Allen Ginsberg

Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997), American poet, born in Newark, New Jersey. The spokesperson for the Beat Generation of the 1950s, Ginsberg wrote in the tradition of Walt Whitman and William Carlos Williams. His poetry is informal, discursive, even repetitive; its immediacy, honesty, and its explicit sexual subject matter often give it an improvised quality. Howl (1956) is an angry indictment of America's false hopes and broken promises. Other volumes of Ginsberg's poetry include Kaddish (1961), Reality Sandwiches (1963), Planet News (1968), and White Shroud (1987).