Poetry. LGBT Studies. Allen Ginsberg's "Kaddish," a long poem written about the madness and death of his mother, Naomi, is widely considered to be one his major works. This special fiftieth-anniversary edition of KADDISH AND OTHER POEMS features an illuminating afterword by the noted Ginsberg biographer Bill Morgan, along with previously unpublished family photographs, Naomi's paintings, and documents and letters relating to the composition of the poem.

Author City: NEW YORK, NY USA

Allen Ginsberg was born June 3, 1926, the son of Naomi Ginsberg, Russian émigré, and Louis Ginsberg, lyric poet and school teacher, in Paterson, New Jersey. To these facts Ginsberg adds: "High school in Paterson till 17, Columbia College, merchant marine, Texas and Denver copyboy, Times Square, amigos in jail, dishwashing, book reviews, Mexico City, market research, Satori in Harlem, Yucatan and Chiapas 1954, West Coast 3 years. Later Arctic Sea trip, Tangier, Venice, Amsterdam, Paris, read at Oxford Harvard Columbia Chicago, quit, wrote 'Kaddish' 1959, made tape to leave behind & fade in Orient awhile. Carl Solomon to whom 'Howl' is addressed, is a intuitive Bronx dadaist and prose-poet." In 1973, he and poet Anne Waldman co-founded the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado. Ginsberg succumbed to liver cancer in 1997.

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The Allen Ginsberg Project