The Beat Generation: The Social Force of Allen Ginsberg

"I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night,
who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz"

- Allen Ginsberg, Howl

Allen Ginsberg was the most prolific of the Beat poets and one of the founding fathers of the beat generation. Many described him as a free-spirited soul who spoke passionately through his free verse poems.

His most well-known poem, Howl, was the first defining piece of literary art to come out of his generation and was even brought to trial for claims of obscenity, only to be rejected by the courts.

Some may contest that his homosexuality made many uncomfortable in a time when it was not as accepted as it is today, as Ginsberg has been described as one of the first famous homosexuals to publicly come out of the closet.

Regardless of the controversy that surrounded him, Ginsberg used his fame and popularity to promote social change, something Kerouac was not able to put the bottle down long enough to do himself.

Don’t be confused, Ginsberg was no straight-edge fellow. A PBS write up on Ginsberg described him as a man who promoted drug use as an expansion of consciousness, experimenting himself with LSD, peyote, and marijuana, just to name a few.

It’s no wonder that Ginsberg became so heavily involved in the 1960s counterculture that protested the Vietnam war and CIA. PBS also goes on to document Ginsberg as the man who coined the phrase, “flower power” which became infamous throughout the decade.

A New York Times obituray article written upon the passing of the icon tells of his involvement in marches against the war and his “ubiquitous presence at the love-ins and be-ins that marked the drug-oriented counterculture of the Flower Children years.”

The PBS write up even eludes to the idea that Ginsberg planted the seeds of revolution that intended to “case off the shackles of the calm and boing social life of the post war era.”

Unlike Kerouac, Ginsberg was able to contain his substance abuse and not let it ultimately get the best of him, as he turned away from substance and pursued a life oriented by buddhism in the 70s.

Perhaps it was Kerouac’s death in 1969, and the prior year’s death of Neal Cassady, that influenced his decision to put his years of drug use behind him. Regardless of the reason, his meditative lifestyle provided him the means to extend his social influence throughout the years.

In the NY Times obituary article, they dubbed him the “Master of Outrageous,” yet his outrageous antics were purely artistically intended. He was a literary wave maker, and like many of his contemporaries, he pushed the bounds of constraints.

Below, you can have a listen to Ginsberg reciting his poem, America.