Allen Ginsberg: The Queer Poet Who Changed America

Allen Ginsberg: The Queer Poet Who Changed America

This week is the centenary of Allen Ginsberg, the gay, Jewish, Buddhist, Socialist writer who for decades was America’s most public poet. He used his presence as both an outsider and a celebrity to challenge wars, capitalism, censorship, and the codified marginalization of the underserved in this country. He altered the literary canon by presenting his “new vision,” the Beat Movement, as the artistic manifestation of a discontent post-war cultur…