Howl

On this day in 1955, the U.S. Customs Service seized 520 copied of Alan Ginsberg's poem Howl as they were imported from London. The charge was that the poem stank to high heaven.

Actually, the charge was hate speech obscenity. The poem did indeed stink to high heaven, but also had all sorts of homoerotic imagery that, ahem, left little to the imagination. The Federales hastened to charge the importing bookstore - City Lights Bookstore - with hate speech obscenity.

An important precedent was set at the trial, when Judge Clayton W. Horn ruled that even “the slightest redeeming social importance” provided absolute first amendment protection from charges of hate speech obscenity. The rest, is publishing history.

You know, there's probably an analogy in here, if I could just put my finger on hate speech it.

What, you want proof that it stank to high heaven? OK, how about this:

Who passed through universities with radiant cool eyes hallucinating Arkansas and Blake-light tragedies among the scholars of war ...

Those with strong stomachs can get even more stinkitude by clicking through. You've been warned ...