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 aim 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. Ginsbergs childhood was very complicated. Ginsbergs 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, Ginsbergs 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 typify 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 ascertain 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 get to 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 mothers insanity and death. Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs also had an intrusion on Ginsbergs writings. Ginsberg used Kerouacs methods of spontaneous composition and expressing poems through music. Burroughs introduced Ginsberg to the druggy-gay-hipster lifestyle. These three are said to be the founders of the beat generation. Ginsberg also borrowed Walt Whitman and William Blakes ordinary and unrhymed style and made it his own. Another influence on his writing was the time period. The 1960s were a period when people started to become aware(p) of government doings. This led the people who disapproved to protest.