Irwin Allen Ginsberg was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with Lucien Carr, William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Generation. He vigorously opposed militarism, economic materialism, and sexual repression, and he embodied various aspects of this counterculture with his views on drugs, sex, multiculturalism, hostility to bureaucracy, and openness to Eastern religions.
Ginsberg in 1979
First edition cover of Ginsberg's landmark poetry collection, Howl and Other Poems (1956)
Ginsberg with his partner, poet Peter Orlovsky. Photo taken in 1978
Portrait with Bob Dylan, taken in 1975
Lucien Carr was a key member of the original New York City circle of the Beat Generation in the 1940s and also a convicted manslaughterer. He later worked for many years as an editor for United Press International.
Jack Kerouac and Carr (right) in 1944