Beyond Dimensions

By Keith Grimes

The Beat Generation

Following the Second World War, a group of writers and artists calling themselves the Beat Generation became popular in the United States. This movement challenged the dominant society’s conformist values and materialistic aspirations, embracing nonconformity and spontaneous creativity and rejecting traditional social norms—and they did so loudly and fluently. The Beat Era was a precursor to one of the most significant literary, poetic, and musical movements in history, and, most importantly, the protests for civil rights and the end of the Vietnam War. Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William S. Burroughs occupied leading positions in this literary and cultural revolution. Their works, characterized by uncompromising honesty and a quest for spiritual enlightenment, resonated with a generation disillusioned with the conservatism of postwar America.

The early poets William Blake and Walt Whitman had an outsized influence on the Beat writers. Like them, Ginsberg’s life and work embodied the spirit of rebellion, nonconformity, and a relentless pursuit of artistic freedom (see «The Masters at Work: William Blake” in Beyond Dimensions, Issue No. 1).

Many people regard «Howl,» Ginsberg’s seminal work, as the manifesto of the Beat Generation because of its visceral and uncompromising language. The narrative poem, published in 1956, challenged traditional notions of propriety, and explored themes of sexuality, drugs, and the human condition. He had a profound interest in Eastern spirituality and philosophy, especially Buddhism.

Birth and Education, Travel

Ginsberg was born to Russian-Jewish immigrants in 1926 in Newark, New Jersey. He developed a fascination with literature early on, constantly reading and writing his ideas on any scrap of paper. His authentic voice came to the fore when he first encountered fellow Beat writers such as Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs.

As a young boy, Ginsberg learned the value of intellectual conversations and artistic endeavors. His mother, Naomi, taught him an appreciation for literature and encouraged his creative endeavors from an early age.

Ginsberg studied literature, philosophy, and the arts at Columbia University in New York City. There, he first read William Blake and Walt Whitman, writers who would influence his poetic voice. Beyond the formal education offered at Columbia, Ginsberg furthered his education by engaging with a dynamic community of artists, writers, and intellectuals in the bustling streets of New York City and, later, in the cafes and bars of San Francisco. He also traveled extensively outside the United States, especially in Latin America and Asia.

Ginsberg was strongly connected to Mexico with its rich cultural traditions and revolutionary spirit, all of which influenced Ginsberg’s life and work. Beyond Mexico, Ginsberg’s travels took him to other parts of Latin America, including Cuba, where he witnessed the revolutionary fervor that swept the region in the second half of the 20th century. Ginsberg’s travels in Latin America introduced him to the diversity of Indigenous cultures and belief systems that have persisted in the region for centuries, with a particular attraction to the shamanic traditions of the Amazon basin, where he participated in ceremonial rituals involving the use of plant-based psychedelics. In Asia, Ginsberg spent substantial time in India. He found the Indian people among Earth’s most interesting. He also visited Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Japan. He visited the tiny Kingdom of Sikkim, where he became interested in Buddhism. Later, he would become a Buddhist.

Kaddish

“Kaddish” tells the story of Naomi’s insanity and death. Growing up, Ginsberg witnessed his mother suffer numerous psychotic episodes, each growing progressively worse despite desperate attempts at treatment. Before the episodes, Naomi Ginsberg had been a pretty and vivacious schoolteacher, exhibiting a fanatical devotion to the Communist Party but well-loved by family, friends, and neighbors. The first episodes occurred before Ginsberg was born and then again when he was still young. Naomi complained about a painful sensitivity to light, and she would sit in darkened rooms for hours at a time. A visit to an expensive sanitorium in Bloomingdale helped.

As Ginsberg entered his early teenage years, Naomi got worse again. She had never had a good relationship with her mother-in-law and began to suspect her of plotting against her in unlikely ways. Later, she was committed to Greystone, a large mental hospital in New Jersey, where doctors treated her with medication, insulin shock, and, later, electroshock. These treatments did not seem to help. Naomi remained unstable and unhappy during Ginsberg’s teenage years. She returned to Greystone often, sometimes staying for years at a time. The three men of the Ginsberg household, Ginsberg, Eugene, his older brother, and his father, Louis, were able to keep the family together despite challenging times. Ginsberg viewed her insanity as a spiritual condition rather than a mental one and sought ways to see meaning or truth in her disconnected, paranoid ravings.

She returned home several times, but each time, her condition deteriorated, and she returned to Greystone. Eventually, she and Louis divorced, and she moved in with her sister but wound up living in the Pilgrim State Hospital in Long Island, New York, where her doctor recommended lobotomy. In 1948, Allen and his brother decided to approve the surgery. (Lobotomy involves the surgical severing of connections within the brain, leaving a person permanently numb to emotional experience. Lobotomies are no longer legal.)

Naomi died on June 9, 1956. At that time, Ginsberg was living in Berkeley, California, enjoying the exciting first phase of his literary celebrity. He had published “Howl” a year earlier and had just fallen in love with Peter Orlovsky, who became his lifelong partner/lover. He felt little or no connection to the atmosphere of the mental hospitals where his mother lived.

He missed her funeral and later learned that the Kaddish (Jewish prayer for the dead) had not been read at the funeral because there were insufficient men present to read the prayer. Two years later, in November 1958, Ginsberg visited his friend Zev Putterman. Ginsberg told his friend about his mother’s death and that too few men were present to read the Kaddish. Zev had a copy of the prayer in his apartment; he retrieved it, and the two of them performed the ceremony themselves, two years too late. Ginsberg returned to his apartment and began writing.

“Kaddish” transcends how poetry appears to most. It begins with the story of a walk by Naomi and her son:

Strange now to think of you, gone without corsets & eyes, while I walk on the sunny pavement of Greenwich Village.

downtown Manhattan, clear winter noon, and I’ve been up all night, talking, talking, reading the Kaddish aloud, listening to Ray Charles’s blues shout blind on the phonograph

the rhythm the rhythm—and your memory in my head three years after—

 The second section is a lengthy description of life with his mother:

              I left on the next bus to New York—laid my head back in the last seat, depressed—the worst yet to come? —abandoning her, rode in torpor—I was only 12.

       Would she hide in her room and come out cheerful for breakfast? Or lock her door and stare thru the window for sidestreet spies? Listen at keyholes for Hitlerian invisible gas? Dream in a chair—or mock me, by—in front of a mirror, alone?

And:

One night, sudden attack—her noise in the bathroom—like croaking up her soul—convulsions and red vomit coming out of her mouth—diarrhea water exploding from her behind—on all fours in front of the toilet—urine running between her legs—left retching on the tile floor smeared with her black feces—unfainted—

       At forty, varicosed, nude, fat, doomed, hiding outside the apartment door near the elevator calling Police, yelling for her girlfriend Rose to help—

In the final sections, he describes her in death:

with your eyes running naked out of the apartment screaming into the hall

with your eyes being led away by policemen to an ambulance

with your eyes strapped down on the operating table

with your eyes with the pancreas removed

with your eyes of appendix operation

with your eyes of abortion

with your eyes of ovaries removed

with your eyes of shock

with your eyes of lobotomy

with your eyes of divorce

with your eyes of stroke

with your eyes alone

with your eyes

with your eyes

with your Death full of Flowers

Ginsberg imagines crows “caw, cawing over her grave, praying, Lord Lord Lord Naomi underneath this grass my halflife and my own as hers – “

Kaddish and Other Poems, 1958 – 19060 by Allen Ginsberg. City Light Publishers, 1961

William S. Burroughs

Ginsberg and Kerouac met William S. Burroughs in 1944 at Columbia University in New York City. The three are considered primary figures in the Beat Movement. Burroughs was a significant postmodern author who wrote 18 novels and novellas, six short story collections, and four books of essays. He also had five books of his interviews and letters published. He participated in numerous presentations with other performers and musicians and appeared in several films. An important visual artist, he created and exhibited thousands of visual artworks, including his well-received “shotgun art.”

Burroughs, born in 1914, was older than most of his fellow Beat writers and artists. Unlike much of the Beat Generation, Burroughs, born in St. Louis, came from wealth. His grandfather, William Seward Burroughs I, was an inventor and founded the Burroughs Corporation, a major business equipment manufacturer. Burroughs received a BA in English from Harvard University and did postgraduate work in anthropology. He studied medicine in Vienna. He served in the Army during WWII but could not continue his military career after the war’s conclusion. He was rejected by the Office of Strategic Services and the Navy, which was very disappointing. A rejected and dejected Burroughs turned to substance abuse, starting with morphine, and eventually became a heroin addict, an affliction that would haunt him for the rest of his life.

Burroughs’s first novel, Junkie (Ace Double, 1953, under the pseudonym William Lee), was a success. Junkie was a confessional. This novel drew heavily on his drug addiction. His best-known novel is Naked Lunch (Olympia Press, 1959), an “anti-novel” that does not follow a traditional plot. It is structured as a series of “routines” that do not follow a linear order. The book is about a drug addict who lives in “Interzone,” a surreal city located in an unnamed place but closely resembling the Tangier International Zone, which is now part of Morocco. Burroughs did live in the Tangier International Zone, attracted to the place by its reputation for legal drugs and same-sex relationships.

In addition to writing nonlinearly, Burroughs helped popularize the “cut up” aleatory literary technique. This technique involved rearranging and reassembling text, creating a disorienting reading experience. He used the technique heavily in his collection of three experimental novels, The Nova Trilogy or The Cut-up Trilogy, which includes The Soft Machine (Olympia Press, 1961), Nova Express (Grove Press, 1964), and The Ticket That Exploded (Grove Press, 1967).

Kerouac branded Burroughs the most excellent satirical writer since Jonathan Swift; J.G. Ballard called him the most important writer to emerge since the Second World War; and Norman Mailer called him the only American writer who could be considered a genius. Burroughs was elected to the American Academy and Institute of the Arts in 1983, and France awarded him the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

In 1974, Burroughs returned from living abroad to the United States to live, first in New York, then in 1981 to Lawrence, Kansas. He continued his on-again/off-again relationship with heroin until his death. His son, Billy, succumbed to cirrhosis of the liver that same year, a disease brought on by alcoholism. While father and son were not particularly close, Burroughs did what he could to help his son, who was able to receive a liver transplant. However, after Burroughs’s move to Kansas, Bill stopped taking his anti-rejection medicine and was discovered dead on the side of a road. Through these years, Burroughs became enamored with Libertarianism and the 2d Amendment (right to bear arms). He was also prolific in the visual arts and performed in movies, the theater, readings, and musical venues. Burroughs died of a heart attack on August 2, 1997, at the age of 83.

Joan Vollmer

From the beginning, Joan Vollmer was a patron and muse of the Beats. She shared an apartment with Edie Parker, who later married Kerouac. The two women provided a meeting place for the original Beat writers and often hosted all-night discussion sessions. Joan and Burroughs formed a family with two children, one by Joan’s former husband and one together. Both partners had addictions, and while living in Louisiana, Burroughs was charged with drug dealing. His lawyer arranged to have him turn in some of his associates and thereby had the opportunity to flee to Mexico City. The couple suffered drug addiction, the strain of raising two boys, arguments, Burroughs’s indifference, and at least one episode of domestic violence. In 1950, a divorce petition was filed in Mexico City but withdrawn by their attorney in an effort for Burroughs to avoid custody problems.

Burroughs shot Vollmer in the face. There are several versions of the story, but the most accepted is that Burroughs, while the two of them were drunk, attempted to shoot a bottle off of her head, missed, and killed her with one shot. Afterward, through counsel, Burroughs kept his case out of court until he was eventually allowed to leave Mexico. He returned to Louisiana to deal with legal problems there and, while gone, was convicted in Mexico of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to two years, suspended. It was then that Burroughs moved to The Tangier International Zone.

Jack Kerouac

Jack Kerouac was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1922 and died in St. Petersburg, Florida, on October 21, 1969, from complications of cirrhosis caused by his long-time alcohol abuse. He is the central figure in the large cast of Beat Writers, along with Ginsberg and Burroughs, and the foundation of the entire movement. He was a prolific writer. Some of the best-known narratives are On the Road (Viking Press, 1957), The Dharma Bums (Viking Press, 1958), The Subterraneans (Grove Press, 1958), Visions of Cody  (New Direction, 1959), Big Sur (Farrar, Straus & Co, 1962), Desolation Angles (Coward-McCann Inc., 1965), Tristessa (Avon Book, 1969), and an important work of poetry, Mexico City Blues: 242 Choruses (Grove Press, 1959).

Ginsberg and Kerouac met at Columbia University in 1944. They immediately connected. One man, a nerdy New York Jew, and the other, a dashing Québécoise wrestler and football player, could not have been, on the surface, more different. Nevertheless, they began a journey of self-discovery, challenging society’s notion of what is “normal” while ignoring limits on artistic expression by others. Their friendship was a testament to the power of shared passion, mutual respect, and the transitive impact of art on human experience. (For more on Jack Kerouac, see «The Masters at Work: Jack Kerouac” in Beyond Dimensions, Issue No. 4.)

Peter Orlovsky

Ginsberg’s relationships were frequently unconventional, defying conventional notions of monogamy. His most notable partnership was with his lover and lifelong companion, Peter Orlovsky, whom he met in 1954. Ginsberg encouraged Peter to write, and he accompanied the Beats on their many journeys worldwide. He was a published poet and taught at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado (see below). Despite having an open marriage (in part due to Peter’s bisexuality), they remained committed to each other until Ginsberg died in 1997. Peter succumbed to lung cancer on May 30, 2010, at the age of 76.

Ginsberg/Kerouac Letters

The friendship between Ginsberg and Kerouac may have as much impact as any friendship between authors in the history of American Literature, and there have been many. They collaborated throughout their professional lives, habitually reading and commenting on each other’s work. Their politics and religions were dissimilar, but their lust for life and support for complete artistic freedom bound them in a connection that never wavered.

Much of their friendship was memorialized in letters that they exchanged throughout it. The letters only ceased when Kerouac died. While Americans usually celebrate individuality and personal achievement, these letters testify to the power of human connection and the lasting legacy of true friendship. Jack Kerouac—Allen Ginsberg—The Letters, (Penguin Publishing Group, 2011).

Howl

Like other members of the Beat Generation, Ginsberg wrote in a stream-of-consciousness style, allowing his words to cascade without obstruction, a flood of images and emotions unconstrained. His poets’ oeuvre contains a jumble of urban experiences, from the busy streets of New York to the intimate jazz clubs and cafés in San Francisco, where the immigrant, marginalized, and idealistic converged. Their quest led them first to Mexico and much of Latin America, Morrocco, France, India, and elsewhere. This bi-coastal and multinational canvas served as a stage for the dance of words, a symphony of dissonance and harmony that challenges the status quo with each note.

Ginsberg invites the reader to immerse themselves in the chaos, passion, and unbridled energy that characterize the lines and allow the words to wash over them, immersing them in the waters of uncompromising self-expression. Finally, it is not the polished and pristine that endure but the authentic and unwavering voices that resonate through the ages.

Ginsberg presents “Howl” as a letter to his friend, Carl Solomon. The poem’s opening lines establish a raw intensity and urgency from the outset:

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 night,

who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz, —

As readers progress through the poem, they encounter a plethora of vivid and often hallucinatory images concerning drugs, mental illness, sexuality, and the challenges associated with living on the periphery of “normal” society. The language employed is a fusion of profane and sacred, gritty, and sublime. The message is a cry for freedom and the acceptance of the “other.”

Ginsberg’s fearless embrace of taboo subjects and uncompromising commitment to authenticity resonated deeply with a generation seeking to break free from the shackles of conformity and repression.

What sphinx of cement and aluminum bashed open their skulls and ate up their brains and imagination?

Moloch! Solitude! Filth! Ugliness! Ashcans and unobtainable dollars! Children screaming under the stairways! Boys sobbing in armies! Old men weeping in the parks!

Moloch! Moloch! Nightmare of Moloch! Moloch the loveless! Mental Moloch! Moloch the heavy judger of men!

Moloch the incomprehensible prison! Moloch the crossbone soulless jailhouse and Congress of sorrows! Moloch whose buildings are judgment! Moloch the vast stone of war! Moloch the stunned governments!

Beyond its provocative nature, «Howl» calls for freedom, advocating for the right to live without societal judgment or persecution. Ginsberg challenged mainstream America’s attempts to suppress and ignore the voices of those seeking to be heard by articulating the voices of a marginalized subculture.

Ginsberg writes to Carl, who is in the Rockland asylum:

I’m with you in Rockland

   where you accuse your doctors of insanity and plot the Hebrew socialist revolution against the fascist national Golgotha

I’m with you in Rockland

   where you will split the heavens of Long Island and resurrect your living human Jesus from the superhuman tomb

“Howl” is a beacon of hope and rebellion in a world that often demands conformity. It reminds us to love our individuality and not silence the voice within. It is a masterpiece that endures. (Howl and Other Poems by Allen Ginsberg. Introduction by William Carlos Willams. City Lights Publishers, 1959.)

The Howl Obscenity Trial

Conservatives reacted with outrage to the publication of “Howl” by the small press City Lights Publishers; they considered the book’s explicit language and references to drug use to be obscene. In March 1957, the US Customs Service seized 520 copies of the book, which had been shipped from a printer in England. Agents alleged that the book was obscene under US law. In June 1957, Lawerence Ferlinghetti, a poet and a co-founder of City Lights, and Shig Murao, manager of the store, were arrested on obscenity charges. Strangely, Ginsberg was not arrested.

The trial occurred in San Francisco and was presided over by Judge Clayton W. Horn. He tried the case without a jury.

An example of an offending line in the poem was “…who let themselves be fucked in the ass by saintly motorcyclists, and screamed with joy…”  However, to prove obscenity, the government had to prove that the average person, applying contemporary community standards and the material taken as a whole, would find that the dominant theme appeals to the prurient interest. (Howl, Id.)

The charges against Murao were dropped early in the case. The American Civil Liberties Union assisted in Ginsberg’s defense. Jake Erlich and Lawrence Speiser represented him.

On June 3, 1957, Judge Horn found that «Howl» was not obscene, had cultural and social significance, and had redeeming literary value. Today, “Howl” is considered a significant contribution to American poetry. The case was a victory for free speech and is now a leading case supporting writers and publishers the government would suppress.

Later, the United States Supreme Court upheld Ginsberg’s conviction for mailing advertising materials instructing readers on how to obtain obscene publications. The Supreme Court did not find the advertising obscene; however, it found that Ginsberg did “appeal to prurient interests, and his conviction was upheld. (Howl on Trial: The Battle for Free Expression, City Lights Publishers, 2006.)

The Six Gallery

In the mid-20th century, a literary revolution occurred in San Francisco’s North Beach neighborhood. The Six Gallery became the center of the Beat Generation. On 7 October 1955, the venue hosted a poetry reading that would prove to be a defining moment in the history of the Beat movement. The event, organized by the poet Kenneth Rexroth, featured readings by several of the movement’s key writers, including Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, Philip Lamantia, Michael McClure, and Philip Whalen. During this pivotal evening, Ginsberg unveiled his controversial poem «Howl.”

The gathering of these literary rebels, including Kerouac, Burroughs, and Kerouac’s friend, Neal Cassady, at the Six Gallery represented the birth of the Beat Generation. (Cassidy accompanied Kerouac on the Mexican trip that formed the basis of Kerouac’s famous novel, On the Road (On the Road, Viking Press, 1957).

The Six Gallery became a sanctuary where Beat writers and artists could freely express their ideas, share their work, and enjoy the company of their friends.

The Six Gallery no longer exists, but the Beat Generation’s legacy endures. Despite massive gentrification in the city, its spirit continues to live in San Francisco’s still-vibrant community of readers and writers.

City Lights Bookstore and Vesuvio Café

City Lights Bookstore was founded in 1953 by poets Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Peter D. Martin. The store is located between San Francisco’s North Beach and Chinatown neighborhoods. Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Peter D. Martin. In 1956, the store hosted the first publication of «Howl and Other Poems,» a move that patrons viewed as a rebellious protest against censorship.

The relationship between Ginsberg and City Lights extended beyond the publication of Ginsberg’s books. He frequented the store often and participated in readings and discussions. He was well-received by the patrons of City Lights, and his appearances helped to draw large crowds to the store.

The City Lights Bookstore remains important today, not only to San Franciscans but to readers and writers worldwide. The store offers diverse literary works, from classical to avant-garde. The establishment’s distinctive facade, embellished with a neon sign bearing the words «HUNGRY MIND REVIEW,» serves as a beacon, inviting patrons to venture within and delve into the realm of literature.

City Lights is so enduring that when the government closed the bookstore during the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in the owners losing money, numerous patrons, friends, and others contributed several hundred thousand dollars to the owners, ensuring the store would not close after the Pandemic ran its course.

Patrons may also want to visit the Vesuvio Café, just across the alley from the bookstore. The alley was formerly known as Adler. In 1988, the city transformed the alley into a pedestrian-only zone and renamed it Jack Kerouac Alley. Italian architect Italo Zanolini designed and built the building in 1913, and art connoisseur Henri Lenoir inaugurated Vesuvio in 1948. Works by local artists cover the walls.

 Of particular note is that one may imbibe a beverage in the bar frequented by Ginsberg, Kerouac, and other Beats.

Andrew Cummings has lauded the Vesuvio as the finest bar in America, and the owners have left it unchanged from the era when the Beat poets occupied giant wicker chairs, conversing with activists, radicals, die-hards, and fellow Beats. An ultra-steep staircase leads to the basement bathrooms, the winding staircase ascends to the balcony, and the stained glass and the assorted kitsch collected over the years are all still in place. Also, the pay phone where Kerouac telephoned Henry Miller, the great novelist and short story writer, to apologize for a missed meeting, still hangs on the wall. After all, what is a meeting with the famous  writer compared to an evening in Vesuvio?

For those seeking to understand the Beat Generation and its considerable influence on American literature, visiting City Lights Bookstore is imperative. This bookstore has played a pivotal role in the literary landscape, inspiring numerous writers and providing a space for free expression and resistance.

The Evergreen Review

Barney Rosset, the publisher of Grove Press, a pioneering progressive publishing house, established The Evergreen Review in 1957. The first issue included an interview with Baby Dodds, a famous New Orleans Jazz drummer, and a story from Dante by Samuel Beckets, Dante and the Lobster. Beckett would appear often in the magazine. The magazine was published until 1984. Thereafter, it resumed publication online in 1998 and 2017. The second issue was a milestone. It featured a banner across the cover reading “San Francisco Scene.”  The issue held the first-ever collection of the new Beat writers, including Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Gary Snyder, Michael McClure, Phillip Whalen, Kerouac, and Ginsberg. The March-April 1960 issue, which included works by Albert Camus, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Bertolt Brecht, Amiri Baraka, and Edward Albee’s first play, The Zoo Story (1958), is also noteworthy for its lasting influence.

The magazine has been consistently progressive, from its early emphasis on civil rights and opposition to the Vietnam War. The image of Che Guevara that first appeared on the magazine’s February 1968 cover became a popular symbol of resistance. The literary journal is still committed to publishing progressive works and honoring free expression. Its writers are international in scope and diverse in gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, and national origin.

Readers distinguish The Evergreen Review by its unwavering dedication to artistic freedom. The journal serves as a platform for avant-garde voices and challenging work, both past and present.

The Evergreen Review has published seminal works by Samuel Beckett, Jorge Luis Borges, Charles Bukowski, Burroughs, Marguerite Duras, Jean Genet, Ginsberg, Günter Grass, Kerouac, Norman Mailer, Henry Miller, Pablo Neruda, Vladimir Nabokov, Frank O’Hara, and many more. These include Hara, Kenzaburō Ōe, Octavio Paz, Harold Pinter, Susan Sontag, Tom Stoppard, Michael Ernest Sweet, Derek Walcott, and Malcolm X. Noteworthy is the controversial contribution of United States Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas in 1969, as well as the regular contributions of Kerouac and Ginsberg to the magazine. Notably, the editors republished “Howl” in the second issue of The Evergreen Review.

The legacies of Ginsberg and The Evergreen Review are a testament to the power of free expression and the courage required to defend it. Their defiant stance against censorship and consistent advocacy of the transformative power of art continue to inspire artists, writers, and advocates worldwide, reminding us of the vital role that unfettered creative expression plays in shaping a more just and enlightened society.

Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics

Ginsberg, Anne Waldman, John Cage, and Diane di Prima founded the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at the Naropa Institute in 1974 in Boulder, Colorado. The Ginsberg Library opened at the school in 1994.

Today, Naropa is a fully accredited university offering a liberal arts education that balances rigorous academics with powerful people skills and self-awareness to educate the whole person. Buddhist philosophy and the conviction that the university can build a diverse, contemplative, enlightened society that affirms the essential goodness of every person inspire Naropa’s philosophy of education (History of Naropa University). https://www.naropa.edu/about-naropa/history-of-naropa/).

The Beat Writers’ influence today

Some believe that the Beat writers represent the beginning of the decline of literature in America, arguing that the modernists that preceded them produced the last great American literature. Who would pick Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Burroughs over Earnest Hemmingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls (Scribner’s Sons, 1940), T.S. Elliot’s Four Quarters, a collection of poems first published as a collection by Farber in 1943, or Samuel Becket’s Waiting for Godot, (Grove Press, 1955)? As influential as the Modernists were and are, it would be difficult to make the case that this generation of writers had the widespread impact that the Beat writers had and have.

The Beat Writers continue to inspire writers to reject pressure to be “normal,” embrace spirituality, freedom, and authenticity, and, most of all, reject any effort by the “establishment” to enforce conformity. A trip to City Lights Bookstore would impress any reader with the possibilities that being free and independent brings.

The Beats have significantly influenced music, especially folk, jazz, and rock ‘n roll. Kerouac and Ginsberg influenced Bob Dylan to write “Desolation Row.’ The Beats influenced Lou Reed, Kurt Cobain, Velvet Underground, and many others for their style and propensity to reject conventional notions of contemporary music.

Today’s literary “hipsters” find their roots in the Beat movement and continue the tradition of independence, freedom, and almost total rejection of societal norms.

Brief Bibliography compiled by The Allen Ginsberg Project.

Poetry

Wait Till I’m Dead: Uncollected Poems, edited by Bill Morgan (Grove Press, 2016).

The Essential Ginsberg, edited by Michael Schumacher and published by Harper Perennial in 2015.

The Howl, illustrated by Eric Drooker, Harper Perennial, 2010.

The Collected Poems 1947-1997, published by Harper Collins in 2006.

The Illuminated Poems, illustrated by Eric Drooker, Thunder’s Mouth, NYC, 2006.

The Book of Martyrdom and Artifice: Early Journals and Poems 1937-1952, edited by Bill Morgan, 2006.

Harper Perennial (paperback) in New York City published Howl Annotated in 2006, accompanied by a facsimile of the manuscript.

Death & Fame: Poems 1993-1997 Harper Collins, NYC, 1999.

The Selected Poems 1947-1995 (Harper Collins, NYC, 1996)

The fourth volume, ‘Cosmopolitan Greetings: Poems 1986-1993’, HarperCollins in New York City in 1994.

The White Shroud Poems 1980-1985 Harper & Row, NYC, in 1986.

Collected Poems 1947-1980 (Harper/Collins, NYC, 1984)

Plutonian Ode, Poems 1977-1980. City Lights Books, San Francisco, 1982.

Mind Breaths, poems 1971-76. City Lights Books, SF, 1978.

Iron Horse, published by Coach House Press, Toronto/City Lights Books, SF, 1974.

The Fall of America, poems from these states, City Lights Books, SF, 1973.

Planet News. City Lights Books, SF, 1968.

Reality Sandwiches. City Lights Books, SF, 1963.

Kaddish and Other Poems. City Lights Books, SF, 1961.

Howl and Other Poems. City Lights Books, SF, 1956.

Prose

Fall of America Journals: 1965-1971 ed. Michael Schumacher, UMinn Press, 2018

South America Journals 1960 ed. Michael Schumacher, UMinn Press, 2019

Iron Curtain Journals: 1965 ed. Michael Schumacher, UMinn Press, 2018

First Thought: Conversations with Allen Ginsberg, ed. Mike Schumacher, University of Minnesota, 2017

The Best Minds of My Generation: A Literary History of the Beats, edited by Bill Morgan and published by Grove Press in 2017.

The Letters of Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, edited by Bill Morgan and David Stanford (Penguin, 2010)

The Letters of Allen Ginsberg, edited by Bill Morgan, (DaCapo Press, 2007)

The Selected Letters of Allen Ginsberg & Gary Snyder, edited by Bill Morgan and published by Counterpoint in 2007.

The Book of Martyrdom & Artifice – Early Journals and Poems 1937-1952, edited by Juanita Lieberman-Plimpton and Bill Morgan, DaCapo Press, 2006.

The Yage Letters (with William Burroughs), City Lights Books, San Francisco, 1963, 2006

The Selected Interviews, edited by David Carter and published by Harper Collins in New York City in 2001.

Family Business: Selected Letters Between Father and Son, edited by Michael Schumacher, published by Bloomsbury in 2001.

Deliberate Prose: Selected Essays 1959-1995, edited by Bill Morgan, published by Harper Collins, NYC, in 2000.

Indian Journals, published by Grove Press in New York City in 1996.

Mid-Fifties Journals. HarperCollins, NYC, 1995

Magazines: Early Fifties Early Sixties, Ed. G. Ball, Grove Press, NY, 1977, 1993

Composed on the Tongue: Literary Conversations, 1967-1977 (Grey Fox Press, Bolinas, 1980)

The Chicago Trial Testimony is also noteworthy. It is the first in the City Lights Trashcan of History Series, published in San Francisco in 1975.

The Visions of the Great Rememberer: Afterword to Kerouac’s Visions of Cody, Penguin, NY, 1993.

Photography and Catalogs

Allen Ginsberg Photographer 1947-87. Kim Forlaget, Arhus, Denmark 1987, 2021

Floating Moments, Floating Worlds, and the Beat Generation: The Photography of Allen Ginsberg,

Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, Toronto, 2018

Beat Memories: The Photography of Allen Ginsberg, The National Gallery of Art/Del Monico-Prestel, 2010.

Beat & Pieces, ed. Davide Faccioli, with an essay by Fernanda Pivano (Milan, 2005).

Allen Ginsberg 108 images, Fred Hoffman Fine Art, Santa Monica, 1995

Snapshot Poetics, published by Chronicle Books in San Francisco in 1993.

Allen Ginsberg Photographs. Twelvetrees Press, 1991.

Reality Sandwiches: Photographs. Nishen, Berlin, West Germany, 1989.

Allen Ginsberg Photographer 1947-87. Forlaget Klim, Arhus, Denmark 1987.

Allen Ginsberg & Robert Frank. Watari Gallery, Tokyo, April 1985

The following anthologies, interviews, essays, and photo collections are also notable:

Material Wealth: Mining the Personal Archive of Allen Ginsberg, a 2023 publication by Pat Thomas, is a notable example of this genre.

A Blue Hand: The Beats of India – Deborah Baker Ghosh. Penguin 2008

I Celebrate Myself: The Somewhat Private Life of Allen Ginsberg – Bill Morgan, Penguin, 2007

The Works of Allen Ginsberg, 1941-1994: A Descriptive Bibliography, by Bill Morgan (Greenwood Press, Westport, 1995).

Finally, the reader may wish to consult Michael Schumacher’s critical biography of Allen Ginsberg, Dharma Lion, St. Martin’s Press, 1992.

The Portable Beat Reader, edited by Ann Charters, Viking Portable Library, NY, 1992.

A biography of Allen Ginsberg, by Barry Miles and published by Simon and Schuster, 1989.

In addition, publishers and producers have featured Ginsberg in many recordings, movies, videos, art shows, and exhibitions. Readers may retrieve a comprehensive list of resources from the Allen Ginsberg Project’s Website online.