Allen Ginsberg Books

This is bottomline an excellent book with editors and contributors that are prominent in their fields. The subjects covered were relevant in my work and there were excellent references for further study. I have passed my examinations and impressed my senior specialist peers after reading and understanding concepts vividly elucidated in this tome.Time and again this book has been the basis for my lectures to paramedics and medical student.The text is too small though. If you want a serious and indepth reference on acute pain, this is it.

Yes thats it boys, a book on pain. Come and get it. I took the course because the textbook was neat I dropped it because the idea was gross. Maybe I'll go into dentistry.....

This is a great overview of Beat Poetics. Check out Ted Joans, who remains the most lucid of the Beat poets and who still writing and reading strong. He has just published a new collection of poetry called Our Thang, also available on Amazon. He and Bob Kaufmann are possible the two most extraordinary writers of this extraordinary generation.

after reading this selection many times, i have become enthraled the lives of kerouac, cassady, and ginsburg. for a new fan of these great poets, this book is a must. it will give you a great work of information that can allow you to discover the works of many innovative poets

Although Dr. Kraus is better known to the world as a software industry insider, this subtle writer leads another life as a scholar and author.

Ginsberg was a complex, mercurial person, part poetic saint, part transgressive deviate. In his own being, he encompasses the existential torsion of the modern American poet.

Dr. Kraus captures these essentials with depth and wit. Although more biographies of Ginsberg are certain to appear,
it is difficult to imagine that any will bring the reader as close to Gisberg, the man and poet.

This is a wonderful book on the artist Yamagata. I loved it and I am sure you will to.

At last, a book on Allen Ginsberg that actually reads his poems closely AND discusses in depth their religious, spiritual, literary, and historical influences.

Trigilio doesn't recycle old anecdotes or ride the wave of Beat mythmaking -- like too many studies of the Beats do. He treats Ginsberg like the experimental poet that he was, and puts his work in the larger context of contemporary American poetry.

It's a challenging book, but Trigilio manages a great balance between "academic style" and "mainstream style." The writing is crisp, clear, and deeply informed by the spiritual and literary traditions that inspired Ginsberg.

If you are looking for a book that gives you the highlights, the best, of the Beats, along with background information, this is the book for you. Ginsberg wrote the forward, Waldman edited. All the writers are here. Enjoy.

This catalogue has excellent photographs that gives one a sense of the attitude of the Beat Generation. Everyone is familiar with the writers of the period, but not everyone knows about art generated during those years. This catalogue gives a review of art, film, and writing being created at the time. Not only that but it devotes a chapter to women and a chapter to minorites working during the time period. A good source of information for anyone interested in the 1950's to the early 1960's.

A little in here for everyone- read it if only to read Ginsberg's famous "Howl".

Not bad, not bad at all, if I do say so myself.

I've been having an ongoing flirtation with the "Beat Generation" this year, having read Diane Di Prima, Anne Waldman, William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, among others. When I stumbled across this set of audio CD's, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. To hear these giants of their generation reading their own works was a dream come true.

The title "First Thought, Best Thought" was the phrase that poet Allen Ginsberg used to describe spontaneous and fearless writing--a way of "telling the truth" that arises from naked and authentic experience.

Here's the gist of the CD's:

*William S. Burroughs teaching his breakthrough methods for generating fresh writing--including "the cut-up method," chance operations, and dreamwork.


*Diane di Prima on how to survive as an artist: preserving your sensibility, creating a supportive artistic community, getting published, self-publishing, and much more.


*Allen Ginsberg exploring every stage of poetic activity--from inspiration, to composition, to revision, to performing your poetry in public.


*Anne Waldman on the elements of the poet's craft--from the raw material of the words themselves to the many aspects of the poem in performance.

I must say that my own writing practice (after listening to these CD's a few times) has been profoundly enriched for the better. I've decided to publish my own poetry and I'm experimenting with the cut-up method suggested by Burroughs. It's a blast and funny has hell at times.

If you need a giant dose of inspiration and/or encouragement for your writing, then by all means, BUY THIS COLLECTION!

Of course, the Universe being a giant cross-reference, these authors led me to other great books: "Women of the Beat Generation" by Brenda Knight was an eye-opening read about the women of that generation.

Here's a blurb from that book: "In many ways, women of the Beat were cut from the same cloth as the men: fearless, angry, high risk, too smart, restless, highly irregular. They took chances, make mistakes, made poetry, made love, made history. Women of the Beat weren't afraid to get dirty. They were compassionate, careless, charismatic, marching to a different drummer, out of step. Muses who birthed a poetry so raw and new and full of power that it changed the world. Writers whose words weave spells, whose stories bind, whose vision blinds. Artists for whom curing the disease of art kills."

I'd also recommend, "Fast Speaking Woman" by Anne Waldman and "Memoirs of a Beatnik" by Diane Di Prima. Ms. Waldman got her inspiration for the title poem from the Shaman, Maria Sabina. So, you MUST read about Maria Sabina in this amazing book, "Maria Sabina: Her Life and Chants" by Alvaro Estrada. Here's a taste of one of her chants:

Because I can swim in the immense
Because I can swim in all forms
Because I am the launch woman
Because I am the sacred opposum
Because I am the Lord opposum

I am the woman Book that is beneath the water, says
I am the woman of the populous town, says
I am the shepherdess who is beneath the water, says
I am the woman who shepherds the immense, says
I am a shepherdess and I come with my shepherd, says

Because everything has its origin
And I come going from place to place from the origin . . .

(Alvaro Estrada, "Maria Sabina: her Life and Chants")