Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997)

Follow your inner moonlight; don't hide the madness...

Tuesday, November 16, 2010
 The Life of Allen Ginsberg
Born in Newark, New Jersey.
Parents were 2nd-generation Russian-Jewish
immigrants, left-wing radicals interested in Marxism,
nudism, feminism and active members of the USA
Communist Party
Won a scholarship to Columbia University
Changed his major from Law to English
Friends with Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs,
Herbert Huncke and Neal Cassady, whose enormous
sexual appetite helped Ginsberg to accept his own
homosexuality.
Named themselves the "Beat Generation" writers
Worked as a welder in the Brooklyn naval yards,
dishwasher, night porter, and other odd jobs.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

 The Life of Allen Ginsberg
Troubles with the law
Spent eight months at the Columbia Psychiatric Institute.
Began to experiment with peyote and campaigned for the
liberation of American anti-drug laws
Before devoting himself to poetry, Ginsberg worked for
Newsweek and as a market research consultant
Summer of 1948, Ginsberg had dedicated himself to
becoming a poet after hearing in a vision the voice of
William Blake reciting the poem "Ah Sunflower."
Howl: gained immediate fame in 1955
long, free-verse poem, reminiscent of Walt Whitman
and influenced by the American Transcendentalists.
Exemplifies Ginsberg's spontaneous composition
with natural wanderings of the mind and rhythms of
breathing.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

 The Life of Allen Ginsberg

Felt a poet's duty was to bring a visionary

consciousness of reality to his readers.
Kaddish: About mothers tragic life
mother suffered from recurrent epileptic
seizures and paranoia.
15 years in mental hospitals, enduring the
effects of electroshock treatments and a
lobotomy
After the death of his mother, Ginsberg began
traveling both at home and abroad
Turned to Buddhism
Experimented with various psychedelic
stimulants to create visionary poetry

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

 The Life of Allen Ginsberg
Ginsberg traveled to India 1962 and stayed for nearly two
years.
Met with holy men in an effort to find someone who
could teach him a method of meditation that would help
himdeal with his egotism and serve as a vehicle
for heightened spiritual awareness.
Lectured at universities, opposed the Vietnam War,
marched against the C.I.A. and the Shah of Iran, and was
arrested in the riots during the 1968 Democratic
Convention in Chicago.
Cuba deported him after he protested at the regiment's
treatment of homosexuals and called Che Guevara ''cute''.
In his late years, Ginsberg remained a radical poet,
embodying the ideals of personal freedom, nonconformity,
and the search for enlightenment while publishing and
traveling despite increasing health problems with diabetes
and the aftereffects of a stroke.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

 A Supermarket in California
What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for I
walked down the streets under the trees with a headache
self-conscious looking at the full moon.
In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went into the
neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations!
What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families shopping
at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives in the avocados,
babies in the tomatoes! --- and you,
Garcia Lorca, what were you doing down by the watermelons?
I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber,
poking among the meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the
grocery boys.
I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed the pork
chops? What price bananas? Are you my Angel?
I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of cans following
you, and followed in my imagination by the store detective.
We strode down the open corridors together in our solitary
fancy tasting artichokes, possessing every frozen delicacy, and
never passing the cashier.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

 A Supermarket in California

Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors close

in an hour. Which way does your beard point tonight?
(I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the
supermarket and feel absurd.)
Will we walk all night through solitary streets? The
trees add shade to shade, lights out in the houses,
we'll both be lonely.
Will we stroll dreaming of the lost America of love
past blue automobiles in driveways, home to our
silent cottage?
Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-
teacher, what America did you have when Charon quit
poling his ferry and you got out on a smoking bank
and stood watching the boat disappear on the black
waters of Lethe?

Tuesday, November 16, 2010