Spiritual seeker, founding member of a major literary movement, champion of human and civil rights, photographer and songwriter, political gadfly, teacher and co-founder of a poetics school, Allen Ginsberg (1926 - 1997) defied simple classification.

Welcome to AllenGinsberg.org where you can explore published as well as never-before-published text, photos, hand-written documents and audio and video materials representing Allen's life-work.

The material available here — and that which we will be adding over time — is intended to continually reveal the intelligence and beauty of Allen Ginsberg's aim of increasing consciousness on the planet.

Allen's “America”, as animated by Dan Meth

This flash animation was created by Dan Meth. The audio is from a live reading of “America” that Allen did at the Town Hall Theater in Berkeley, California on March 18th, 1956. Watch the animation. Note: Flash 6 (or higher) plug-in required.

While doing research for his biography on Gary Snyder, scholar John Suiter stumbled across this lost recording from a month before the official 'earliest known.' In his piece for Reed Magazine, Suiter draws up an analysis of the whole recording offering useful textual insights and comparisons to the final published text. Reed College have provided a stream of the entire reading on their site as well. [more...]

J. Koivisto writes “When did Allen first meet William S. Burroughs, and under what circumstances? ” Click here to read the response - or to ask your own question!

A growing online repository of Ginsbergiana, left behind by Allen for future exploration so that those wishing to research his life and work would have ample fodder for their own interpretive experience. Click here to jump into the library.

Wichita Vortex Sutra Click here to go directly to this item. »

Credits, kudos, random finger-pointing. [more...]