I wore my Howl t-shirt to Jazzercise today. For an hour of triple steps and sashays, woman were staring at the words “Starving Hysterical Naked” blazoned across my back. I had more people talk to me today than ever before.

The woman in black saw the front of the shirt, where it has the book cover with Howl and Allen Ginsberg in big letters and said, “Oh, of course!” I told her she was the first Jazzercise student to recognize the poem.

The three other times people have commented on the provocative words, they had never heard of the poem. I started thinking I should carry copies in my backpack.

But then Sue, the registrar, said she’d read the poem in high school. And she introduced me to Simone, a short woman with white hair who said, “I thought I recognized those words. My second husband, my dealer in the Haight-Ashbury, looked just like Allen Ginsburg. People kept coming up to him and asking for his autograph. He kept saying no, no, and then he just said yes. Girl, we got invited to some parties!”