Irwin Allen Ginsberg Bio/Wiki, Net Worth, Married 2018
Irwin Allen Ginsberg (/ˈɡɪnzbərɡ/; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was 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. Ginsberg is best known for his epic poem "Howl", in which he denounced what he saw as the destructive forces of capitalism and conformity in the United States.In 1957, "Howl" attracted widespread publicity when it became the subject of an obscenity trial, as it depicted heterosexual and homosexual sex at a time when sodomy laws made homosexual acts a crime in every U.S. state. "Howl" reflected Ginsberg's own homosexuality and his relationships with a number of men, including Peter Orlovsky, his lifelong partner. Judge Clayton W. Horn ruled that "Howl" was not obscene, adding, "Would there be any freedom of press or speech if one must reduce his vocabulary to vapid innocuous euphemisms?"Ginsberg was a practicing Buddhist who studied Eastern religious disciplines extensively. He lived modestly, buying his clothing in second-hand stores and residing in downscale apartments in New York’s East Village. One of his most influential teachers was the Tibetan Buddhist, the Venerable Chögyam Trungpa, founder of the Naropa Institute, now Naropa University at Boulder, Colorado. At Trungpa's urging, Ginsberg and poet Anne Waldman started The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics there in 1974.Ginsberg took part in decades of non-violent political protest against everything from the Vietnam War to the War on Drugs. His poem "September on Jessore Road," calling attention to the plight of Bangladeshi refugees, exemplifies what the literary critic Helen Vendler described as Ginsberg's tireless persistence in protesting against "imperial politics, and persecution of the powerless."His collection The Fall of America shared the annual U.S. National Book Award for Poetry in 1974. In 1979 he received the National Arts Club gold medal and was inducted into the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. In 1986 he was awarded the Golden Wreath of the Struga Poetry Evenings in Struga, Macedonia. Ginsberg was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 1995 for his book Cosmopolitan Greetings: Poems 1986–1992.
National Book Award for Poetry, Robert Frost Medal, Guggenheim Fellowship for Creative Arts, US & Canada, Lifetime Literary Achievement Award
Nominations
Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
Movies
Pull My Daisy, Chappaqua, Herostratus, Me and My Brother, Ciao! Manhattan, Poetry in Motion, Heavy Petting, Silence = Death, Paul Bowles: The Complete Outsider, Norman Mailer: The American, An Autumn Wind
Star Sign
Gemini
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Quote
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Follow your inner moonlight, don't hide the madness.
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The Future is History, we're in Science Fiction now.
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You don't have to be right. All you have to do is be candid.
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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.
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Fact
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Mentioned in the song "Só As Mães São Felizes" by Cazuza.
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He was nominated for the 2011 New Jersey Hall of Fame for his services and contributions to Literature. He was awarded the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. He was also inducted into the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.
In 1954, Ginsberg met his life partner Peter Orlovsky in San Francisco. Orlovsky, who was then 21, remained with Ginsberg until his death 43 years later. They both shared an interest in Tibetan Buddhism, and Orlovsky later himself developed into a published poet.
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In 1965 he was deported from Cuba for publicly protesting against the country's anti-marijuana stance and its homophobic social polices that result in many homosexuals being jailed. He also outraged Fidel Castro and his cadre of "Fidelistas" by allegedly making the remark that Ernesto 'Che' Guevara was "cute." The Cubans deported him to Czechoslovakia, where one week after being named the King of May Day parade, the Czech communist government labeled him an "immoral menace" and deported him. Playright and future Czech President Václav Havel credits Ginsberg with being an important figure inspiring their desire for freedom.
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Ginsberg famously restated the three laws of thermodynamics: The First Law of Thermodynamics -- "You can't win"; The Second Law of Thermodynamics -- "You can't break even"; and The Third Law of Thermodynamics -- "You can't quit".
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Impersonates the voice of Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) from Taxi Driver (1976) in The Clash song "Red Angel Dragnet" on their 1982 "Combat Rock" album.
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Biography in: "American National Biography." Supplement 1, pp. 230-232. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
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Was friends with Michael Savage, who later became an ultra-right-wing radio talk show host. The two once skinny-dipped together.
Was admired by Bob Dylan and Donovan; socialized with Dylan occasionally in New York.
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Public readings of Ginsberg's classic "Howl" became an event, before and after the First Amendment controversies surrounding the work. When one heckler doubted Ginsberg's commitment to "going naked in the world", Ginsberg answered him by disrobing onstage.
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Appears as "Carlo Marx," "Alvah Goldbook," "Irwin Garden," and other names, in friend Jack Kerouac's novels. Kerouac also gave Ginsberg's poem "Howl" its title, after writing a critique of the unfinished work, in a letter that began "I received your howl.".
Was part of the chorus (including Tom Smothers, Timothy Leary, Norman Mailer, and the local Hare Krishna chapter) who sang on 1969's "Give Peace A Chance" with John Lennon and Yoko Ono during their "bed-in" in Montreal. Spent time later with Lennon and Ono when they moved to New York, and were involved with radicals Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin; they tended to side with Ginsberg when he opposed Hoffman and Rubin's wilder suggestions.
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Won a National Book Award in 1974 for his poetry collection "The Fall of America: Poems of these States, 1965-1971."
$13 Million
