Irwin Allen Ginsberg, born on June 3, 1926 in Newark, New Jersey, continued in the American tradition of lengthy free verse that Walt Whitman began with the publication of Leaves of Grass in 1855. In fact, Ginsberg arrives on the American literary scene 100 years after Whitman with the poetry reading “6 Poets at 6 Gallery” in a San Francisco Art Gallery on October 7, 1955. The next year, City Lights Bookstore published the poet’s Howl and Other Poems, which contains some of his most notable work.
Ginsberg represents the Beat poets, a group formed during the 1940s and developing through the 1950s, which established an original voice in American literature in the mid-20th century. The...
