Poetry. Gay and Lesbian Studies. This book of poems features the original introduction by William Carlos Williams. Allen Ginsberg's HOWL AND OTHER POEMS was originally published in the Fall of 1956. Subsequently seized by U.S. customs and the San Francisco police, it was the subject of a long court trial at which a series of poets and professors persuaded the court that the book was not obscene. Dedicated to Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs and Neal Cassady, and 935,000 copies in print, these poems constitute a sizable place in the history of twentieth-century American poetry.