In 1954, Ginsberg moved to San Francisco. While Ginsberg claimed that no drugs were involved, he later stated that he used various drugs in an attempt to recapture the feelings inspired by the vision. The group led Ginsberg to a 'New Vision,' which he defined in his journal: 'Since art is merely and ultimately self-expressive, we conclude that the fullest art, the most individual, uninfluenced, unrepressed, uninhibited expression of art is true expression and the true art.'Īround this time, Ginsberg also had what he referred to as his 'Blake vision,' an auditory hallucination of William Blake reading his poems 'Ah Sunflower,' 'The Sick Rose,' and 'Little Girl Lost.' Ginsberg noted the occurrence several times as a pivotal moment for him in his comprehension of the universe, affecting fundamental beliefs about his life and his work. Burroughs, Neal Cassady, and Jack Kerouac, all of whom later became leading figures of the Beat movement. He was admitted to Columbia University, and as a student there in the 1940s, he began close friendships with William S. Eager to follow a childhood hero who had received a scholarship to Columbia University, Ginsberg made a vow that if he got into the school he would devote his life to helping the working class, a cause he took seriously over the course of the next several years. According to biographer Barry Miles, 'Naomi's illness gave Allen an enormous empathy and tolerance for madness, neurosis, and psychosis.'Īs an adolescent, Ginsberg savored Walt Whitman, though in 1939, when Ginsberg graduated high school, he considered Edgar Allan Poe his favorite poet. Mental health of Naomi Ginsberg, a nudist, who supported the Communist party, concerned people throughout the childhood of the poet. They reared Ginsberg among several progressive political perspectives. Naomi Ginsberg bore Irwin Allen Ginsberg, a son, to Louis Ginsberg, a Jewish member of the New York literary counterculture of the 1920s. Books of American poet Irwin Allen Ginsberg, a leading figure of the Beat Generation known for his long incantatory works, include Howl (1956) and Kaddish (1961).

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