Allen Ginsberg






Allen Ginsberg

author profile


born
June 03, 1926

died
April 05, 1997

gender
male

place of birth
Newark, New Jersey, The United States

website

genre
Poetry


about this author

Irwin Allen Ginsberg was the son of Louis and Naomi Ginsberg, two Jewish members of the New York literary counter-culture of the 1920s. Ginsberg was raised among several progressive political perspectives. A supporter of the Communist party, Ginsberg's mother was a nudist whose mental health was a concern throughout the poet's childhood. According to biographer Barry Miles, "Naomi's illness gave Allen an enormous empathy and tolerance for madness, neurosis, and psychosis."

As an adolescent, Ginsberg savored Walt Whitman, though in 1939, when Ginsberg graduated high school, he considered Edgar Allan Poe his favorite poet. Eager to follow a childhood hero who had received a scholarship to Columbia University, Ginsberg mad...more




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avg rating: 4.12 | 9,959 ratings | 514 reviews | 107 distinct works | 69 fans
Howl and Other Poems Howl and Other Poems
by Allen Ginsberg, William Carlos Williams (introduction)
avg rating 4.17 — 4,431 ratings — published 1956
6 editions
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Kaddish and Other Poems 1958-6... Kaddish and Other Poems 1958-60
by Allen Ginsberg
avg rating 4.22 — 746 ratings — published 1960
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Collected Poems 1947-80 Collected Poems 1947-80
by Allen Ginsberg
avg rating 4.23 — 639 ratings — published 1984
7 editions
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Howl: Original Draft Facsimile Howl: Original Draft Facsimile
by Allen Ginsberg
avg rating 4.10 — 453 ratings — published 1956
7 editions
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Reality Sandwiches: 1953-60 Reality Sandwiches: 1953-60
by Allen Ginsberg
avg rating 4.03 — 271 ratings — published 1963
3 editions
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Collected Poems 1947-1997 Collected Poems 1947-1997
by Allen Ginsberg
avg rating 4.43 — 218 ratings — published 1984
4 editions
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The Fall of America: Poems of... The Fall of America: Poems of These States 1965-1971 (City Lights Pocket Poets Series)
by Allen Ginsberg
avg rating 4.00 — 237 ratings — published 1972
3 editions
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Death and Fame: Last Poems 199... Death and Fame: Last Poems 1993-97
by Allen Ginsberg
avg rating 3.87 — 114 ratings — published 1999
3 editions
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Planet News 1961-67 Planet News 1961-67
by Allen Ginsberg
avg rating 4.15 — 106 ratings — published 1971
2 editions
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Selected Poems 1947-1995 Selected Poems 1947-1995
by Allen Ginsberg
avg rating 4.20 — 99 ratings — published 1996
5 editions
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"Follow your inner moonlight; don't hide the madness."
Allen Ginsberg
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"I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of the night."
Allen Ginsberg
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"The weight of the world is love.
Under the burden of solitude,
under the burden of dissatisfaction
the weight,the weight we carry is love. "
Allen Ginsberg
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