Ginsberg, Allen

Allen Ginsberg
natal chart (Placidus)
natal chart English style (Equal houses)
natal chart with Whole Sign houses

Name	Ginsberg, Allen Gender: M
Birthname	Irwin Allen Ginsberg
born on	3 June 1926 at 02:00 (= 02:00 AM )
Place	Newark, New Jersey, 40n44, 74w10
Timezone	EDT h4w (is daylight saving time)
Data source	From memory Rodden Rating A Collector: McKay-Clements
Astrology data	11°54' 10°43 Asc. 24°23'

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Allen Ginsberg
photo: Ludwig Urning, license gfdl

Biography

American writer and poet, the bearded bard of scatological colloquialisms who became the symbol of the anger under flower-power. Asked once to define his political and social views, Ginsberg said simply: "Absolute defiance."

The son of a New Jersey schoolteacher and minor poet, Louis Ginsberg, he and his brother Eugene were taught to recite Dickinson, Poe, Shelley, Keats and Milton. Ginsberg credited his mother Naomi, a Russian-born Marxist who died in a mental institution in 1956, with instilling his "mad idealism." Ginsberg entered Columbia University intending to become a left-wing lawyer. He became a protégé of two heavyweight literati, Lionel Trilling and Mark Van Doren. He then fell in with Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs, Neal Cassady and those who were out of the literary, cultural, political and sexual mainstream.

Ginsberg received a B.A. as a market consultant before dropping out of Columbia to join the Merchant Marines. He claimed to have had a mystical vision while masturbating in East Harlem in which he heard an angelic voice reciting William Blake's "Songs of Experience." After these mystical visions, he spent eight months in a mental institution in 1948. He later joined Ferlinghetti, Snyder and others in the "West Coast Poetry Renaissance" in the San Francisco Bay area.

He tried the straight life for a year, but after the blessing of his psychotherapist, he decided to quit his job, leave his girlfriend, get a room with Peter Orlovsky and devote himself to writing, smoking pot and doing whatever he wanted. His 1956 poem "Howl" made him notorious, deriving his visionary bardic stance from the Bible, Blake, Christopher Smart and Whitman with special effects as the courtesy of speed, LSD and laughing gas. Ginsberg is credited with creating the Beat Generation as well as coining the term, "flower power" in the 1960s. He dropped acid with Timothy Leary and with Bob Dylan. His poetry influenced the music of Bob Dylan, Yoko Ono and Patti Smith, the poetry of Czech President Vaclav Havel, and the in-your-face political antics of Abbie Hoffman and other radicals. He believed poetry should be spoken and his readings became standing-room only. Questioning his perceptions of the universe as an inhuman mystery, Ginsberg sought counsel with Martin Buber in Israel and holy men in India, returning with a new attitude of being in "contact with the now of life." In 1972 he took Buddhist vows. Involved with many of the anti-war demonstrations of the late 1960s, Ginsberg was arrested at an anti-Vietnam war demonstration in New York City. During the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago he was tear-gassed by police while trying to induce calm by chanting mantras.

Ginsberg won the 1973 National Book Award and was a runner-up for the Pulitzer Prize in 1995. Twice as long as "Howl," his poem, "Kaddish" is a tribute to the life and death of his mother. Ginsberg's books of prose include "Indian Journals," 1970, "Allen Verbatim: Lectures on Poetry, Politics, Consciousness," 1974 and "Journals: Early Fifties-Early Sixties," 1977.

He refused to curtail his travel, lecture and performing schedule when his health started to fail, suffering from recurrent hepatitis and Bell's palsy. Diagnosed with liver cancer, he was surrounded by a group of close friends and old lovers in his New York apartment when he died 4/05/1997, 5:01 PM EST.

Link to Wikipedia biography

Relationships

• associate relationship with Bremser, Ray (born 22 February 1934)

• associate relationship with Ferlinghetti, Lawrence (born 24 March 1919)

• associate relationship with Lamantia, Philip (born 23 October 1927). Notes: Participants in Six Gallery reading

• associate relationship with McClure, Michael (born 20 October 1932). Notes: Participants in Six Gallery reading

• associate relationship with Myles, Eileen (born 9 December 1949)

• associate relationship with Snyder, Gary (born 8 May 1930). Notes: Participants in Six Gallery reading

• associate relationship with Yanowitz, Pedro (born 13 September 1967). Notes: Music collaborators

• friend relationship with Ai, Weiwei (born 18 May 1957)

• friend relationship with Arthur, Gavin (born 21 March 1901)

• friend relationship with Baraka, Amiri (born 7 October 1934)

• friend relationship with Burroughs, William (born 5 February 1914)

• friend relationship with Cassady, Neal (born 8 February 1926)

• friend relationship with Creeley, Robert (born 21 May 1926)

• friend relationship with Dylan, Bob (born 24 May 1941)

• friend relationship with Frank, Robert (born 9 November 1924)

• friend relationship with Kerouac, Jack (born 12 March 1922)

• friend relationship with Kesey, Ken (born 17 September 1935)

• friend relationship with Leary, Timothy (born 22 October 1920)

• friend relationship with Levertov, Denise (born 24 October 1923)

• friend relationship with McBride, Dick (born 8 May 1928)

• friend relationship with McClure, Joanna (born 10 November 1930)

• friend relationship with Vinkenoog, Simon (born 18 July 1928)

• role played of/by Franco, James (born 19 April 1978). Notes: Franco played Ginsberg in 2010 film "Howl"

• role played of/by Radcliffe, Daniel (born 23 July 1989). Notes: 2013 film "Kill Your Darlings"

Events

• Misc. : Mystical Experience 1948 (Series of visions)

• Social : Institutionalized - prison, hospital 1948 (Eight months in an institution)

• Death of Mother 1956

• Work : Published/ Exhibited/ Released 1956 (Published his poem "Howl")

• Social Crime Perpetration 1968 (Tear gassed by police at rally/sit-in)

• Social : Joined group 1972 (Took Buddhist vows)

• Work : Prize 1973 (National Book Award)

• Work : Gain social status 1995 (Runner-up for Pulitzer Prize)

• Death by Disease 5 April 1997 at 5:01 PM in New York, NY (Liver cancer, age 70)
  chart Placidus Equal_H.

Source Notes

McKay-Clements q. his assistant by letter: bio. by Barry Miles. (Steinbrecher same date and place from B.R., no time.) Am. Book had 1:00 AM EDT, Paterson, NJ, PC "from his dad." Old-file had 1:15 AM. E. Rivers in Leek 5/1970 gave 7:00 AM EST.

Sy Scholfield quotes 2AM from two biographies: "Dharma Lion: A Critical Biography of Allen Ginsberg" by Michael Schumacher (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992), pp. 3+7; and "I Celebrate Myself: The Somewhat Private Life of Allen Ginsberg" by Bill Morgan (Penguin, 2007): "at Newark's Beth Israel Hospital."

Categories

• Traits : Personality : Unique (Addressed existing taboos)

• Diagnoses : Major Diseases : Cancer (Liver, terminal)

• Diagnoses : Major Diseases : Other Major diseases (Hepatitis, Bell's Palsy)

• Diagnoses : Psychological : Abuse Drugs (Heavy)

• Family : Childhood : Sibling circumstances (One brother)

• Family : Parenting : Kids none

• Passions : Sexuality : Gay

• Personal : Religion/Spirituality : Mystical experience (Series of visions)

• Personal : Religion/Spirituality : Conversion/ Born again (Became a Buddhist, took vows)

• Vocation : Business : Consultant (Market consultant)

• Vocation : Writers : Fiction

• Vocation : Writers : Poet

• Notable : Awards : Vocational award (National Book Award)

• Notable : Book Collection : American Book