Ah allen ginsberg biography summary

Allen Ginsberg was one of the founding fathers of the Beat Generation with his revolutionary poem "Howl. His mother Naomi had immigrated from Russia to the states while his father Louis was a poet and teacher. The young Ginsberg, who kept a journal from his pre-teen years and took to the poetry of Walt Whitman in high school, went on to attend Columbia University.

Burroughs , who would all become literary icons of a revolutionary cultural movement. Ginsberg started to focus on his writing during the mids while also exploring his attraction to men. Ginsberg graduated from Columbia in , but in the following year was involved as an accomplice in a robbery.

Allen ginsberg family

To avoid jail time, Ginsberg pleaded insanity, spending time in the university's mental health facilities. Upon his release, he started to study under poet William Carlos Williams and worked for a time at a Manhattan ad agency. In , Ginsberg moved to San Francisco and became part of the countercultural gathering that would come to be known as the Beat Movement, which used a number of artistic and sensory modes to eschew rigid rules of society.

Then in , Ginsberg read excerpts from his poem "Howl" at a gallery, which became a key manifesto of the Beat Generation and was published the following year by City Lights Bookstore in the form of Howl and Other Poems. The poem was deemed as being obscene and Ginsberg was tried for its content, though he was vindicated once the presiding judge ruled the work had merit.