Ferlinghetti was in the audience and later published Howl through City Lights.
Readers sometimes confuse the Six Gallery reading with earlier New York gatherings involving Ginsberg, Kerouac, and Burroughs. The Six Gallery event specifically belongs to San Francisco’s mid-1950s literary history.