A Taste of Allen Ginsberg's Life
There is SO much more to this man's life - these are merely the highlights.
Purple - important people, Red - love and trouble, Green - publishing, Blue - travels, Brown - honors and public events
- Born June 3, 1926 in Newwark, NJ. Father: Louis - successful poet and high school teacher. Mother: Naomi - stays at home, major mental issues.
- 1935 - Ginsberg's mother begins to deteriorate mentally - she will attempt suicide and be in and out of mental hospitals for the rest of her life.
- 1937 - Ginsberg begins writing.
- 1943 - Ginsberg graduates high school and begins college at Columbia University in New York. This is the year he meets William S. Burroughs.
- 1944 - First meets Jack Kerouac. He confesses his homosexuality to Kerouac.
- 1945 - Ginsberg gets suspended from Columbia for a year; he writes "Butler has no balls" in the dirt on his window in an effort to get the cleaning staff to clean better - Butler was the college's president. When going to investigate, a faculty member catches Ginsberg in bed with Kerouac, so both things coupled together lead to the suspension. Upon his suspension, he joins the Merchant Marines.
- 1946 - Returns to Columbia University. This is the year he meets Neal Cassady.
- 1947 - Take first of MANY road trips to Denver in an effort to connect with Cassady. This year his mother gets a lobotomy.
- 1949 - Ginsberg gets arrested this year from being in the company of thieves and getting caught with stolen goods after a car accident, which happened in a result to escape police. Ginsberg gets sentenced eight months in a mental institution - where they try to CURE him of homosexuality. He meets Carl Solomon in the hospital.
- 1950 - Ginsberg is released from the hospital. He meets Gregory Corso.
- 1953 - City Lights Bookstore opens. Ginsberg and Burroughs have a love affair - Ginsberg ends it. At the end of the year, Ginsberg hitchhikes to Florida and takes a boat to Cuba.
- 1954 - Ginsberg moves in with Cassady and his wife for a short while - Ginsberg and Cassady get caught in bed together by Cassady's wife. Ginsberg moves to San Francisco after this. At the end of this year, Ginsberg meets and falls in love with Peter Orlovsky, who he remains with until he passes away.
- 1955 - Writes Howl. In October, Ginsberg does a public reading of Howl in its entirety at Six Gallery(also known as Gallery Six) for the first time.
- 1956 - Howl and Other Poems is published by City Lights Books. Ginsberg takes a road trip with Corso, and they meet Kerouac in Mexico City. Ginsberg's mother dies of a brain hemorrhage in the hospital where she spent most of her adult life.
- 1957 - Ginsberg and Peter travel to Morocco for the first time. In March, U.S. Customs seize 500 copies of Howl and Other Poems. In June, Murao and Ferlinghetti, the owners of City Lights Bookstore, are arrested for selling Howl and Other Poems, a book deemed "obscene literature". There is more on this under the "Obscenity Trial" tab.
- 1958 - Ginsberg and Peter return to New York.
- 1960 - Ginsberg travels to South America - specifically, Chile, Bolivia and Peru.
- 1961 - Ginsberg and Peter travel to Europe, Morocco, Israel, Greece, Kenya and India.
- 1963 - Ginsberg and Peter return to the U.S.
- 1964 - Ginsberg becomes friends with Bob Dylan. This year, Ginsberg and others form "The Committee on Poetry" to combat the raids in Greenwich Village and the Lower East Side that try to force the cafe and bar owners to purchase expensive licenses for poetry readings - they ultimately win.
- 1965 - Ginsberg goes to Cuba for a literary conference - of course, he ruffles some feathers, and on February 18, he is escorted and forced to leave Cuba. From Cuba, he goes to Prague - while here, another poet plays a prank on him that draws a lot of attention. Ginsberg was again forced to leave a country due to "complaints from parents, scientists and educators" (allenginsberg.org). After Prague, he goes to London, where, to my knowledge, he does NOT get kicked out. When he returns to the U.S. in June, he learns he now has an activated FBI file.
- 1966 - Ginsberg argues in the U.S. Senate that LSD should be legal. Seriously.
- 1967 - Ginsberg participates in the "Human Be-In" Festival (one of many festival participations) in San Francisco - he, fittingly, reads poetry. He then travels to Italy to participate in the Spoleto Festival, and here he meets Ezra Pound for the first time. Next, he attends the Dialects of Liberation Conference. He then will travel to Wales where he takes LSD and writes the aptly named poem, "Wales Visitation". To end the year, Ginsberg and 265 others get arrested at an Anti-Draft Protest in New York.
- 1968 - Ginsberg is invited by the Yippies and Esquire Magazine to participate in the Democratic Convention, and he agrees on the condition of no violence taking place. When he arrives, he learns the Mayor of Chicago has refused to allow the "Festival of Light" happen, and Ginsberg believes he plays a big role in keeping the calm during the situation.
- 1969 - Kerouac passes away - Ginsberg is a pallbearer at his funeral. He writes the elegy, "Memory Gardens" after the funeral.
- 1971 - Ginsberg travels to Bangladesh to report on the conditions of the Refugee Camps that are a result of their war with Pakistan that has left millions dead and millions more displaced.
- 1972 - Ginsberg and others protest at the Republican National Convention. His poetry collection, The Fall of America: Poems of These States 1965-1971 is published and receives the National Book Award for Poetry.
- 1973 - In February, Ginsberg is elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters.
- 1974 - In March, Ginsberg attends the Beat Conference, which is the first major conference that recognized the importance of the Beats. In June, Ginsberg and Anne Waldman (another poet) founded a poetry school - the "Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics".
- 1976 - Ginsberg's father dies in July at the age of 80.
- 1977 - Ginsberg's Journals: Early 50s Early 60s is published.
- 1978 - Mind Breaths: Poems 1972-1977 is published. This year, Ginsberg gets copies of his FBI, CIA and DEA files so he can see what is in there; he notes they are "extensive" and "petty". During this year, he also joins a Nuclear Weapons protest wherein he is arrested twice.
- 1979 - Ginsberg travels to Italy, France, England and Holland; he also attends the Ostia Poetry Festival. This year, Ginsberg receives a $10,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
- 1980 - Ginsberg attends the Bisbee Poetry Festival to do a reading.
- 1982 - Plutonian Ode: Poems 1977-1982 is published. He attends the Ruben Dario Poetry Festival in Managua. Also, Ginsberg hosts the 25th anniversary celebration of Kerouac's On The Road - many notable poets are in attendance.
- 1983: Ginsberg releases his first album that was a long time in the making, First Blues: 1971-1981. He also goes on the David Letterman show this year.
- 1984 - Ginsberg travels to China and stays for two months.This year, Harper & Row publishes Ginsberg's Collected Poems 1947-1980 and Ginsberg is deemed a sell-out by many for leaving City Lights.
- 1985 - Ginsberg travels to Russia.
- 1986 - Ginsberg travels to Budapest, Warsaw, Belgrade, Zagreb and Macedonia doing readings. When he returns, he is appointed as Distinguished Professor at Brooklyn College. This year he also publishes White Shroud Poems: 1980-1985.
- 1988 - Ginsberg travels to Israel to teach and give readings; here he also participates in the Peace Now Rally. He then travels to Japan and read at the American Literary Society of Japan - he also participates in the Osaka Anti-Nuke Rally.
- 1990 - Ginsberg is the American delegate to the 12th World Congress of Poets that is held in South Korea.
- 1991 - He publishes Allen Ginsberg Photographs.
- 1993 - Carl Solomon dies. Ginsberg does a four month tour of Europe.
- 1994 - Ginsberg and many other notables attend the Beat conference at New York University; this is a big deal because is it the first time a major university has recognized the importance of the Beat movement. This year, Ginsberg publishes Cosmopolitan Greetings: 1986-1994. Also, Stanford University buys Ginsberg's entire archive of writing from Columbia University for one million dollars.
- 1996 - Ginsberg publishes Journals Mid-Fifties. He travels to Paris to promote Italian translations of his work, and then he travels to Prague. Upon return, he publishes Selected Poems 1947-1995 wherein friends and colleagues picked out their personal favorites for the collection.
- 1997 - On February 17, Ginsberg reads at the Tibet House Benefit - this will be his last public appearance.
- 1997 - On March 3, Ginsberg checks himself into a hospital at the behest of a relative - here he learns that he has terminal, in-operable liver cancer from Hepatitis C; he is told he has six months to live. Ginsberg passes away only a week later on April 5, at the age of 70.