Editing Beat Generation (section)

===San Francisco and the Six Gallery reading===
{{See also|San Francisco Renaissance}}
Ginsberg had visited Neal and [[Carolyn Cassady]] in [[San Jose, California]] in 1954 and moved to San Francisco in August. He fell in love with [[Peter Orlovsky]] at the end of 1954 and began writing ''Howl''. [[Lawrence Ferlinghetti]], of the new [[City Lights Bookstore]], started to publish the [[City Lights Pocket Poets Series]] in 1955.
[[File:Lawrence Ferlinghetti.jpg|thumb|upright=1.35|Lawrence Ferlinghetti]]
[[Kenneth Rexroth]]'s apartment became a Friday night literary salon (Ginsberg's mentor [[William Carlos Williams]], an old friend of Rexroth, had given him an introductory letter). When asked by [[Wally Hedrick]]<ref>Jonah Raskin, American Scream: ''Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" and the Making of the Beat Generation'': "Wally Hedrick, a painter and veteran of the Korean War, approached Ginsberg in the summer of 1955 and asked him to organize a poetry reading at the Six Gallery... At first, Ginsberg refused. But once he'd written a rough draft of ''[[Howl (poem)|Howl]]'', he changed his 'fucking mind,' as he put it."</ref> To organize the [[Six Gallery reading]], Ginsberg wanted Rexroth to serve as master of ceremonies, in a sense to bridge generations.

[[Philip Lamantia]], [[Michael McClure]], [[Philip Whalen]], Ginsberg and [[Gary Snyder]] read on October 7, 1955, before 100 people (including Kerouac, up from Mexico City). Lamantia read poems of his late friend John Hoffman. At his first public reading, Ginsberg performed the just finished first part of ''Howl''. It was a success and the evening led to many more readings by the now locally famous Six Gallery poets.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Wills |first=David S. |date=2015-10-07 |title=Sixty Years After the Six Gallery Reading |url=https://www.beatdom.com/sixty-years-after-the-six-gallery-reading/ |access-date=2024-06-10 |website=Beatdom |language=en-US}}</ref>

It was also a marker of the beginning of the Beat movement since the 1956 publication of ''Howl'' (''City Lights Pocket Poets'', no. 4), and its obscenity trial in 1957 brought it to nationwide attention.<ref>Ginsberg, Allen. ''Howl.'' 1986 critical edition edited by Barry Miles, ''Original Draft Facsimile, Transcript & Variant Versions, Fully Annotated by Author, with Contemporaneous Correspondence, Account of First Public Reading, Legal Skirmishes, Precursor Texts & Bibliography'' {{ISBN|0-06-092611-2}} (pbk.)</ref><ref>McClure, Michael. ''Scratching the Beat Surface: Essays on New Vision from Blake to Kerouac.'' Penguin, 1994. {{ISBN|0-14-023252-4}}.</ref>

The Six Gallery reading informs the second chapter of Kerouac's 1958 novel ''[[The Dharma Bums]],'' whose chief protagonist is "Japhy Ryder", a character who is based on Gary Snyder. Kerouac was impressed with Snyder and they were close for several years. In the spring of 1955, they lived together in Snyder's cabin in [[Mill Valley, California]]. Most Beats were urbanites and they found Snyder almost exotic, with his rural background and wilderness experience, as well as his education in [[cultural anthropology]] and Oriental languages. Lawrence Ferlinghetti called him "the [[Henry David Thoreau|Thoreau]] of the Beat Generation."<ref>{{Cite web |last=Smith |first=Mike |date=2013-11-07 |title=Adaptation And The Environmental Beat: Poet-Activist Gary Snyder Lands In Albuquerque {{!}} Weekly Alibi |url=https://alibi.com/art/adaptation-and-the-environmental-beat-poet-activist-gary-snyder-lands-in-albuquerque/ |access-date=2024-06-10 |language=en-US}}</ref>

As documented in the conclusion of ''The Dharma Bums'', Snyder moved to Japan in 1955, in large measure to intensively practice and study [[Zen|Zen Buddhism]]. He would spend most of the next 10 years there. [[Buddhism]] is one of the primary subjects of ''The Dharma Bums'', and the book undoubtedly helped to popularize Buddhism in the West and remains one of Kerouac's most widely read books.<ref>Bradley J. Stiles, ''Emerson's contemporaries and Kerouac's crowd: a problem of self-location'', Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2003, {{ISBN|0-8386-3960-7}}, {{ISBN|978-0-8386-3960-3}}, p. 87: "Although Kerouac did not introduce Eastern religion into American culture, his writings were instrumental in popularizing Buddhism among mainstream intellectuals."</ref>