"In 1977, twenty years after the publication of his landmark poem "Howl" and Jack Kerouac' On the Road, Allen Ginsberg decided it was time to teach a course on the literary history of the Beat Generation. Through this course, which he taught first at the Narope Institute in Colorado, and later at Brooklyn College, Ginsberg saw an opportunity to present a full history of Beat literature and to record his own stories and memories, ones that might otherwise...

Here, for the first time, is a volume that gathers the published verse of Allen Ginsberg in its entirety, a half century of brilliant work from one of America's great poets. The chief figure among the Beats, Ginsberg changed the course of American poetry, liberating it from closed academic forms with the creation of open, vocal, spontaneous, and energetic postmodern verse in the tradition of Walt Whitman, Guillaume Apollinaire, Hart Crane, Ezra Pound,...

In the 1950s and early 1960s, Allen Ginsberg and his fellow Beats led an insurrection that profoundly altered the American literary and cultural landscapes. Collected here are journal entries culled from eighteen notebooks that Ginsberg kept during this extraordinary period -- thoughts, poems, dreams, reflections, and diary notes that intimately illuminate Ginsberg's actual travels and his mental journeys. They reveal a remarkable and fascinating...

Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997) was one of twentieth-century literature's most prolific letter-writers. This definitive volume showcases his correspondence with some of the most original and interesting artists of his time, including Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs, Gregory Corso, Neal Cassady, Lionel Trilling, Charles Olson, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Philip Whalen, Peter Orlovsky, Philip Glass, Arthur Miller, Ken Kesey, and hundreds of others. Through...

Visionary, radical, spiritual seeker, renowned poet, founding member of a major literary movement, champion of human rights, Buddhist, political activist, and teacher, Allen Ginsberg's remarkable life shaped the very soul of American counterculture. Bonus material includes: exclusive interviews; The Making of The Life and Times of Allen Ginsberg featurette; Ginsberg reading selected poems; and more

"First thought, best thought." This was the phrase that poet Allen Ginsberg used to describe spontaneous and fearless writing, a way of telling the truth that arises from naked and authentic experience. For more than 30 years, groundbreaking teachers at Naropa University such as Ginsberg and his colleagues Anne Waldman, William S. Burroughs, and Diane di Prima have inspired emerging poets and prose writers to express themselves with unfettered honesty...

This incisive and entertaining portrait of American poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti explores his vital role as catalyst for numerous literary careers and for the Beat movement itself. Interviews with Ferlinghetti and others reveal a rich mľange of characters and events that unfolded in postwar America. In 1953 Ferlinghetti opened City Lights Bookstore, which quickly evolved into an iconic institution symbolizing social change and literary freedom. Six...

Martin Scorsese's pseudo-documentary film, composed of both fictional and non-fictional material, about Bob Dylan's legendary 1975 tour, which featured a band of troubadours including Joan Baez, Allen Ginsberg, and Joni Mitchell, and blends behind-the-scenes archival footage, interviews, and narrative mischief.