In the reputedly quiescent Eisenhower 1950s, it was risky business to publish an erotic poem that feverishly explored gay sex, drug use and mental illness amid a nightmarish world of nuclear bombs and materialistic conformity. The work of the Beat Generation poets heralded the emergence of pent-up frustration with Cold War politics, Jim Crow racism … Continue reading This week in history: “Howl” has literary merit, not obscene