Allen Ginsberg was a common author during the postmodern era and was considered the most famous living American poet in the 1980’s. He was born on June 3, 1926, in Newark, New Jersey and grew up in Paterson. His father, Louis Ginsberg, was a teacher and poet. Ginsberg’s mother, Naomi Levy Ginsberg, suffered most of her life from recurrent epileptic seizures and paranoia. Some of Ginsberg’s famous work includes “Howl,” which was the significant start off to his career, and “Kaddish” which is written based on the life and death of his mother as she spent most of her adult life with a mental illness. Before his career began, he wrote poems throughout high school that was inspired by the famous poet, Walt Whitman. After graduating high school on June 8, 1943, he continued his education by studying at Columbia University and graduated from there in 1948. While he attended the university, Ginsberg was introduced to William Burroughs and Jack Kerouac. In the 1950’s, the three authors then established a publishing company and literary movement called the Beat Generation in San Francisco, where they created their own pieces of work that influenced American culture and politics in the post-World War …show more content…
As they traveled to places such as Far East Asia and India in 1962, Ginsberg learned the tradition of Zen Buddhism. He also learned about Buddhism and Asian literature which inspired him to create poetry that was shaped around religion. While on his trip, he began to undertake different psychedelic stimulants in order to create a new idealistic poem (english.illinois.edu). Ginsberg and Orlovsky stayed in India for about two years on the search for someone to help him deal with his egotism and spiritual awareness. In Ginsberg’s poem, “The Change,” he states that he realizes “meditation, not drugs, could assist his enlightenment”