Excerpt from  From the book of poems:
                      Howl 1956

                    An Asphodel  

"O dear sweet rosy
     unattainable desire
...how sad, no way
to change the mad
cultivated asphodel, the
     visible reality...

Allen Ginsberg

Biography of Allen Ginsberg

Allen was born to Louis and Naomi Ginsberg in Newark, New Jersey. His father was a high school teacher who published his own poems while his mother, a communist, constantly struggled with mental illness.(she was eventually hospitalized and treated with a lobotomy) He spent his childhood years living in Paterson, New Jersey. At age 15 he wrote letters of to newspapers, such as the New york Times protesting war. He attended college at Columbia University where he was intending to follow the path of labor lawyer as his father had laid out for him, but switched to Literature and eventually got himself suspended (in 1945). While there he took up with other students who had an interest in literary works, parties and various underground and often illegal activities. After his leave from school he continued experimenting with drugs and hanging out at gay bars. During this time, in 1947, he began an affair with Neal Cassady. In 1948, Allen has a vision in which Blake appears to him, he took this as a supernatural experience and claimed to have found God. This experience compelled him to seek psychoanalytical treatment and go straight. In 1949 he is arrested for riding in a stolen car with his friends. (those friends were apparently responsible for the stealing) he pled insanity and is sent to the Columbia Psychiatric Institute for eight months. In 1949 he graduates from Columbia with a BA. Eventually the straight period ended and Allen moved to San Francisco to join the local poetry movement. In 1954 he quits his job at a market research firm to live with his life partner Peter Orlovsky. In 1956 Howl and Other Poems is published in spite of obscenity charges to the poem Howl in 1955. Read Howl online here. In 1956 Allen's mother dies. in 1960 he becomes involved in Timothy Leary's Harvard Psilocybin Project. Through out this decade he is visible as a war protestor, speaking on psychedelics and experimenting in the Acid Tests with Ken Kesey. In 1965 he was cited by the FBI as a security risk in Cuba and had been kicked out of Cuba as well as Prague. In 1970 he begins following the guru Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. Allen and Anne Waldman establish the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Trungpa's Naropa Institute. In 1972 his Fall of America is the National Book Award winner. In 1977 he tours with Bob Dylan who he had previously appeared in a movie of Dylan's 'Subterranean Homesick Blues'. In 1993, he is awarded the medal of Chevalier de l'ordre des Arts et Lettres by the French Minister of Culture. In 1997 he died of Liver Cancer.

Bibliography

Selected Poems 1947-1995. Harper Collins, NYC, 1996

Illuminated Poems. Illustrated by Eric Drooker, Four Walls Eight Windows, NYC 1996.

Howl Annotated w/facsimile manuscript. Harper Perennial (Paperback), NYC 1995.

Cosmopolitan Greetings Poems 1986-1993. HarperCollins, NYC, 1994.

White Shroud Poems 1980-1985. Harpers & Row, NYC, 1984.

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

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

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

The Fall of America, Poems of these States. City Lights Books, SF, 1973.

The Gates of Wrath, Rhymed Poems 1948-51. Four Seasons, Bolinas, 1972.

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 Books
Journals Mid-Fifties. HarperCollins, NYC, 1995.

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

Your Reason and Blake's System. Hanuman Books, NY, 1988. Straight Hearts' Delight: Love Poems and Selected Letters. (with Peter Orlovsky), Gay Sunshine Press, SF, 1980.

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

As Ever: Collected Correspondence Allen Ginsberg & Neal Cassady. Creative Arts, Berkley, 1977.

To Eberhart from Ginsberg. Penmaen Press, Lincoln, Mass., 1976.

Chicago Trial Testimony. City Lights Trashcan of History Series #1, SF, 1975.

The Visions of the Great Rememberer Epilogue to Kerouac's Visions of Cody, Penguin, NY, 1993.

Allen Verbatim: Lectures on Poetry etc. Ed. Gordon Ball. McGraw Hill, NYC, 1974.

Gay Sunshine Interview. (with Allen Young) Grey Fox Press, Bolinas, 1974.

Indian Journals. David Hazelwood/City Lights Books, SFR, 1970: Penguin, New Delhi, 1990(op).

The Yage Letters. (with William S. Burroughs), City Lights Books, SF, 1963.

Photograph Books & Catalogues
Allen Ginsberg 108 Images. Fred Hoffman Fine Art, Santa Monica, 1995.

Snapshot Poetics. Chronicle Books, SF, 1993.

Allen Ginsberg Photographs. Twelvestrees Press 1991.

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

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

Allen Ginsberg & Robert Frank. Galerie Watari, Toyko, Japan, April 1985.

CD's & Phonograph Records: Poetry
The Ballad of the Skeletons w/Paul McCartney, Phillip Glass. Produced by Lenny Kaye, Mouth Almighty/Mecury, 1996.

Howl U.S.A. Lee Hyla Score, Kronos Quartet, Nonesuch, 1996.

The Lion for Real: Produced by Hal Willner, Mouth Almighty/Mecury, 1989, 1996.

Holy Soul Jelly Roll: Poems & Songs 1949-1993. Four CD set, produced by Hal Willner, Rhino Records: 1994.

Hydrogen Jukebox. music by Phillip Glass, libertto by Allen Ginsberg, Elektra Nonesuch #9 79286-2, 1993.

Cosmopolitan Greetings Jazzy Opera, Music by George Gruntz, words by Allen Ginsberg, 2CD's Migros-Genossenschafts-Bund Muzikscene, Zurich, 1993.

Howls, Raps & Roars: Recordings from the San Francisco Poetry Renaissance, includes Howl & Other Poems". Fantasy Records, 1993.

Made in Texas, two songs (Airplane Blues & Blake's Nurses Song) c/o Michael Minzer, Paris Records, Dallas, 1986

First Blues: Songs: Produced by John Hammond 1975-1981, double album, John Hamond Records, N.Y. 1983. Dist. by Columbia Records (op)

Birdbrain, with the Gluons, 33 E.P. single, 1981, Wax Trax, Denver(op)

First Blues. A.G. on Harmonium, Recorded by Harry Smith, edited A & S. Charters, Folkways Record 20560.

Giorno Poetry Systems (G.P.S. oo8-9, 016-7, 018-19) 1975-80, Bowery, NYC.

Gate,2 evenings with Allen Ginsberg, The Loft, 1001 Stereo, Munich, 1980. Dist 2001, Frankfurt; by City Lights in USA. (op)

Wm. Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience Tuned by A.G. MGM Records, NY, 1970 FTS 3083 (op)

Kaddish. Atlantic Verbum Series 4001, NY, 1966 (op) Howl and Other Poems. Fantasy-Galaxy Records, #7013, 1959, Berkeley CAHobo Blues Band (Hungarian production). Budapest

Naropa Institute Tape Archive -- 20 Naropa Poetry Readings, incl. performance with music from 1974 - 1988. Boulder CO 80302.

Copyright Gina Miller 1998-2006 All rights reserved.