Allen Ginsberg Biography - Poet of Beat Era

American Poet of the Beat Generation and Famous for Poem Howl

Aug 3, 2009
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Allen Ginsberg, American Poet of Beat Generation - Ludwig Urning, Wikimedia Commons

Biography of Allen Ginsberg, a poet and leading figure of America's Beat generation of new American poets. Famous for poems Howl and Kaddish.

Ginsberg was a major writer of the Beat Generation, New American poets, and postmodernism. His most famous poems, "Howl," is a condemnation of American society, and "Kaddish for Naomi Ginsberg (1894-1956)," is a lament for his mother who became insane.

The Beat generation of writers is a movement which revolutionized American literature in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Much of Ginsberg's writing focuses on what he saw as the struggle of the human spirit against a money-seeking society.

Early Life and Sorrow of Young Allen Ginsberg

Allen Ginsberg was born on June 3, 1926 in Newark, New Jersey. His father, a teacher, also wrote poetry. He was very close to his Russian-born mother, who died in a mental hospital when he was 30. Her life and her death are the subject of his moving poem "Kaddish." The word "Kaddish" is the Jewish prayer of mourning.

Writing Influences of Ginsberg

In 1948, Ginsberg graduated from Columbia University, where he met Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs, both of whom became important writers of the Beat Generation. After working at few odd office jobs, he decided to devote himself to writing poetry.

His early poems were inspired by the mystical poetry of William Blake. When he was 30, his successful poem "Howl" made him famous. "Howl" was an attack on American society, which he felt destroyed people's spirituality.

Allen Ginsberg's Beat Generation and Buddhism

Ginsberg, whose work was influenced by his interest in Zen Buddhism and meditation with the use of drugs, was open about his experimental drug-taking and his homosexuality. He formally became a Buddhist in 1972. In the 1960s he was a prominent protestor for artistic freedom and against Vietnam War. He performed his own poetry and Blake's, set to music before huge audiences.

Legacy of Allen Ginsberg

Ginsberg won the National Book Award in 1972 for The Fall of America. A leading figure of the Beat Generation movement which revolutionized American literature in his day, much of his writing deals with what he saw as the struggle of the human spirit against a materialistic society. He died in New York at the age of 70, April 5, 1997.

Quote on Allen Ginsberg

"Poets be fools of their own desire / O Anacreon and angelic Shelley! / Guide these new-nippled generations on / Space ships to Mars' next universe." ~ Allen Ginsberg, Who Be Kind To