Howl If You Love the Bill of Rights

December 9, 1999 by Dorothy Ehrlich, KQED

San Francisco's Poet Laureate Lawrence Ferlinghetti will be raising his voice in honor of freedom of expression at the ACLU's annual Bill of Rights Day Celebration on Sunday, December 12. After all, the Bill of Rights will be turning 208, and this anniversary should not pass without some revelry.

We will honor Lawrence Ferlinghetti, not only as a magnificent poet, but as a vocal activist who has consistently understood the relationship between art and the First Amendment ­ and fought for both. In the 1950's, he was arrested and criminally charged for selling Allen Ginsberg 's ground-breaking book of poetry called "Howl." In the 1960's, he was willing to take the heat in a legal challenge to the government's effort to censor anti-war literature. And in the late 1990's, keeping up with the times, he understood that free expression on the Internet needs protection, too. So he joined the ACLU in a lawsuit challenging a new federal law that would make it a crime to transmit sexually explicit material on the Internet, which could result, once again, in the censorship of a poem like "Howl," or a powerful anti-war message, or information about safe sex from an AIDS education group.

In theory, the Bill of Rights, specifically the First Amendment, guarantees all of these voices the right to speak and to publish and to disseminate their ideas. But even as we celebrate the Bill of Rights anniversary, we must recognize that it is a fragile document. It requires courageous artists and activists to stand up and shout in its defense. Sometimes it means that a reporter will go to jail or a student editor will be suspended. Sometimes it means that a great American poet will be prosecuted for obscenity because a plainclothes policeman walked into his bookshop to buy Ginsberg's "Howl." The Bill of Rights protects our freedom of expression because that same poet inspires others to use their elegant voices to tell the truth about the world we live in.

The Bill of Rights is strengthened through the courage of Lawrence Ferlinghetti and the poets and visionaries who follow in his footsteps. The Bill of Rights requires all of us to post a constant, vigilant and noisy defense ­ and it also deserves to be celebrated on its anniversary.

So, howl, if you love the Bill of Rights.