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| Dharma Lion: A Biography of Allen Ginsberg
ISBN: 9781452951560
Platform/Publisher: JSTOR / University of Minnesota Press
Digital rights: Users: unlimited; Printing: chapter; Download: chapter
Subjects: Ginsberg Allen 1926–1997; Poets American -- 20th century -- Biography; Beat generation -- Biography;
Allen Ginsberg, choreographer of the Beat movement, ambassador of the counterculture and great communicator of several hip generations, attracts attention that crosses natural, generational, sexual and literary boundaries. In this in-depth biography, Schumacher ( Reason to Believe ) covers Ginsberg's childhood in N.J. where he was born in 1926, his years at Columbia University, his travels, writings, homosexuality and political adventures up until 1981, the last year he was published by fellow poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti's City Lights, which brought out Howl in 1956 and defended the poem against censorship prosecution. Given access to Ginsberg's private archives and having interviewed more than 100 people in 10 years of research, Schumacher weaves a monumental cultural biography, covering Ginsberg's famous Gallery Six reading, his sojourns to India, expulsion from Cuba and ``coronation'' in Czechoslovakia. Especially noteworthy is Schumacher's documentation of the circumstances and people surrounding the poet when he composed specific poems. Beat veterans will be delighted with this book, and newcomers well-informed by it. A brief postnote summarizes Ginsberg's activities between 1981 and the present. Photos not seen by PW. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Michael Schumacher has written extensively about Allen Ginsberg and the Beat Generation. His articles, reviews, and essays have appeared in newspapers and magazines across the country. He is editor of Family Business, a collection of letters between Allen and Louis Ginsberg, and The Essential Ginsberg, a volume of the best of Ginsberg's poems, essays, songs, letters, journal entries, interviews, and photographs. He lives in Wisconsin.
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