Did Ferlinghetti edit 'Howl' or did Ginsberg revise his own poem?

Question

I know City Lights published the work, but am trying to find out if Ginsberg had help editing the content.... Thanks!

Answer 1

Ginzberg did it himself.
"Afterward, Ginsberg, Kerouac and others celebrated at a Chinese restaurant, while Ferlinghetti and his wife returned to their Potrero Hill apartment. ``I wasn't one of his gang, I wasn't one of his group at all,'' says Ferlinghetti. ``He sort of considered me a square bookshop owner. . . . I was not in the inner circle at all. I was not invited to read at the `Howl' reading because I wasn't known as a poet.'' (Ferlinghetti, formerly San Francisco's poet laureate, went on to become an even more popular writer than Ginsberg; his 1958 book-length poem ``A Coney Island of the Mind'' has sold more than a million copies.)

``I sent Allen a Western Union telegram that night saying, `I greet you at the beginning of a great career. When do I get the manuscript?' '' he recalls.

Ferlinghetti did soon get the manuscript, which was subsequently revised for months by Ginsberg, who dropped a fifth part of ``Howl'' and added ``A Footnote to `Howl.' ''

The three-part poem and its ``Footnote'' were ultimately compiled with nine other Ginsberg poems in a book titled ``Howl and Other Poems,'' the fourth volume of City Light's paperback Pocket Poets series.

Problems arose when Ferlinghetti, looking to save money, hired a British printer, Villiers, to print the book. This led to a customs seizure that was quickly dropped, but not before it brought the book to the attention of the San Francisco Police Department, which filed its own obscenity charges against Ferlinghetti for selling the poem. The trial, which lasted through the summer and early fall of 1957, ultimately cleared Ferlinghetti of all charges.