 As the nation's largest annual literary festival at the time, it brought Charles Bukowski, William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Ken Kesey, Michael McClure, Gary Snyder, and musicians like Anthony Braxton and Charles Lloyd to the seaside town of Santa Cruz, CA, which set attendance records (over 2,000 people per night) at the Civic Auditorium.It ushered in what Ferlinghetti called "A new birth of American Poetry.The credit belongs to James Dalessandro."