Allen Ginsberg
English 101 1BC
11 June 2012
Allen Ginsberg to be honored on Postage Stamp Irwin Allen Ginsberg was born 3 June 1929, in Newark, New Jersey, the younger son of Louis Ginsberg, a high school English teacher and poet, and Naomi Levy Ginsberg. He was from a family of Jewish Russian immigrants (Morgan 4), his family had ties to the radical labor movement, his mother was insane, and he was a homosexual: four prescriptions in the conventional1940's and 1950's for a sense of deep alienation. Allen Ginsberg was one of America’s greatest citizen, and hero. Renowned poet, world traveler, spiritual seeker, founding member of a major literary, champion of human and civil rights, photographer and songwriter, political gadfly, teacher and co-founder of a poetics school. Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997) defied simple classification. The year of 1943, Ginsberg had graduated from Paterson East High School and begins his education by attending the College of Columbia University in New York (Ginsberg, Lieberman-Plimpton, Morgan 25) on a scholarship, originally aiming to become a labor lawyer. He began close friendships with William S. Burroughs, Neal Cassady (with whom Ginsberg fell in love), and Jack Kerouac, all of whom later became leading figures of the “Beat movement” (Morgan 302). The group led Ginsberg to a "New Vision" (Morgan 61), which he defined in his journal: "Since art is merely and ultimately self-expressive, we conclude that the fullest art, the most individual, uninfluenced, unrepressed, uninhibited expression of art is true expression and the true art." (quoted in Ginsberg, Lieberman-Plimpton, Morgan 121). March 16, 1945, Allen is suspended from Columbia. Temporarily barred from school, seeking funds and inspired by Jack Kerouac, Allen joins the Military Sea Transportation Service (the Merchant Marine) as a “Helper Shipfitter” (Morgan 65). He graduates from training in November and soon sets off on his first voyage during which he experiments with “marijuana
11 June 2012
Allen Ginsberg to be honored on Postage Stamp Irwin Allen Ginsberg was born 3 June 1929, in Newark, New Jersey, the younger son of Louis Ginsberg, a high school English teacher and poet, and Naomi Levy Ginsberg. He was from a family of Jewish Russian immigrants (Morgan 4), his family had ties to the radical labor movement, his mother was insane, and he was a homosexual: four prescriptions in the conventional1940's and 1950's for a sense of deep alienation. Allen Ginsberg was one of America’s greatest citizen, and hero. Renowned poet, world traveler, spiritual seeker, founding member of a major literary, champion of human and civil rights, photographer and songwriter, political gadfly, teacher and co-founder of a poetics school. Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997) defied simple classification. The year of 1943, Ginsberg had graduated from Paterson East High School and begins his education by attending the College of Columbia University in New York (Ginsberg, Lieberman-Plimpton, Morgan 25) on a scholarship, originally aiming to become a labor lawyer. He began close friendships with William S. Burroughs, Neal Cassady (with whom Ginsberg fell in love), and Jack Kerouac, all of whom later became leading figures of the “Beat movement” (Morgan 302). The group led Ginsberg to a "New Vision" (Morgan 61), which he defined in his journal: "Since art is merely and ultimately self-expressive, we conclude that the fullest art, the most individual, uninfluenced, unrepressed, uninhibited expression of art is true expression and the true art." (quoted in Ginsberg, Lieberman-Plimpton, Morgan 121). March 16, 1945, Allen is suspended from Columbia. Temporarily barred from school, seeking funds and inspired by Jack Kerouac, Allen joins the Military Sea Transportation Service (the Merchant Marine) as a “Helper Shipfitter” (Morgan 65). He graduates from training in November and soon sets off on his first voyage during which he experiments with “marijuana