TODAY IN HISTORY…

The Birth Of Allen Ginsberg and Beat Poetry

One of the original Beat poets, Allen Ginsberg was born on this date in 1926.

Beat poetry was a literary movement born in the 1940s and 1950s and a disillusion with the world after the horrors of the Second World War.  Poets sought to write in what they considered to be an authentic and spontaneous, and very nontraditional, style — “first thought, best though” was the mantra and poems took on a stream of consciousness style most times, and were often read aloud to give the full effect of the message.

Check out these videos that give a short history of Beat poetry and feature Allen Ginsberg reading one of his most famous works, “Howl”: