Allen Ginsberg

The Beat poet Allen Ginsberg was an American original, the best-known poet of his generation. A fearless self-chronicler, he wrote in bold, Whitmanesque strokes, describing drug use, spiritual journeys, and mental illness. Ginsberg was born in Newark, New Jersey, and attended Columbia University, where he befriended Jack Kerouac and studied with Lionel Trilling. He was committed, above all, to frank self-expression, and he wrote candidly about marijuana, free love, and other generation-defining pursuits while championing free speech, gay rights, and creative license in poetry.