Empty mirror; early poems, introduction by William Carlos Williams.

by Allen Ginsberg

A small booklet on early poems written by Allen Ginsberg

Genres: Poetry

Paperback

First published January 1, 1961

About the author

Allen Ginsberg was a groundbreaking American poet and activist best known for his central role in the Beat Generation and for writing the landmark poem Howl. Born in 1926 in Newark, New Jersey, to Jewish parents, Ginsberg grew up in a household shaped by both intellectualism and psychological struggle. His father, Louis Ginsberg, was a published poet and a schoolteacher, while his mother, Naomi, suffered from severe mental illness, which deeply affected Ginsberg and later influenced his writing—most notably in his poem Kaddish.
As a young man, Ginsberg attended Columbia University, where he befriended other future Beat luminaries such as Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs, and Neal Cassady. These relationships formed the core of what became known as the Beat Generation—a loose-knit group of writers and artists who rejected mainstream American values in favor of personal liberation, spontaneity, spiritual exploration, and radical politics.
Ginsberg rose to national prominence in 1956 with the publication of Howl and Other Poems, released by City Lights Books in San Francisco. Howl, an emotionally charged and stylistically experimental poem, offered an unfiltered vision of America’s underbelly. It included candid references to homosexuality, drug use, and mental illness—subjects considered taboo at the time. The poem led to an obscenity trial, which ultimately concluded in Ginsberg’s favor, setting a precedent for freedom of speech in literature.
His work consistently challenged social norms and addressed themes of personal freedom, sexual identity, spirituality, and political dissent. Ginsberg was openly gay at a time when homosexuality was still criminalized in much of the United States, and he became a vocal advocate for LGBTQ+ rights throughout his life. His poetry often intertwined the personal with the political, blending confessional intimacy with a broader critique of American society.
Beyond his literary achievements, Ginsberg was also a dedicated activist. He protested against the Vietnam War, nuclear proliferation, and later, U.S. foreign policy in Latin America. He was present at many pivotal cultural and political moments of the 1960s and 1970s, including the 1968 Democratic National Convention and various countercultural gatherings. His spiritual journey led him to Buddhism, which deeply influenced his writing and worldview. He studied under Tibetan teacher Chögyam Trungpa and helped establish the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado.
Ginsberg’s later years were marked by continued literary output and collaborations with musicians such as Bob Dylan and The Clash. His poetry collections, including Reality Sandwiches, Planet News, and The Fall of America, were widely read and respected. He received numerous honors for his work, including the National Book Award for Poetry in 1974.
He died of liver cancer in 1997 at the age of 70. Today, Allen Ginsberg is remembered not only as a pioneering poet, but also as a courageous voice for free expression, social justice, and spiritual inquiry. His influence on American literature and culture remains profound and enduring.

Reviews

[Sasluu · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't know why it is that with certain writers the stuff they produced before finding their "own voice" is better than the "mature works" that actually made them prominent. I wouldn't say this of every poet I've read, but I feel compelled to say it of the two collections by Ginsberg that I've read this week (they are also the only ones so i could be wrong, I still have to read Kaddish and Plutonian Ode, which he wrote long after Howl). I think it is mostly that I don't miss the rhetorical prophetic tone of Howl in these early poems where, as William Carlos Williams puts it in the introduction (he also wrote one for the original edition of Howl), the reader is brought into something like a nightmarish infernal pilgrimage. WCW quotes Dante and Chaucer as reading models and the poems do seem to work with these models in the overall impression of moving through a modern hell of emptiness, depression, loneliness (not solitude), failure and nothingness of life in the city (mostly New York, but other cities are mentioned too). I also like the surface simplicity of the poems, very unlike Howl while still managing to be complex, perhaps even more complex by sheer fact of leaving something of the infernal world and its disturbed and disturbing inhabitants to the reader's imagination.

[Nuri · Rating 4 out of 5]

As William Carlos Williams wrote in the Introduction : "This young Jewish boy, already not so young any more, has recognized something that has escaped most of the modern age, he has
found that man is lost in the world of his own head."

In a true sense, Ginsberg has written poems of awakening for a sleeping world. As these poems were written early on, the following poem suggests that Allen was only 23 at the time.

Tonite all is well .. . What a '
terrible future. I am twenty-three,
year of the iron birthday,
gate of darkness. I am ill,
I have become physically and
spiritually impotent in my madness this month.
I suddenly realized that my head
is severed from my body;
I realized it a few nights ago
by myself,
lying sleepless on the couch.

The book has 37 poems. While some are ramblings of a young mind about the society, others are personal and hint at a deeper anguish, that comes from following one's spiritual pursuits and drifting between two states - duality and non-duality. In few short poems, Allen has very delicately written around the themes of death, illness, consciousness, and loss. His poems, sounds to me, a reflection of his inner personal state of being shining forth amidst the tragedy and pain of being human.

[Mat · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very solid first book from Ginsberg. William Carlos Williams writes a very interesting introduction, praising Ginsberg's poetry. That must have been such a great endorsement so early on the poet's career.

You can tell here that he is stil growing as a poet but there are faint traces and hints of a burgeoning poetic spirit that would one day go on to write 'Howl', a poem which captured the heart of a generation and which was the peak moment of the Six Gallery reading in 1955. Some of the poems in this collection are beautiful in their simplicity and stark imagery. There are a few poems here which to me are more like 'prose fragments' or 'passing thoughts' but even so, what comes out of Ginsberg's mouth is more often than not bound to be fascinating.
There's something beautiful about Ginsberg's spirit which is very present in this collection and more markedly so in subsequent ones. He had something to say about society and what he saw around him in his own times and was not afraid to say it.

I think Norman Mailer was right in saying that Allen was one of the bravest people in America.
America should really raise a statue to this guy.

[Greg · Rating 3 out of 5]

In 1951, post WW2, Ginsberg writes, in "After Dead Souls":
'Where O America are you
going in your glorious
automobile, careening
down the highway
toward what crash...'
In hindsight, this is certainly a creepy vision of JFK's assassination, of the Viet Nam war, of 9/11. The America of the 1950s has been glorified in many ways. But Ginsberg obviously doesn't share that vision. Next up, I'm reading Ginsberg's "The Green Automobile" which covers his poetry of 1953-54. Then comes his infamous "Howl" of 55-56. Then Ginsberg's experience of the 60s. I know the impact of the 1950's fantasy-that-never-was on Rabbit in Updike's brilliant "Rabbit, Run." Does Ginsberg fall victim also? I don't think he will, he already knows the truth in 1951. But I will read on to see!

[Max · Rating 4 out of 5]

Picked up an original copy (1961 first-edition) in Chicago. I never understand why folks get rid of treasures like this. His early poems are just that: early attempts at poetry. Some of these are dated (Dream, 1948; A.G. [1961]) yet they don't seem to lose anything through the decades since.

Probably for devotees only. I liked it.

[herbmarium · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel as if I am at a dead
end and so I am finished.
All spiritual facts I realize
are true, but I never escape
the feeling of being closed in
and the sordidness of self,
the futility of all that I
have seen, and done, and said.
Maybe If I continued things
would please me more but now
I have no hope and I am tired.

Allen Ginsberg

[DeadWeight · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like all works of poetry it requires time, context, the sacrament of revisiting. Some poems clicked with me, others fell flat. I have been dueling this in two editions; one, contained in Ginsberg's self-edited Collected Poems , offers up Ginsberg's own suggestion that his whole oeuvre be read together and through, as one giant poem. There's benefit to this reading - the seeds of Howl are in here, there is, for example, a stanza in "Vision 1948" (included I think only in the first section of Collected because I can't find in this other copy of Mirror ) that seems to read almost like a prelude in their language and metaphor to the famous opening lines of said poem:

I shudder with intelligence and I
Wake in the deep light
And hear a vast machinery
Descending without sound,
Intolerable to me, too bright
And shaken by the sight
The eye goes blind before the world goes round.

Shitty thing about the Beats is you can't help but read them now without thinking about all the shitty, pretentious, adolescent poetry you've probably read that has been in some way or another shaped by the idea of what someone might have imagined Allen Ginsberg wrote like. But Ginsberg is more fun than that, more weird.

In the original version, William Carlos Williams compares these poems to Dante. A lot. I'm not sure I see that, but I'll have to keep in mind for a re-read. Williams also says its the job of the poet to not be recondite, but spends his entire introduction being at least a little bit recondite, so maybe he's just full of it.

[M. Ashraf · Rating 2 out of 5]

Empty Mirror
Gates of Wrath
Early Poems 1947 - 1952
Allen Ginsberg

My first read of Allen Ginsberg poetry, his early poems in the collected poems,
It reads nice, though nothing special about it yet.
People keep mentioning "HOWL" and I do not really know anything about it so I think it is going to be a good surprise.

Life seems a passage between
two doors to the darkness.

Both are the same and truly
eternal, and perhaps it may
be said that we meet in
darkness.

The nature of time
is illuminated by this
meeting of eternal ends.

[kamila gutierrez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lydia is reading right next to me as a finish. I had a lot of fun reading this collection! I would say the poems that stood out to me the most are In Death, Cannot Reach What is Most Near, This is About Death, Metaphysics, Sunset, and The Terms in Which I Think of Reality. In addition, I think The Shrouded Stranger was a great way to end the book! Lots to think about.

[Tuhin Bhowal · Rating 4 out of 5]

"... I call him
Dusty now but he is
Dostoyevsky. What premonitions
I had as a child."

-from Fyodor (Paterson, June 1949)

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting to see where he was before "Howl."

[grace · Rating 3 out of 5]

Are they good??? *no* but they certainly convey “hallucinating 20 year old homo” in 8k

[DJ Linick · Rating 3 out of 5]

A few gems

[Muhammad · Rating 1 out of 5]

Trash! I'm NOT into homo-erotic poetry, but even if I was, these poems just aren't good. It's almost at the Whitman level of nonsense.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am starting to absorb poetry. Starting with Ginsberg. Surprised to see closed form and rhyming poems from the man who championed open poetry later in life. I am actually working my way through his collected poems and giving myself successes for finishing each book.

[Shannon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ginsberg is one of my favorite poets, so it was interesting seeing his early work- I think he definitely evolved. But these are still good.

One line that stuck out to me "All work has been an imitation of the literary cackle in my head"

[Joe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Found this awhile back at the now defunct Bonifant books. Mostly to have a Totem press book. Maybe Amiri Baraka stapled it.

If you don't already like Ginsberg the rawness of this early stuff won't win you over. If you do, then its worth reading.