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.

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References in periodicals archive

Merrill's Allen Ginsberg (1969), which connects Ginsberg to the poetic canon; Paul Portuges's The Visionary Poetics of Allen Ginsberg (1978), which places Ginsberg's verse in the mystic tradition; On the Poetry of Allen Ginsberg (1984), edited by Lewis Hyde, which collects the competing voices debating Ginsberg's aesthetic value; Jonah Raskin's American Scream: Allen Ginsberg s Howl and the Making of the Beat Generation (2004), which provides a cultural context for Ginsberg's most famous poem; and Tony Trigilio's Allen Ginsberg's Buddhist Poetics, which studies questions of poetics, religious authenticity, and political efficacy in Ginsberg's poetry.

The Poetry and Politics of Allen Ginsberg

"I hadn't particularly been interested in the Beat poets but I became a fan of the character of Allen Ginsberg in the script because he was the most vulnerable and innocent going into it all."

THE BEATS GO ON; HOGWARTS STAR GOES ON THE ROAD TO THE BEDROOM; Child actor all grown up playing San Fran writer

| Allen Ginsberg on a visit to the Black Mountains in 1967

Drug-inspired poem written in the Black Mountains by Beat Poet sells for PS3,125; GINSBERG'S WALES VISITATION PENNED ON CAPEL-Y-FFIN TRIP

In a performance outre enough to banish any semblance of Harry Potter from the screen, Daniel Radcliffe brings a solid physical likeness and a naturally sympathetic bearing to the role of the young Allen Ginsberg, portrayed here in his formative years as a sensitive and promising poet embarking on his freshman year at Columbia in 1944.

Kill Your Darlings

TERRIFIC: James Franco plays beat poet Allen Ginsberg

It's poetry in motion

Bruce McKinney, local gay rights activist and poet, reads three poems by Allen Ginsberg written while the famous beat legend was visiting Wichita.

Original Wichita Theatre Shorts to be presented at Fisch Haus

When Allen Ginsberg died, one of the world's largest churches, the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, was filled with mourners.

In defense of Allen Ginsberg

Toklas, Saul Bellow, Michael Chabon, Everything is Illuminated, "Gimpel the Fool," Allen Ginsberg, Joseph Heller, Erica Jong, Denise Levertov, Norman Mailer, Bernard Malamud, Maus, Arthur Miller, The Natural, Tillie Olsen, Cynthia Ozick, Dorothy Parker, Chaim Potok, Ragtime, Philip Roth, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Susan Sontag, Elie Wiesel, and more.

Encyclopedia of Jewish-American Literature

The pub is no pushover: It has published works by Allen Ginsberg, the beat poet, and the original gonzo journalist, Hunter S.

Back from the dead

One seminal event was the reading of a poem by Allen Ginsberg at an art gallery in San Francisco.

Ginsberg, Kerouac, the Beats and the Hippies

The young lovers moved in together, sharing an apartment with the future wife of William Burroughs, and began lifetime friendships with Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, and others.

You'll Be Okay

--Allen Ginsberg, quoted in Great Poets Howl: A Study of Allen Ginsberg's Poetry, 1943-1955

Literature of the Beat Generation