Allen Ginsberg

Renowned poet, world traveler, spiritual seeker, founding member of a major literary movement, champion of human and civil rights, photographer and songwriter, political gadfly, teacher and co-founder of a poetics school. Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997) defied simple classification. As a poet, he will probably be remembered most for two lengthy masterworks: “Howl”, with its famous opening line (“I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness”) and relentless, rhythmic litany of lines devoted to the celebration of those minds, and “Kaddish” the powerful, heartbreaking biography of his mother, Naomi Ginsberg, who spent most of her adult life in a state of mental torment. The 1956 publication of Howl and Other Poems established Ginsberg as an important voice in American poetry. But Ginsberg would achieve international fame a year later with the highly publicized “Howl” obscenity trial in San Francisco and the publication of Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road”. The life and writings of Allen Ginsberg continue to be of great interest today — long after he succumbed to liver cancer in 1997. Almost all of his books remain in print. Four books of writings and interviews have been posthumously published and new volumes of journals and correspondence are forthcoming. His poems appear regularly in anthologies around the world, and his photographs are constantly recycled in books and magazines. Universities offer Ginsberg and Beat Generation courses. Source