In the late 1950s, the experimental US artist Wallace Berman created the cult magazine Semina, which was published and distributed in nine editions between 1955 and 1964. Each issue of Semina was never published in more than a few hundred copies, and it was not possible to buy one. The artist sent Semina to a selection of friends and acquaintances, so today it can be regarded as an early form of Mail art. Semina featured poetry, photographs, texts, drawings and images, which Berman himself collated and curated in a kind of collage. He collected the material from a large number of artists and writers, such as Charles Bukowski (1920-1994), Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997), William S. Burroughs (1914-1997), Jean Cocteau (1889-1963), Jack Kerouac (1922-1969) and himself, writing under the pseudonym of Pantale Xantos. Like Wallace Berman, several of the artists were part of the Beat Generation: a literary movement consisting of young American writers who, in response to the post-war period, came together, writing experimental poetry and prose. The Beat Generation was a kind of urban protest culture, which was part of the youth revolt and made a huge impact on a wide range of artistic endeavour. It also coloured Semina, which portrays the aesthetics and values of one of the then new subcultures, as a picture of an underground culture and a network, in which art, poetry, film, jazz music and drugs were part of the artistic environment.