A selective bibliography of open access articles on Allen Ginsberg, favoring signed articles by recognized scholars, articles published in reviewed sources, and web sites that adhere to the MLA Guidelines for Authors of Web Sites
Augustine, Jane. On the influence of Zen and Asian intellectual, religious and cultural ideas on Diane diPrima, Allen Ginsberg, Denise Levertov and Anne Waldman, from a talk at the Conference on Contemporary Poetry, Rutgers, 1997 (removed)
Bernstein, Charles. A short talk on T.S. Eliot and Allen Ginsberg, in which Bernstein opines that it did neither poet a service that Eliot became the poet who symbolized the closed and repressed, just as Ginsberg became the symbol of the open, the uncloseted, the anti-authoritarian. From the Conference on Contemporary Poetry, Rutgers, 1997 (removed)
Burt, Stephen. "The Paradox of Howl: The anti-establishment poem's debt to the established past." Slate, 4/19/06
Charters, Ann. A biography of Allen Ginsberg, at the Modern American Poetry Site (Univ. of Illinois)
Clay, Steve and Rodney Phillips. Excerpt from A Secret Location on the Lower East Side: Adventures in Writing, 1960-1980. Based on the acclaimed 1998 exhibition at The NY Public Library documenting experimental literary publishing in this period. Courtesy of Granary Books (now blocked from http://www.granarybooks.com/books/clay/clay4.html)
Genter, Robert. "'I'm Not His Father': Lionel Trilling, Allen Ginsberg, and the Contours of Literary Modernism." In College Literature, Spring 2004
Harris, Oliver. "Cold War Correspondents: Ginsberg, Kerouac, Cassady, and the Political Economy of Beat Letters" [Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassady]. Twentieth Century Literature, Summer, 2000
Hayward, Michael. An M.A. thesis on the publishing history of Beat writers (1991)
Lardas, John. A review of Bop Apocalypse: The Religious Visions of Kerouac, Ginsberg and Burroughs, (Univ. of Illinois Press, 2001) In College Literature, Fall 2002, reviewed by Chandarlapaty, Raj
Meyers, Jeffrey. Gonzo Ginsberg And Moby Dickey: A Memoir A short article contrasts the personal styles of Allen Ginsberg and James Dickey. Virginia Quarterly Review.
Mitchell, Adrian. Poet Adrian Mitchell writes about his relationship with Ginsberg, in The New Statesman, April 11, 1997 (removed from findarticles.com)
Moramarco, Fred. A lengthy essay by Professor Moramarco from his book, Containing Multitudes, has sections on Allen Ginsberg and other poets who "would move beyond the impersonal, objectivist confines of modernism and toward a poetry centered in the physical self of the poet who produced it. They participated collectively in the mid-century poetic climate that revolutionized poetry and greatly broadened its possibilities."
Morgan, Bill. An online exhibition on the life and writings of Allen Ginsberg, based chiefly on the Ginsberg collection acquired in 2002 from Bill Morgan, at the Univ. of North Carolina library web site
Perloff, Marjorie. "'A Lost Batallion of Platonic Conversationalists': 'Howl' and the Language of Modernism." Perloff positions Ginsberg as a modernist. Originally in The Poem that Changed America:'Howl' Fifty Years Later (Farrar Straus, 2006)
Podhoretz, Norman. A review of EX-FRIENDS: Falling Out With Allen Ginsberg, Lionel and Diana Trilling, Lillian Helman, Hannah Arendt, and Norman Mailer by Norman Podhoretz (The Free Press). Reviewed in Washington Monthly, Jan, 1999 by Nicholas Lemann
Pollin, Burton R. Edgar Allan Poe as a major influence upon Allen Ginsberg, in Mississippi Quarterly, Fall 1999 (removed from findarticles.com)
Raskin, Johah. Publisher's page for American Scream: Allen Ginsberg's Howl and the Making of the Beat Generation (Univ. of Calif. Press, 2004) Chapter 1 of American Scream
Schumcher, Michael. An account of the night Allen Ginsberg read "Howl" at the Six Gallery in San Francisco, by Michael Schumcher, from Dharma Lion -- A Biography of Allen Ginsberg (removed from http://www.interlog.com/~mushroom/howl.html)
Trigilio, Tony. A review of Strange Prophecies Anew: Rethinking the Politics of Matter and Spirit in Ginsberg's 'Kaddish'. Reviewed by Mary Sands in Jack Magazine, March 2000
Vendler, Helen. Allen Ginsberg Considers His Country and Himself. A review of The Fall of America in the NY Times, April 15, 1973
Vendler, Helen. My Fiercest Liberator: A Tribute to Allen Ginsberg. "Before I say something about Allen Ginsberg's great gifts to world culture, I want to mention my own profound gratitude for his work and for the life out of which it came. I read him when I first came to Harvard, in 1957, and he became one of my liberators."
Wisker, Alastair. A substantial introductory article on Allen Ginsberg from the Literary Encyclopedia
Search findarticles.com for additional articles on Allen Ginsberg
Allen Ginsberg section re-prints reputable critical discussions of the following poems: Howl, Love Poem on a Theme by Whitman, Wichita Vortex Sutra, About the Vietnam War. At The Modern American Poetry web site, Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Discussion questions for teaching Allen Ginsberg's poetry, from textbook publisher Heath
A NY Times Feature on Allen Ginsberg, includes links to historical Times articles on Ginsberg and reviews of his books. (Free but requires a one-time registration)
Allen Ginsberg's obituary from the NY Times, 4/6/97
Allen Ginsberg a very brief introduction, with links to poems and additional articles. Also "Life Studies: American Poetry from T. S. Eliot to Allen Ginsberg." A short overview of American poetry. From the Academy of American Poets
A brief biography of Allen Ginsberg from the Books and Writers web site, Kuusankoski Public Library, Finland
Details on the reading "6 Poets at 6 Gallery" in San Francisco, 1955
Professor Larry Smith's timeline for the Beats which puts Beat events in the context of cultural history
A biography of Allen Ginsberg from the Public Broadcasting Series show "American Masters"
A jaunty memoir of Ginsberg by Herbert Gold in salon.com
An assessment of Ginsberg at the end of his career, by Tim Brown, on Al Filreis's English 88 site at Univ. of Penn
Author David Gates writes about the influence of the Beats on younger writers, in salon.com
On a documentary that films the last meeting of Paul Bowles, Allen Ginsberg, and William Burroughs, Salon Magazine, 5/4/99
Ginsberg, Allen. "Kenneth Koch and Allen Ginsberg: Popeye and William Blake Fight to the Death." An eight-minute recording of a rhyming contest between Kenneth Koch and Allen Ginsberg at St Mark's Poetry Project, 9 May 1979. From Jacket Magazine 15, Dec. 2001
Ginsberg, Allen. A 1992 interview with Ginsberg covers William Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, his thoughts on madness and creativity, politics and revolution
Ginsberg, Allen. In a 1996 interview, Ginsberg discusses his rage and disappointment with the U.S. government. From Eclectic Literary Forum
Ginsberg, Allen. "The Houseboat Summit," transcript of a 1967 discussion about spiritual change, with Gary Snyder, Alan Watts, Allen Ginsberg, and Timothy Leary, which took place on Watts' houseboat in Sausilito, Calif
Hart, Jeffrey. Learning to Like Allen Ginsberg, in the Dartmouth Review, September 18, 2000
Allen Ginsberg dot org, the web site for the Allen Ginsberg Trust, created by Allen Ginsberg a few years before his death, contains much interesting material
A list of primary and selected secondary works for Allen Ginsberg, from Professor Paul Reuben's bibliography web site
An online exhibition on the life and writings of Allen Ginsberg, based chiefly on the Ginsberg collection acquired in 2002 from Bill Morgan, at the Univ. of North Carolina library web site
"Stanford acquires archive of Beat poet Allen Ginsberg" press release 9/7/94
Details about the Allen Ginsberg manuscripts at Stony Brook Univ. Libraries
The history of Circle magazine, an experimental San Francisco publication started in 1944
A site from the Naropa Institute's Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics contains audio files of lectures given at Naropa by Beat writers. The Naropa Archive Project is preserving and providing access to over 3500 recordings made at Naropa since 1974
Hayward, Michael. The publishing history of Beat writers, MA thesis (1991)
Details on the reading "6 Poets at 6 Gallery" in San Francisco, 1955
Professor Larry Smith's timeline for the Beats which puts Beat events in the context of cultural history
Book Collecting: Beat Literature, article by a book collector, Donald W. Miller, Jr., MD
Excerpt from A Secret Location on the Lower East Side: Adventures in Writing, 1960-1980, by Steve Clay & Rodney Phillips. Based on the acclaimed 1998 exhibition at The New York Public Library documenting experimental literary publishing in this period. Courtesy of Granary Books (now blocked)
"A Secret Location on the Lower East Side: Adventures in Writing, 1960-1980." Underground Publications Document Poetry's 'Mimeo Revolution' in Exhibition at The NY Public Library, featuring the handmade, experimental publications of work by writers and artists of the period. Press release about a 1998 exhibition at the NYPL (removed)
1998-2008 by Donna Jan Pridmore