Allen Ginsberg

Allen Ginsberg is the author of Howl and other Poems.

In this series, a contemporary poet selects and introduces a poet of the past. By their choice of poems and by the personal and critical reactions they express in their prefaces, the editors offer insights into their own work as well as providing an accessible and passionate introduction to some of the greatest poets of our literature.

Allen Ginsberg (1926-97) was born in Newark, New Jersey, to a poet-teacher father and Russian emigrant mother. Along with his friend Jack Kerouac, he attended Columbia University, but was initially expelled for writings obscenities on his dormitory window before returning to complete his graduation in 1948. When Howl and Other Poems was impounded by San Francisco customs in 1956, the subsequent trial for obscenity catapulted Ginsberg and his publisher City Lights to national fame and helped to define the Beat Generation. His Collected Poems 1947-1997 appeared in 2006.