
On this day in 1957, U.S. Customs agents seized 520 copies of Allen Ginsberg's poem, Howl being imported in the United States by a London printer on the grounds of obscenity on the basis of the line: who let themselves be fucked in the ass by saintly motorcyclists, and screamed with joy The confiscation resulted in an obscenity trail against Lawrence Ferlinghetti, the poem's new domestic publisher. Clayton Horn (a Sunday school teacher) was the judge for the case and had achieved notoriety earlier that year for sentencing five shoplifters [...]