Allen Ginsberg :: essays research papers

Allen Ginsberg Allen Ginsberg was born in Newark, New Jersey on June 3, 1926. His father, Louis Ginsberg, was a published poet and a high school teacher. His mother, Naomi, was a radical Communist, paranoid, psychotic, and died in a mental institution in 1956. Ginsberg also had a brother who became a lawyer in Paterson, New Jersey. Ginsberg’s childhood was very complicated. Ginsberg’s mother only trusted him and thought that the rest of the family and the world was plotting against her. Ginsberg attended Columbia college to become a lawyer as his father had planned. However, Ginsberg’s new crowd at Columbia did not encourage him in his studies, and he got suspended from Columbia for various small offenses. He experimented with marijuana, and crused gay bars. Himself and his friends believed that they were working towards some kind of uncertain but great poetic vision, which he called the New Vision. But all of the joyful craziness with his friends it was symboliz ing the real craziness of his mother. Knowing that he was basically sane, Ginsberg embrassed a bizare lifestyle. This all changed as he entered a ‘straight’ phase after his arrest and imprisonment. Ginsberg started to date a woman named Helen Parker and began a job as a marketing researcher. However this ‘straight’ phase did not last long, as he met Carl Solomon in the waiting room of a psychiatric hospital. Ginsberg had many other occupations besides writing poetry. Such as a dishwasher, a welder, and an editor. He was the first Beat writer to gain popularity when he wrote his famous poem Howl. Ginsberg followed Howl with several other important new poems, such as sunflower sutra. Ginsberg had many influences on his writings. One major and very important influence was his mother. His mother was the main topic for the poem Kaddish, which describes his mother’s insanity and death. Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs also had an impact on Ginsbergâ⠂¬â„¢s writings. Ginsberg used Kerouac’s methods of spontaneous composition and expressing poems through music. Burrough’s introduced Ginsberg to the â€Å"druggy-gay-hipster† lifestyle. These three are said to be the founders of the beat generation. Ginsberg also borrowed Walt Whitman and William Blake’s ordinary and unrhymed style and made it his own. Another influence on his writing was the time period. The 1960’s were a period when people started to become aware of government doings. This led the people who disapproved to protest.