News at Eleven: Marshall Allen, in the introduction

to [Herschel] Silverman's book of collected poems, put it this way: "At Hersch's Beehive, right under the Pepsi clock and portrait of JFK, the names of the Beats . . . were uttered with the same brightening intensity, and reverence, other people reserve for ballplayers, cartoon characters, television stars, and lawn mowers. Hersch's Beehive, in reality, radiated a kind of third eye, hip, patriotism if you will, where dissonant howls, sax blaps and angular Monkish grooves were as automatically wholesome, natural and expectable as the national anthem."

from Tablet: The Candy Store Poet

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