Allen Ginsberg
Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsbergwas an American poet and one of the leading figures of both the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the counterculture that soon would follow. He vigorously opposed militarism, economic materialism and sexual repression and was known as embodying various aspects of this counterculture, such as his views on drugs, hostility to bureaucracy and openness to Eastern religions. He was one of many influential American writers of his time known as the Beat Generation, which included famous writers...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth3 June 1926
CityNewark, NJ
CountryUnited States of America
The parts that embarrass you the most are usually the most interesting poetically, are usually the most naked of all, the rawest, the goofiest, the strangest and most eccentric and at the same time, most representative, most universal... That was something I earned from Kerouac, which was that spontaneous writing could be embarrassing... The cure for that is to write the thing down which you will not publish and which you won't show people. To write secretly... so you can actually be free to say anything you want.
Poetry is not an expression of the party line. It's that time of night, lying in bed, thinking what you really think, making the private world public, that's what the poet does.
None of us understand what we're doing, but we do beautiful things anyway.
No rest without love, no sleep without dreams of love- be mad or chill obsessed with angels or machines, the final wish is love -cannot be bitter, cannot deny, cannot withhold if denied: the weight is too heavy
Which way will the sunflower turn surrounded by millions of suns?
The only thing that can save the world is the reclaiming of the awareness of the world. That's what poetry does.
The weight of the world is love. Under the burden of solitude, under the burden of dissatisfaction.
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked.
It's never to late to do nothing at all.
I don't do anything with my life except romanticize and decay with indecision.
Scientist alone is true poet he gives us the moon he promises the stars he'll make us a new universe if it comes to that.
Well, while I'm here I'll do the work — and what's the work? To ease the pain of living. Everything else, drunken dumbshow.
Let go of the spirit of the departed, and continue the celebration of your own life.
in my dreams you walk dripping from a sea journey on the highway across America in tears to the door of my cottage in the Western night