Irwin Allen Ginsberg was an American poet, philosopher and writer. He is considered to be one of the leading figures of both the Beat Generation during the 1950s and the counterculture that soon followed. Listen online to free English audiobook "Reading at the Poetry Center, San Francisco State University” on our website to experience Allen Ginsberg’s poetry. Ginsberg grew up in Paterson, New... Read More
Irwin Allen Ginsberg was born in Newark, New Jersey, to a high school teacher father who published poetry and a Russian-born mother who retained her communist roots. Ginsberg's willingness to talk about taboo subjects made him a controversial figure during the conservative 1950s and a significant figure in the 1960s. In the mid-1950s, no reputable publishing company would even consider publishi... Read More
Irwin Allen Ginsberg was born in Newark, New Jersey, to a high school teacher father who published poetry and a Russian-born mother who retained her communist roots. Ginsberg’s public breakthrough came in San Francisco, in 1955, when he read the first part of “Howl” before an audience as part of an event that launched the San Francisco Poetry Renaissance. Ginsberg was a practicing Buddhist who... Read More
Ginsberg first came to public attention in 1956 with the publication of Howl and Other Poems. Ginsberg was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 1995 for his book Cosmopolitan Greetings: Poems 1986–1992. “Howl,” a long-lined poem in the tradition of Walt Whitman, is an outcry of rage and despair against a destructive, abusive society. Ginsberg is strongly identified with the literary and cultural phenom... Read More
Howl, Ginsberg’s first published book, laments what he believed to have been the destruction by the insanity of the “best minds of the generation.” The inspiration for "Howl" was Ginsberg's friend, Carl Solomon, and "Howl" is dedicated to him. Solomon was a Dada and Surrealism enthusiast who suffered bouts of clinical depression. Solomon wanted to commit suicide, but he thought a form of suicid... Read More