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Allen Ginsberg was a poet known for his book Howl, political views, and FBI file. He had a diverse parentage, including a paranoid schizophrenic mother who had a big effect on him. Ginsberg met William Burroughs and Jack Kerouac in college and explored New York’s subculture. He wrote Howl, which became a best-seller and led to obscenity charges. Ginsberg remained active in writing and politics until his death in 1997.
Allen Ginsberg is known for his poetry, his homosexuality, his book Howl, his political views and his FBI file, among many other things. Born June 3, 1926, in Newark, New Jersey, Ginsberg could not have had more diverse parentage. His father, Louis Ginsberg, was a high school teacher, while his mother, Naomi Ginsberg, was a nudist, paranoid schizophrenic and, what was worse in those days, a communist.
Naomi Ginsberg had a big effect, for better or for worse, on her son. When Allen Ginsberg was about nine years old, he began caring for his mother while she spent time in and out of mental hospitals. Her paranoia was great enough that she refused to believe that Allen was his son and claimed that the FBI had implanted mind control devices in his brain. Allen Ginsberg followed the advice of a psychiatrist when he was 21 and authorized his mother’s lobotomy. He felt guilty about it long after her death in 1956.
When Allen Ginsberg was in high school, he seemed to be a role model, an all-American guy. He did well academically and was president of his school’s debate club. His father sent Allen to Columbia, hoping his son would become a lawyer. However, in college, Allen Ginsberg met William Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, two men who would soon become lifelong friends with him and other Beat poets. With Burroughs and Kerouac, Ginsberg explored New York’s subculture, discovering drugs, jazz, poetry and its homosexuality.
After graduating from Columbia, Ginsberg held a variety of different jobs and had unsuccessful relationships with various other men in the Beat lifestyle. Frequently depressed, he enlisted in the Merchant Marines. However, when he was caught in a stolen car with his roommate, he was sent to a mental hospital for eight months. There he met Carl Solomon, to whom he dedicated Howl. Ginsberg spent his time in the hospital reading and writing.
In his early thirties, after spending some time in Mexico, Allen Ginsberg quit his paid job to write full-time. He wrote Howl, free verse that was shocking for its time, including many statements about trouble in America, as well as references to drugs and sex. Howl became a best-seller, even taking Ginsberg and City Lights bookstore manager Lawrence Ferlinghetti to court on obscenity charges. The judge ruled Howl was “of redemptive social significance,” and Ginsberg became famous almost overnight.
Although Ginsberg was initially known for his two books – Howl and Kaddish and Other Poems – he soon became of great interest to the FBI. The FBI had a detailed file on Allen Ginsberg, but they weren’t the only institution concerned about him. Ginsberg was driven out of both Cuba and Czechoslovakia in 1965 for different reasons.
Ginsberg remained active in his writings and political endeavors to the end of his life. In 1974, his collection of poems called The Fall of America won the National Book Award, and later the photographs he had taken of his friends in the Beat movement were published. In the late 1970s, Ginsberg embraced the teachings of a Tibetan lama named Chogyam Trungpa. Trungpa convinced Ginsberg to give up his drugs and practice yoga and meditation. Allen Ginsberg died in 1997 of liver cancer, after Howl had been reprinted more than fifty times.
