Synopses & Reviews
Featuring the legendary and groundbreaking poem "Howl," this remarkable volume showcases a selection of Allen Ginsberg's poems, songs, essays, letters, journals, and interviews, and contains sixteen pages of his personal photographs.
One of the Beat Generation's most renowned poets and writers, Allen Ginsberg became internationally famous not only for his published works but also for his actions as a human rights activist who championed the sexual revolution, gay liberation, Buddhism and Eastern religion, and the confrontation of societal norms—all before it became fashionable to do so. He was also the dynamic leader of war protesters, artists, Flower Power hippies, musicians, punks, and political radicals.
The Essential Ginsberg collects a mosaic of material that displays the full range of Ginsberg's mental landscape. His most important poems, songs, essays, letters, journals, and interviews are displayed in chronological order. His poetic masterpieces, "Howl" and "Kaddish," are presented here along with lesser-known and difficult-to-find songs and prose. Personal correspondence with William Burroughs and Jack Kerouac is included, as well as photographs—shot and captioned by Ginsberg himself—of his friends and fellow rogues William Burroughs, Neal Cassady, and others.
Through his essays, journals, interviews, and letters, this definitive volume will inspire readers to delve deeper into a body of work that remains one of the most impressive literary canons in American history.
Review
“A representative sampling from an iconic American poet…A well-chosen selection of [Ginsbergs] writings…testimony to an often outrageous, groundbreaking poet and tireless social activist.” Kirkus Reviews
Review
“An intellectually impeccable selection, distilling Ginsberg as visionary mystic and dark prophet foretelling what people in power didnt want to hear.” Lawrence Ferlinghetti
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“When planet earth is dust THE ESSENTIAL GINSBERG will be one of the books to take to Mars to remember us by.”- Anne Waldman
Review
“The career-arching overview [Ginsbergs work] deserves…What distinguishes this book from other posthumous Ginsberg collections is that it also presents small samples of his songwriting, essays, interviews, letters, journal excerpts, and understated photography…An essential starting point for any reader encountering the artists still-controversial work for the very first time.” Library Journal (starred review)
Review
“In these memory orchards Allen Ginsberg flashes from the divinely practical to inspired songs and factual revelations...They shine on the future...” Michael McClure
About the Author
Allen Ginsberg was born in Newark, New Jersey, in 1926, a son of Naomi and lyric poet Louis Ginsberg. As a student at Columbia College in the 1940s, he began a close friendship with William Burroughs, Neal Cassady, and Jack Kerouac, and he later became associated with the Beat movement and the San Francisco Renaissance in the 1950s. After jobs as a laborer, sailor, and market researcher, Ginsberg published his first volume of poetry,
Howl and Other Poems, in 1956. "Howl" defeated censorship trials to become one of the most widely read poems of the century, translated into more than twenty-two languages, from Macedonian to Chinese, a model for younger generations of poets from West to East.
Ginsberg was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, was awarded the medal of Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French minister of culture, was a winner of the National Book Award (for The Fall of America), and was a cofounder of the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at the Naropa Institute, the first accredited Buddhist college in the Western world. He died in New York City in 1997.