Allen Ginsberg was born in Newark, New Jersey, in 1926, to a Jewish Russian immigrant family. His father, Louis, was a published poet, a high school teacher and a moderate Jewish Socialist. His mother, Naomi, was a radical Communist who went insane and got institutionalized in early adulthood. While dealing with his mother's problems, he was struggling with his own budding homosexuality. In the 1940's, Ginsberg entered Columbia University as a pre-law student, but late changed to his true love, literature. During this time, he began close friendships with a group of wild souls: William S. Burroughs, Neal Cassady, and Jack Kerouac, all of whom later became key figures of the Beat movement. In 1954, Ginsberg moved to San Francisco. He was the first Beat writer to gain popular notice when he delivered a thundering performance of his highly controversial poem, Howl. Howl, had to overcome censorship trials and became one of the most widely read poems of the century, translated into more than twenty-two languages. In the early sixties, Ginsberg threw himself into the hippie scene, experimented with drugs, and took place in protests against the Vietnam War. In 1965 he coined a famous phrase of the sixties, "Flower Power." Also his willingness to state his controversial views in public was an important factor in the development of the revolutionary state of mind that America developed during the 1960's. In the1960's and '70's, Ginsberg studied under gurus and Zen masters. He went on to co-found and direct the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at the Naropa Institute in Colorado. During the 70's and 80's, Ginsberg recorded and occasionally toured with Bob Dylan and the Clash. In his later years he became a Distinguished Professor at Brooklyn College, and carried and active social schedule until his death. He died in his East Village apartment on April 5, 1997 surrounded by friends and loved ones. Now I am going to tell you a...
