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Allen Ginsberg in America: With a New Introduction by the Author
Allen Ginsberg came to national attention when his poem "Howl" was the subject of a San Francisco obscenity trial in 1956. Since then, millions of copies of the poem have been read on college campuses and elsewhere all over America. His powerful imagination, political agitation, and magnetic charisma have made him a symbol of the cultural transformation of the past fifty years. Jane Kramer's book is an incisive and passionately human portrayal of Ginsberg's world and the people in it, whirling across America from San Francisco to Midwest college towns, from New York's East Village to California be-ins. Since his passing in 1997, Ginsberg has come to be recognized as a key figure in the American literary pantheon.
202 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1970
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90 people want to read
About the author
Jane Kramer
33 books16 followers Jane Kramer has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1964 and has written the Letter from Europe since 1981.
Before joining the magazine, Kramer was a staff writer for the Village Voice; her first book, “Off Washington Square,” is a collection of her articles from that paper. She has published two collections of essays from The New Yorker, “Allen Ginsberg in America,” (1969) and “Honor to the Bride,” (1970), which was based on her experiences in Morocco in the late nineteen-sixties.
Since 1970, most of Kramer’s work for the magazine has covered various aspects of European culture, politics, and social history. Many of these articles have been collected in three books: “Unsettling Europe,” (1980); “Europeans,” (1988), which won the Prix Européen de l’Essai “Charles Veillon” and was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle award for nonfiction; and “The Politics of Memory: Looking for Germany in the New Germany,” (1996).
A notable exception to Kramer’s European reporting was her 1977 Profile of the pseudonymous Texan Henry Blanton. It was later published as a book, “The Last Cowboy,” (1977), which won the American Book Award for nonfiction. Parts of her book “Lone Patriot,” (2002), on the right-wing American militia leader John Pitner, also first appeared in the magazine. Her article on multiculturalism and political correctness, “Whose Art Is It?,” won the 1993 National Magazine Award for feature writing and was published as a book in 1994.
Jane Kramer lives in Paris, New York, and Umbria, Italy.
Before joining the magazine, Kramer was a staff writer for the Village Voice; her first book, “Off Washington Square,” is a collection of her articles from that paper. She has published two collections of essays from The New Yorker, “Allen Ginsberg in America,” (1969) and “Honor to the Bride,” (1970), which was based on her experiences in Morocco in the late nineteen-sixties.
Since 1970, most of Kramer’s work for the magazine has covered various aspects of European culture, politics, and social history. Many of these articles have been collected in three books: “Unsettling Europe,” (1980); “Europeans,” (1988), which won the Prix Européen de l’Essai “Charles Veillon” and was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle award for nonfiction; and “The Politics of Memory: Looking for Germany in the New Germany,” (1996).
A notable exception to Kramer’s European reporting was her 1977 Profile of the pseudonymous Texan Henry Blanton. It was later published as a book, “The Last Cowboy,” (1977), which won the American Book Award for nonfiction. Parts of her book “Lone Patriot,” (2002), on the right-wing American militia leader John Pitner, also first appeared in the magazine. Her article on multiculturalism and political correctness, “Whose Art Is It?,” won the 1993 National Magazine Award for feature writing and was published as a book in 1994.
Jane Kramer lives in Paris, New York, and Umbria, Italy.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
July 19, 2018
4.5 stars
A really interesting, non-traditional biography of Ginsberg's influence on American culture throughout the 50s and 60s. More like a day in the life format than a typical biography structure, and I enjoyed the idea of a specific individual's impact on a certain country rather than reporting every one of his movements around the globe.
Would recommend if you've already got some knowledge of key events/characters in the beat and hippie scenes as some things are glossed over as if there is assumed background knowledge. Overall very good.
A really interesting, non-traditional biography of Ginsberg's influence on American culture throughout the 50s and 60s. More like a day in the life format than a typical biography structure, and I enjoyed the idea of a specific individual's impact on a certain country rather than reporting every one of his movements around the globe.
Would recommend if you've already got some knowledge of key events/characters in the beat and hippie scenes as some things are glossed over as if there is assumed background knowledge. Overall very good.
April 13, 2013
I don't know why people are saying it needs more facts and more depth. The book is a piece of New Journalism. It records what Wolfe describes as someones 'status life' which is everything which makes a person who they are. The book really shows what Ginsberg's life was like at the time, what his mannerisms were and what made him tick! I think that brings more light on the man himself than hard facts ever would :)
January 24, 2023
Ako som sa na tieto detaily z Ginsbergovho aktívneho života v Amerike tešila, verte tomu, že to bolo miestami také detailné, až ma to začalo nudiť. Rozpisovať každý dialóg medzi XY a Ginsbergom na mieste činu mi neprišiel ako dobrý nápad. V podstate mi tento zvláštny štýl asi moc nesadol, ale zopár udalostí som si aspoň pospájala a pripomenuli mi už iné, ktoré som čítala od iných autorov.(takto aspoň viete, že čo je pravda). Každopádne byť Allenom Ginsbergom v 60-ych rokoch 20.storočia a zažiť udalosti spojené s revoltou a mierovým aktivizmom, povedala by som, že keby mal vnúčatá, mal by im teda o čom rozprávať. Tie síce kvôli svojej orientácii nemal, ale aspoň na to sú tu iní pamätníci. Medzi nimi aj Jane Kramer, v pohode, ale zatiaľ pre mňa najslabšia "reportáž". Konečne trošku viac spomenutý Michael Mcclure, toho mám rada 🤗.
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March 2, 2024ALLEN GINSBERG IN AMERICA, BY JANE KRAMER
JEFF KEITH’S COMMENTS
(Original copyright spring, 1969; my comments are in 2024 while looking at the 1997 reissue)
[four stars] My note in the front of my old copy says that I first bought this and read it in Amherst, Mass. in September, 1974. This book is a series of portraits of Allen Ginsberg at various different times in his life. The non-chronological arrangement of the chapters can make for confusing reading at times. My opinion is that Allen Ginsberg was one of the most important gay cultural figures in the USA during the 20th century, and I hope people will keep realizing that.
This book was published in the spring of 1969, just before the Stonewall rebellion started promoting such explosive changes in this country’s perceptions of LGBTQ people. That time juxtaposition is obvious in some of the phrases that author Kramer uses to describe things. I see that the 1997 reissue has page numbers identical to the 1969 version, which means that it repeats some of the archaic pre-Stonewall imagery.
For example, on pages 22-23, the first time that she mentions Peter Orlovsky in a chapter about the late 1960s, she describes him as Allen Ginsberg’s “roommate.” However, in a later chapter, on pages 42-43, in a flashback to the early 1950s, she gives a long, detailed description of the first meeting between Ginsberg and Orlovsky and lets us know that it was a gay relationship from the beginning.
I scanned this volume and made a long series of notes, but I will just summarize them here. It’s awfully confusing for me the way that she jumps around from year to year. The first three chapters are about “flower power” and the “Human Be-ins” in San Francisco and New York in 1967, with commentary about how those affected U.S. society as a whole. Then suddenly, Chapter Four is a long flashback to Ginsberg’s first arrival in San Francisco in 1953, meeting poets and writers who would become the Beat Generation. He meets and falls in love with Peter Orlovsky, and people know that they are more or less devoted to each other. That chapter goes on to describe the famous, vitally important “Six Gallery” poetry reading in San Francisco in October, 1955, but mainly concentrates on its emotional impact on Allen Ginsberg. That was the first public reading of his poem “Howl,” and it made a huge impact. But author Kramer downplays how important the event was in U.S. cultural history.
For the next chapter, we are yanked back to San Francisco in 1967, with a long description of some mystical aspects of the Be-In phenomenon. And then in chapter six we get a big, confusing shift in geography and find ourselves in New York City later in the same year. There are long descriptions of the communal apartment where Ginsberg and Orlovsky lived and a variety of people “crashed” from time to time, doing drugs and having a generally kind of freewheeling lifestyle.
Part Two starts with a confusing shift backwards six months to events in Berkeley, California, with radical student goings-on such as antiwar rallies. What Allen Ginsberg did related to that was to try to inject spiritual or mystical thinking into what was happening. He also wrote letters to political leaders of this country talking about spiritual themes such as how their support of war and other violence was damaging the planet and harming their own souls.
Chapter Four of that part jumps backwards twenty years to the 1940s when Ginsberg was going to Columbia University, struggling to express his creativity, and so on. He met and started hanging out with Jack Kerouac and a number of other people who would be important later in his life, and they did various illegal things that might be unacceptable to the university (but he did eventually graduate from Columbia).
Part Three starts with miscellaneous imagery of northern New Jersey in the early 1950s, his relationships with his family and friends and so on.
Anytime that Ginsberg’s longtime female friend Maretta is on the scene, author Kramer makes sure to mention that, as if to remind us that Allen Ginsberg was not fully gay but actually bisexual.
The last two chapters of the book continue with the confusing jumping around from year to year. First we learn of Ginsberg’s big success in the 1950s with the publication of a volume of poems that contained “Howl.” Then suddenly we find ourselves back in New York City in 1967 for their Be-in. After the Be-in, Ginsberg and various scruffy hippies were invited into the penthouse apartment of some rich liberals who wanted to prove how “hip” they were, and there was culture shock all around.
[END OF BOOK[
So my final comment is that all of this jumping back and forth between the years is a kind of interesting literary technique, but seems inappropriate in a book that’s trying to be a sort of biography.
JEFF KEITH’S COMMENTS
(Original copyright spring, 1969; my comments are in 2024 while looking at the 1997 reissue)
[four stars] My note in the front of my old copy says that I first bought this and read it in Amherst, Mass. in September, 1974. This book is a series of portraits of Allen Ginsberg at various different times in his life. The non-chronological arrangement of the chapters can make for confusing reading at times. My opinion is that Allen Ginsberg was one of the most important gay cultural figures in the USA during the 20th century, and I hope people will keep realizing that.
This book was published in the spring of 1969, just before the Stonewall rebellion started promoting such explosive changes in this country’s perceptions of LGBTQ people. That time juxtaposition is obvious in some of the phrases that author Kramer uses to describe things. I see that the 1997 reissue has page numbers identical to the 1969 version, which means that it repeats some of the archaic pre-Stonewall imagery.
For example, on pages 22-23, the first time that she mentions Peter Orlovsky in a chapter about the late 1960s, she describes him as Allen Ginsberg’s “roommate.” However, in a later chapter, on pages 42-43, in a flashback to the early 1950s, she gives a long, detailed description of the first meeting between Ginsberg and Orlovsky and lets us know that it was a gay relationship from the beginning.
I scanned this volume and made a long series of notes, but I will just summarize them here. It’s awfully confusing for me the way that she jumps around from year to year. The first three chapters are about “flower power” and the “Human Be-ins” in San Francisco and New York in 1967, with commentary about how those affected U.S. society as a whole. Then suddenly, Chapter Four is a long flashback to Ginsberg’s first arrival in San Francisco in 1953, meeting poets and writers who would become the Beat Generation. He meets and falls in love with Peter Orlovsky, and people know that they are more or less devoted to each other. That chapter goes on to describe the famous, vitally important “Six Gallery” poetry reading in San Francisco in October, 1955, but mainly concentrates on its emotional impact on Allen Ginsberg. That was the first public reading of his poem “Howl,” and it made a huge impact. But author Kramer downplays how important the event was in U.S. cultural history.
For the next chapter, we are yanked back to San Francisco in 1967, with a long description of some mystical aspects of the Be-In phenomenon. And then in chapter six we get a big, confusing shift in geography and find ourselves in New York City later in the same year. There are long descriptions of the communal apartment where Ginsberg and Orlovsky lived and a variety of people “crashed” from time to time, doing drugs and having a generally kind of freewheeling lifestyle.
Part Two starts with a confusing shift backwards six months to events in Berkeley, California, with radical student goings-on such as antiwar rallies. What Allen Ginsberg did related to that was to try to inject spiritual or mystical thinking into what was happening. He also wrote letters to political leaders of this country talking about spiritual themes such as how their support of war and other violence was damaging the planet and harming their own souls.
Chapter Four of that part jumps backwards twenty years to the 1940s when Ginsberg was going to Columbia University, struggling to express his creativity, and so on. He met and started hanging out with Jack Kerouac and a number of other people who would be important later in his life, and they did various illegal things that might be unacceptable to the university (but he did eventually graduate from Columbia).
Part Three starts with miscellaneous imagery of northern New Jersey in the early 1950s, his relationships with his family and friends and so on.
Anytime that Ginsberg’s longtime female friend Maretta is on the scene, author Kramer makes sure to mention that, as if to remind us that Allen Ginsberg was not fully gay but actually bisexual.
The last two chapters of the book continue with the confusing jumping around from year to year. First we learn of Ginsberg’s big success in the 1950s with the publication of a volume of poems that contained “Howl.” Then suddenly we find ourselves back in New York City in 1967 for their Be-in. After the Be-in, Ginsberg and various scruffy hippies were invited into the penthouse apartment of some rich liberals who wanted to prove how “hip” they were, and there was culture shock all around.
[END OF BOOK[
So my final comment is that all of this jumping back and forth between the years is a kind of interesting literary technique, but seems inappropriate in a book that’s trying to be a sort of biography.
September 18, 2022
Tell the story of how Ginsburg essentially single-handedly created in the 1960s. Including living on an organic farm, getting into yoga and Buddhism and hinduism, drugs art music, and connecting everyone in the political movement. It's almost inconceivable without him.
September 2, 2015
I didn't care for Part I of the book. I thought it showed Ginsberg and the San Francisco of the late '60s at its worst: self-indulgent, intellectually sloppy and everyone living off wishful thinking. I DID feel that it was worth reading even as an historical document. I didn't know about the Diggers before and about the internal tensions running through the hippie movement.
After a bit more thought, I felt I was very ungenerous. What the hippies were doing, in some cases, and what Ginsberg was trying to foster, in particular, was an approach toward social living and personal development that both hadn't been tried before (the pharmacology hadn't been developed) and yet was in the very American tradition of creating Utopias.
And can anyone really say that Ginsberg's attempts to foster a new consciousness centered around peace and love were less agreeable than the actions of figures like Robert MacNamara, people who were part of a real and very deadly war machine that saw policy goals (and failed ones, at that) as more important than thousands of American and Vietnamese lives?
In that context, Ginsberg's actions play out pretty well, I think. He couldn't stop the war or take down the military-industrial complex but he could--and did--his part to cultivate a different set of values that were centered on the indivdual and nurturing of personal freedoms.
Part II
This was the part of the book that ensures I will keep it on my shelf rather than sell it at Once Read Books on South Front Street. The chapters in this section of the book give quite a lot of background and feel for Ginsberg's development as a writer and his contribution to, and what feels like, a (gentle) bulldog-like effort to promote ALL of the Beats as a literary force to be taken seriously by American academics.
His letter to literary critic and college friend John Hollander is a snapshot that reveals what he was up against. As Ginsberg saw it, literary critics who saw themselves as protecting what was good and "serious" in American literature were unwilling to enter into an honest debate or examination of the poetry being written by Ginsberg and Corso, or of Kerouac's prose.
If you're interested in Ginsberg's prosody and need evidence that Allen Ginsberg cared about the composition of his works and was inventive in his prosody, this letter gives you an outline of his defense. For Ginsberg, the frustration was feeling that critics were so dismissive that he had no opportunity to publish a defense of the merit and craftsmanship of his work.
After a bit more thought, I felt I was very ungenerous. What the hippies were doing, in some cases, and what Ginsberg was trying to foster, in particular, was an approach toward social living and personal development that both hadn't been tried before (the pharmacology hadn't been developed) and yet was in the very American tradition of creating Utopias.
And can anyone really say that Ginsberg's attempts to foster a new consciousness centered around peace and love were less agreeable than the actions of figures like Robert MacNamara, people who were part of a real and very deadly war machine that saw policy goals (and failed ones, at that) as more important than thousands of American and Vietnamese lives?
In that context, Ginsberg's actions play out pretty well, I think. He couldn't stop the war or take down the military-industrial complex but he could--and did--his part to cultivate a different set of values that were centered on the indivdual and nurturing of personal freedoms.
Part II
This was the part of the book that ensures I will keep it on my shelf rather than sell it at Once Read Books on South Front Street. The chapters in this section of the book give quite a lot of background and feel for Ginsberg's development as a writer and his contribution to, and what feels like, a (gentle) bulldog-like effort to promote ALL of the Beats as a literary force to be taken seriously by American academics.
His letter to literary critic and college friend John Hollander is a snapshot that reveals what he was up against. As Ginsberg saw it, literary critics who saw themselves as protecting what was good and "serious" in American literature were unwilling to enter into an honest debate or examination of the poetry being written by Ginsberg and Corso, or of Kerouac's prose.
If you're interested in Ginsberg's prosody and need evidence that Allen Ginsberg cared about the composition of his works and was inventive in his prosody, this letter gives you an outline of his defense. For Ginsberg, the frustration was feeling that critics were so dismissive that he had no opportunity to publish a defense of the merit and craftsmanship of his work.
February 9, 2016
A very interesting look at the culture of the '60's Beat Generation and especially of the artists that influenced the world at that time. The first account stories included here border between the search for enlightenment and a group of people who are narcissistic. I came away confused if this generation, my generation, was honest in their search or just being disrespectful to an established society they felt was restrictive to their narcissism.
This was very well written and yet I wonder how so much of the dialogue was real and how it was gathered. The only other issue was the organization of the writing; its chronological approach was somewhat confusing as it seemed to move back and forth in time without purpose. As I write this I now move my rating from 5 stars to 4. Do recommend this as an enjoyable easy read.
This was very well written and yet I wonder how so much of the dialogue was real and how it was gathered. The only other issue was the organization of the writing; its chronological approach was somewhat confusing as it seemed to move back and forth in time without purpose. As I write this I now move my rating from 5 stars to 4. Do recommend this as an enjoyable easy read.
August 26, 2007
This is a fun, easy read that sketches Ginsberg and attendant loonies at the height of his reign as May King of the '60s Underground. Essentially an expanded New Yorker portrait, it tracks the poet's dizzying movements from the January '67 San Francisco Be-In to its New York sequel that Easter. Kramer lays on the color a little thick (she's clearly writing for amused and knowing squares) but she's very much alive to the idealism of Ginsberg's slaphappy search for satori in the midst of hectic times. A kind of Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test Lite, it's a breezy contribution to the Sixties myth.
December 16, 2013
A day in the life of Ginsberg - I found it interesting and raw, like finding never aired reality show footage from 1967. He's over the top, bizarre, a brilliant business man, you wonder if he's a phony, and then sometimes he's a regular guy who just wants a place to call home.
Did Ginsberg invent everything and have a hand in every pop culture event? On page 98, we learn that Allen was the very first person to be called a douche bag. Of course he was.
Did Ginsberg invent everything and have a hand in every pop culture event? On page 98, we learn that Allen was the very first person to be called a douche bag. Of course he was.
August 17, 2020
Just re-read this wonderful account of Ginsberg’s adventures, high spirits and adventures. Notable inclusions: a lengthy letter AG wrote to Columbia classmate John Hollander after he knocked “Howl,” and a memorable visit to Max’s Kansas City, accompanied by Gregory Corso, in which Corso upbraided Andy Warhol. Originally published in the New Yorker, Jane Kramer’s understated East Coast style allows Ginsberg’s brilliance to shine even more brightly.
February 8, 2011
Allen Ginsberg: hippie, LSD user, writer, poet. An interesting perspective on the way he led his life, the way he treated his fellow human. The writing felt a bit forced at times; I wondered more about the author's experiences than Ginsberg's at times. On the whole, though, engaging.
May 3, 2014
Allen Ginsberg unleashed on America in the 1960's.
This book was written by a friend of Ginsberg and has lots of stories on the great poet's activities during the wild & turbulent 60's.
An excellent read.
This book was written by a friend of Ginsberg and has lots of stories on the great poet's activities during the wild & turbulent 60's.
An excellent read.
September 7, 2008
My purse was stolen a few years back and the most valuable thing in it was this book. I wonder what ever happened to it...
October 6, 2010
As one of the reviews on the back of the book says "even if you've never read a word of Ginsberg you will love this book." It is so entertaining. Its hysterical. It captures the essence of A.G.
March 9, 2013
Meh. Not great, could have used some more facts.
July 19, 2013
Thoroughly enjoyable immersion in the best of hippy - the journo though is an uncomfortable figure in the room, casting doubt on authenticity by her very presence.
August 18, 2007
Not very in-depth.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews