The modernist challenge to radical poetry was posed most directly by the verse and literary criticism of T. S. Eliot (1888-1965), to judge by the number of direct responses to Eliot's poetry and the centrality of his name in literary debates on the Left.|1|  Despite the elitism and arcane quality of many of Eliot's literary allusions, young poets found it unfeasible to ignore the profoundly novel approach to poetic form and sensibility that his verse represented.

Ginsberg, Allen (3 June 1926-6 Apr. 1997), poet, was born in Newark, New Jersey, the younger son of Louis Ginsberg, a high school English teacher and poet, and Naomi Levy Ginsberg. Ginsberg grew up with his older brother Eugene in a household shadowed by his mother's mental illness; she suffered from recurrent epileptic seizures and paranoia. An active member of the Communist Party-USA, Naomi Ginsberg took her sons to meetings of the radical left dedicated to the cause of international Communism during the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Allen Ginsberg was born June 3, 1926 and grew up in Paterson, New Jersey. His father, Louis, was a high school teacher and an accomplished lyric poet. His mother, Naomi, a Communist during the Depression, suffered from psychotic delusions. At times, she insisted there were wires in her head with which people could hear her thinking. Coming of age in a household of modest means, Ginsberg's early life seemed to steer him away from the conventional.

Six poets at the Six Gallery. Kenneth Rexroth, M.C. Remarkable collection of angels all gathered at once in the same spot. Wine, music, dancing girls, serious poetry, free satori. Small collection for wine and postcards. Charming event.

--- from postcard printed by Allen Ginsberg to publicize 1955 Six Gallery Reading

The Evening as told by Michael Schumacher in Dharma Lion

Photographs and other images of Allen Ginsberg distributed in various media have spread and shaped his reputation as much as--perhaps more than--his poetry has.  Like his literary forebear Walt Whitman, he has represented himself as not only a writer, but also, in a variety of poses and costumes, as a photographic image.  Ever since the obscenity trial for Howl made him a public figure, he has used the notoriety that proceeds from his poetry to make public statements on political and social issues.  By the mid-sixties, Allen Ginsberg, as a public figure, . . .

"Twenty years is more or less a literary generation," Richard Eberhart remarks, "and Ginsberg's Howl ushered in a new generation." Many contemporary poets have testified to the liberating effect that Ginsberg's poem had on them in the late fifties, but "ushered in" is too tame a phrase to describe Ginsberg's historical impact. Ginsberg, for whom every poem begins, or ought to, with a frontal assault on established positions, thrust a battering ram against those protective enclosures, human and literary, so important to the young Wilbur and Rich.

Poetry

Hinge Picture (Cherry Valley/Telephone Books, 1974)

Chanting at the Crystal Sea (Fire Exit/Corbett, 1975)

The Western Borders (Tuumba, 1976)

Secret History of the Dividing Line (Telephone Books, 1978)

Cabbage Gardens (Fathom, 1979)

Deep in a Forest of Herods (Pharos, 1979)

The Liberties (Loon, 1980)

Pythagorean Silence (Montemora Foundation, 1982)

Defenestration of Prague (Kulchur Foundation, 1983)

Articulation of Sound Forms in Time (Awede, 1987)

Poetry

The Weary Blues. Knopf, 1926.

Fine Clothes to the Jew. Knopf, 1927.

The Negro Mother and Other Dramatic Recitations. N.Y.: Golden Stair Press, 1931.

Dear Lovely Death. Amenia, N.Y.: Troutbeck Press, 1931.

The Dream Keeper and Other Poems. Knopf, 1932.

Scottsboro Limited: Four Poems and a Play. N.Y.: Golden Stair Press, 1932.

A New Song. International Working Order, 1938.

Shakespeare in Harlem. Knopf, 1942.

Jim Crow's Last Stand. Atlanta: Negro Publication Society of America, 1943.

Poetry

What a Kingdom It Was. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1960.

Flower Herding on Mount Monadnock. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1964.

Body Rags. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1968.

First Poems 1946-1954. Mt. Horeb, Wis.: Perishable Press, 1970.

The Book of Nightmares. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 1971.

The Shoes of Wandering. Mt. Horeb, Wis.: Perishable Press, 1970.

The Avenue Bearing the Initial of Christ into the New World: Poems 1946-1964. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1974.

POETRY

THE MERCY (1999)

UNSELECTED POEMS (1997)

THE SIMPLE TRUTH (1994)

WHAT WORK IS (1991)

NEW SELECTED POEMS (1991)

A WALK WITH TOM JEFFERSON (1988)

SWEET WILL (1985)

SELECTED POEMS (1984)

ONE FOR TBE ROSE (1981)

7 YEARS FROM SOMEWHERE (1979)

ASHES: POEMS NEW AND OLD (1979)

THE NAMES OF THE LOST (1976)

1933 (1974)

THEY FEED THEY LION (1972)

RED DUST (1971)

PILI'S WALL (1971)

NOT THIS PIG (1968)

ON THE EDGE (1963)

ESSAYS