Ginsberg, Allen (gĭnz`bûrg), 1926–97, American poet, b. Paterson, N.J., grad. Columbia, 1949. An outspoken member of the beat generation beat generation, term applied to certain American artists and writers who were popular during the 1950s. Essentially anarchic, members of the beat generation rejected traditional social and artistic forms.
..... Click the link for more information. , Ginsberg is best known for Howl (1956), a long poem attacking American values in the 1950s. The prose of Jack Kerouac Kerouac, Jack (John Kerouac) (kĕr`əwăk'), 1922–69, American novelist, b. Lowell, Mass., studied at Columbia Univ.
..... Click the link for more information. , the insights of Zen Buddhism Zen Buddhism, Buddhist sect of China and Japan. The name of the sect (Chin. Ch'an, Jap. Zen) derives from the Sanskrit dhyana [meditation].
..... Click the link for more information. , and the free verse of Walt Whitman Whitman, Walt (Walter Whitman), 1819–92, American poet, b. West Hills, N.Y. Considered by many to be the greatest of all American poets, Walt Whitman celebrated the freedom and dignity of the individual and sang the praises of democracy and the brotherhood of
..... Click the link for more information. were some of the sources for Ginsberg's quest to glorify everyday experience, embrace the ecstatic moment, and promote sponteneity and freedom of expression. His volumes of poetry include Kaddish and Other Poems, 1958–60 (1961), Collected Poems, 1947–1980 (1984), and White Shroud: Poems 1980–85 (1986). His Collected Poems: 1947–1997 was published in 2006. Allen Verbatim (1974) is a collection of lectures, and Deliberate Prose (2000) a selection of essays.

Bibliography

See his journals (5 vol., 1971–96); collected correspondence (5 vol., 1976–2001); D. Carter, ed., Spontaneous Mind: Selected Interviews, 1958–1996 (2001); M. Schumacher, ed., Family Business: Selected Letters between a Father and Son (2001); biographies by B. Miles (1989), M. Schumacher (1992), and B. Morgan (2006); studies by L. Hyde, ed. (1984), T. F. Merrill (1988), and B. Miles (1993); bibliographies ed. by G. Dowden (1971), M. P. Kraus (1980), and B. Morgan (1995).

Ginsberg, Allen (Irwin)

(born June 3, 1926, Newark, N.J., U.S.—died April 5, 1997, New York, N.Y.) U.S. poet. Ginsberg was the son of a poet. He attended Columbia University, where he met Jack Kerouac. His epic poem Howl (1956), a denunciation of the failings of American society, became the most famous poem of the Beat movement; in it and later works, largely inspired by Walt Whitman, he celebrated the pleasures of psychotropic drugs, footloose wandering, and homosexuality. Kaddish (1961) is a long confessional poem about his mother's insanity and suicide. His collections include Reality Sandwiches (1963), The Fall of America (1972), and Mind Breaths (1978). Ginsberg's life was one of ceaseless travel, poetry readings, and left-wing political activity, and he was a guru of the American youth counterculture in the 1960s and '70s.

Ginsberg, Allen (1926– ) poet; born in Newark, N.J. After studying at Columbia University (B.A. 1948), he held numerous jobs, traveled widely, lived in the Far East (1962–63), but resided mainly in New York City. He was personally associated with Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs, and others in founding the Beat movement in New York and San Francisco (1950s and 1960s); his best known work was published in Howl and Other Poems (1956). In 1971 he became a director of the Committee on Poetry Foundation, N.Y., and the Kerouac School of Poetics, Colo. In later years he assumed the mantle of a gentle guru through his many lectures and as a practitioner of Eastern meditation.