Allen Ginsberg Books

Exploring the composition of a groundbreaking poem, this annotated edition offers insights into Allen Ginsberg's creative process and the societal context of the 1950s. It features personal anecdotes and reflections on writing techniques, providing a deeper understanding of the themes that challenge dehumanization and censorship. Ginsberg's work not only defied obscenity trials but also emerged as a defining voice of its era, making this version a rich resource for readers interested in poetry and social history.

Set against the backdrop of the turbulent 1960s, this autobiographical narrative explores the author's experiences across America, providing crucial context to Ginsberg's acclaimed National Book Award-winning poetry. Through personal reflections and vivid storytelling, it captures the cultural and social upheaval of the era, revealing how these influences shaped his literary voice and vision.

"[An] essential Beat masterpiece." --The Village Voice. Perhaps one of the last great dual correspondences of the twentieth century, Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg: The Letters reveals not only the process of creation of the two most celebrated members of the Beat Generation, but also the unfolding of a remarkable friendship of immense pathos and spiritual depth. Through this exhilarating exchange of letters, two-thirds of which have never been published before, Kerouac and Ginsberg emerge first and foremost as writers of artistic passion, innovation, and genius. Vivid and enthralling, the letters, which date from their first meeting in 1944 to Kerouac's untimely death in 1969, chronicle the endless struggle, anguish, and sacrifice involved in giving form to their literary visions.

Here, for the first time, is a volume that gathers the published verse of Allen Ginsberg in its entirety, a half century of brilliant work from one of America's great poets. As the chief figure among the Beats, Ginsberg changed the course of American poetry, liberating it from closed academic forms with the creation of open, vocal, spontaneous, and energetic postmodern verse. Ginsberg's raw tones and attitudes of spiritual liberation also helped catalyze a psychological revolution that has become a permanent part of our cultural heritage, profoundly influencing not only poetry, popular song, and speech but also our view of the world

Presented chronologically, this anthology includes material by Ginsberg's artist friends, explanatory notes and a prefatory essay by the author. Work from the City Lights volume is included, with essays and pamphlets previously published by small presses and some hitherto unpublished material.

Chronologically arranged interviews showcase Allen Ginsberg's candid reflections on his life, work, and significant cultural events from the late 1950s to the mid-1990s. Featuring discussions with notable figures like William F. Buckley and insights on artists such as Cezanne and Whitman, these previously unpublished conversations reveal the passionate voice of a pivotal literary icon, offering a unique perspective on his influence and the era's artistic landscape.

One of the longest relationships between a publisher and a writer, documented in an intimate correspondence spanning their respective careers.

"This volume brings together the poems that made his name as a defining figure of the counter-culture. They include the apocalyptic Howl, which became the subject of an obscenity trial when it was first published in 1956; the moving lament for his mother, Kaddish; the searing indictment of his honmeland, America; and the confessional Mescaline"--Cover.

Great strange visionary poems by the author of Howl, “in the midst of the broken consciousness of mid-twentieth century . . .”In the midst of the broken consciousness of mid-twentieth century suffering anguish of separation from my own body and its natural infinity of feeling its own self one with all self, I instinctively seeking to reconstitute that blissful union which I experience so rarely. I took it to be supernatural an gave it holy Name thus made hymn laments of longing and litanies of triumphancy of Self over mind-illusion mechano-universe of un-feeling Time in which I saw my self my own mother and my very nation trapped desolate our worlds of consciousness homeless and at war except for the original trembling of bliss in breast and belly of every body that nakedness rejected in suits of fear that familiar defenseless living hurt self which is myself same as all others abandoned scared to own unchanging desire for each other. These poems almost unconscious to confess the beatific human fact, the language intuitively chosen as in trance & dream, the rhythms rising on breath from belly thru breast, the hymn completed in tears, the movement of the physical poetry demanding and receiving decades of life while chanting Kaddish the names of Death in many worlds the self seeking the Key to life found at last in our self.