This weekend marks the 60th anniversary of Allen Ginsberg, the famous poet and Beat icon, coming to Wichita. Back in the 1950s, Kansas and Wichita had a number of writers and artists who'd gone to San Francisco to be part of the Beat scene. When Ginsberg got a travel grant, he made a visit to Wichita as part of his tour to the Midwest.
In February of 1966, Ginsberg arrived in Wichita; some local authorities were worried about possible obscenities. Ginsberg was a big celebrity, and people crowded into his readings at venues, including the the Magic Theater/Vortex Art Gallery located next to the Eaton Hotel downtown at Douglas & St. Francis.
On the tour, Ginsberg made stops at KU and the University of Nebraska before coming back to Wichita; he was struck by the calm of the Great Plains in contrast to the horrors he'd heard about in Vietnam. As a result, he wrote a poem called the "Wichita Vortex Sutra".
The first full reading of that poem took place on February 21, 1966, in the ballroom of the Student Union at Wichita State University. Some faculty-members refused to meet with Ginsberg, and the university did not officially sponsor his reading. However, a student effort led by Philosophy graduate student Roger Irwin made the event possible. The potential obscenities feared by some city officials never happened.