Seventy Years of Allen Ginsberg’s ‘Howl’

· The Dispatch ·

1 min read Original article ↗
A man in a blue shirt plays a banjo while another man sits beside him in what appears to be an informal indoor gathering against a chalk-marked wall, with several spectators watching.

Decades after the Beat poet published his famous poem, what are we to make of it?

American poets Peter Anton Orlovsky and Allen Ginsberg perform in Milan in 1979. (Photo by Alberto Roveri/Mondadori Portfolio via Getty Images)

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Here follow two visions of the poet Allen Ginsberg. First vision: from “Lunching with Ginsberg,” an essay by the poet August Kleinzahler. It is 1989 and Ginsberg is 62. Kleinzahler accompanies him to a diner and finds him kind, thoughtful, and much more serious than his public persona would suggest.

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Henry Begler is a critic and essayist from Los Angeles. He writes the Substack newsletter A Good Hard Stare.

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