Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997) was an American poet, teacher, and activist, founding member of the
Beat Generation, and key figure in American counterculture. His poem "Howl" (1956) became the subject of an obscenity trial and later one of the most widely read poems in modern literature. Over the following decades he travelled extensively, became a dedicated student of Buddhism, and kept granular records of his life and surroundings. He died in 1997 in his East Village apartment. Across his work—sprawling, prophetic, comic, tender—one quality remains central: honesty. "You don't have to be right," he said. "All you have to do is be candid."
