In April 1962, Tribune reporter David Mazie covered a poetry reading at the University of Minnesota and was swept up by the Muse of the Beat Generation. Or at least Maynard G. Krebs.

This Poet (You Know It),
in the Glare, Is Nowhere

By DAVID MAZIE
Minneapolis Tribune Staff Writer

Like man, there was poetry, way out,
And jazz, like cool.
At Coffman Union on the U of M campus Wednesday night.
      In the glare of a single spotlight
Bright, piercing the blackness
The students came to read their poems, and the
      poems of others
      For the Creative Arts Festival.
And while they read, the Infinity Trinity played
The drum,
The piano,
The guitar.
A dark-haired girl in a plain black sweater read
      Softly, tenderly of love.
And a boy in a sweatshirt longed in blank verse for San Francisco.
The “boom-lay, boom-lay, boom-lay boom” of The
      Congo poem by Vachel Lindsey
Boomed.
Then a boy in dark glasses read about a Toad.
      An ugly toad, ugly like humanity, he said.
And there was something about the most perfect
      Easter egg of all,
      Stolen by an orangutan wearing a black frock
            And carrying
      A Bible.
Like man, there was poetry.

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