Bongo beats punctuate readings of “A Supermarket in California” and “Please Master” in Barnard Hall’s dimly lit James Room Thursday night.
The Philolexian Society is gathered for its annual Beat Night, an event held in honor of famous Beat poet and former Philolexian Society member Allen Ginsberg, CC ’48.
“This is our little love letter to the Beat Generation,” the Society’s Minister of Propaganda Devorah Gordin, BC ’14, said.
The crowd, mostly dressed in black and wearing beanies, read Beat literature (including an excerpt from “The Dharma Bums,” by Jack Kerouac, CC ’44), drank coffee, and participated in a spontaneous poetry contest. The night culminated in the group’s relocation to Alma Mater for the traditional midnight recitation of Ginsberg’s epic poem “Howl.”
