The Vowel Mouth Poetry Radio Hour - showcasing a variety of poetic works in modern music. This episode features:

You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth (Hot Summer Night) - Meatloaf Your House (Live at London’s O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire, 2020) - Alanis Morissette Prince of Tides - Jimmy BuffettBeats & Poetry - Good WTHR featuring LearicGhost Song - Jim MorrisonHowl Pt. 1 - Gary ReesBad Guy - Billie Eilish The Black Widow- Alice Cooper No Spoken Word - Stevie Nicks Fell on Black Days (live at the Keswick Theater, recorded on April 10th, 2011)  - Chris CornellPoem - TaprootAt The Bottom of Everything - Bright EyesBEAT NOTES: October 7th commemorates the night in 1955 when a 29-year old Allen Ginsberg read his epic Beat Poetry manifesto, “Howl” for the first time to a sold out crowd at the now legendary Gallery 6 Reading in San Francisco. “Howl” became known as “The Poem that Changed America”. In 1957, U.S. Customs seized over 500 copies of Howl and Other Poems declaring the poetry collection “obscene.” Specifically, the obscene material in “Howl” refers to vulgar diction, drug and sexual references and sexuality. A short time later, two undercover police officers went into City Lights Bookstore to purchase “Howl and Other Poems,” and then immediately arrested the clerk for selling the obscene literature. A warrant was issued for the publisher & book store owner, who turned himself in. That man was Lawrence Ferlinghetti.  It was “The People of The State of California v. Lawrence Ferlinghetti”. And Lawrence Ferlinghetti won that case. The Judge noted that if these obscene words were substituted, the work would lose its meaning, and ruled that if this book were banned & deemed obscene, that it “would destroy our freedoms of free speech and press”. “Howl and Other Poems” was not deemed obscene—the charges were dropped. It was a win for Freedom of Speech. It was a win for sexual liberation. It was a win for creative expression. The poetry of the underground Beat Movement was a catalyst for the civil rights and social justice movements of the ’60’s, and which continues today.

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