Allen Ginsberg
Allen Ginsberg (June 3, 1926 - April 5 1997) was an American Beat poet born in Paterson, New Jersey. Ginsberg's poetry was strongly influenced by modernism, the beats and cadence of jazz, and his Buddhist faith and his Jewish background. In addition, he formed a bridge between the Beats of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s befriending, amongst others, Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassady and Bob Dylan. Ginsberg was an open homosexual and a member of NAMBLA.
His principal work, "Howl" (ISBN 0872860175), was considered scandalous at the time of publication, due to the rawness of the language, which was frequently explicit. Shortly after its 1956 publication by San Francisco's City Lights Bookstore, it was banned for obscenity. The ban became a cause cÃÂélÃÂèbre among defenders of the First Amendment, and was later lifted after a judge declared the poem to possess redeeming social importance. Ginsberg's liberal and generally anti-establishment politics attracted the attentions of the FBI and he was regarded by them as a major security threat. (It is of some interest to note that the second part of Howl was inspired and written primarily during a peyote vision.)
Ginsberg's other major works include "Kaddish" (ISBN 0872860191), a meditation on the death of his mother (this one written while on amphetamines), Naomi Ginsberg, and "Hadda be Playin' on a Jukebox", a poem revolving around certain events of the 1960s and 1970s. "Plutonian Ode" (ISBN 0872861252) is a poem against nuclear weaponry. Ginsberg was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for his book "Cosmopolitan Greetings: Poems 1986-1992."
List of works
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