Selected Poems 1947-1995

Allen Ginsberg

HarperCollins, Apr 3, 2001 - Poetry - 480 pages

Assembled by Allen Ginsberg, Selected Poems 1947-1995 is the definitive collection of the best works of one of the most influential and revolutionary poets of the twentieth century.

Allen Ginsberg, famous for helping catalyze the Beat Generation, wrote poetry for more than fifty years. His innovative verse and provocative attitudes of spiritual, political, and sexual liberation inspired countless poets, musicians, and visual and performance artists worldwide, and helped shape several generations' views of the world.

Selected Poems 1947-1995 commemorates Ginsberg's brilliant career as one of America's most distinguished poets. Here are well-known masterpieces such as the lyric "Howl" and the narrative "Kaddish" -- classic works of American literature -- as well as more recent gems, including the long dream poem "White Shroud," the visionary "After Lalon," and the political rock lyric "The Ballad of the Skeletons," a song he recorded in 1996 with a stellar band that included Philip Glass, Lenny Kaye, and Paul McCartney.

What people are saying

Review: Selected Poems, 1947-1995

User Review  - John Kerridge - Goodreads

When I was trying to act young and cool this book was essential reading - now it holds memories of what a pretentious prat I could be. Still some brilliant pieces in here though, but not his best work. The dark sexuality and violence of this selection becomes boring as you get older.

Review: Selected Poems, 1947-1995

User Review  - William Young - Goodreads

This guy completely sucks.

About the author

Allen Ginsberg was born in Newark, New Jersey, in 1926, a son of Naomi and lyric poet Louis Ginsberg. As a student at Columbia College in the 1940s, he began a close friendship with William Burroughs, Neal Cassady, and Jack Kerouac, and he later became associated with the Beat movement and the San Francisco Renaissance in the 1950s. After jobs as a laborer, sailor, and market researcher, Ginsberg published his first volume of poetry, Howl and Other Poems, in 1956. "Howl" defeated censorship trials to become one of the most widely read poems of the century, translated into more than twenty-two languages, from Macedonian to Chinese, a model for younger generations of poets from West to East.

Ginsberg was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, was awarded the medal of Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French minister of culture, was a winner of the National Book Award (for The Fall of America), and was a cofounder of the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at the Naropa Institute, the first accredited Buddhist college in the Western world. He died in New York City in 1997.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Selected Poems 1947-1995; Perennial Classics
• Author: Allen Ginsberg
• Edition: illustrated, reprint
• Publisher: HarperCollins, 2001
• ISBN: 0060933763, 9780060933760
• Length: 480 pages
• Subjects: Poetry / General