Jack’s dedication to Allen Ginsberg in his signed copy of On the Road…
Jack Kerouac’s 90th Birthday
(Source: i12bent)
life:
Here, a selection of images from LIFE staff photographer John Loengard’s newest book, Age of Silver, along with Loengard’s own insightful, fond reflections on his colleagues and his craft.
Pictured: Loengard made this portrait of Alan Ginsberg for LIFE at the University of Kansas in 1966.
“At the time,” Loengard says, “neither LIFE nor I knew that Ginsberg was a photographer of considerable purpose.” Indeed, in the 1990s, Ginsberg described his 40 years’ worth of snapshots as being akin to “written journals I’d kept — four decades of epiphanous moments that I’ve noticed.”
(see more — John Loengard: Age of Silver)
Over fifty years ago, in October, Allen Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti went on trial for the publication of Ginsberg’s poem Howl. This was a landmark poem for First Amendment rights, and ironically enough, although it was on trial to ban it on charges of obscenity, the poem received a lot of publicity and made it a cultural phenomenon - the opposite of what the plaintiff wanted. Perhaps if it hadn’t gone on trial… it never would have been publicized.
After the publication of the poem by fellow Beat Poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti at City Lights Books, the poem increased in popularity for its raw imagery, openly sexual content, and pronouncements of a cultural revolution. But in March of 1957, 520 copies of the poem were seized and Ferlinghetti was arrested on obscenity charges.
The trial caught headlines across the country, which included articles in both Time and Life magazines. Hearing the case was Judge Clayton Horn, who was a known conservative judge, which made for even greater tension in which direction the verdict would fall. Ferlinghetti was supported by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and was defended by Jake Ehrlich, who was famous for defending celebrities in a number of separate cases.
Read about this interesting landmark case here.
I think Allen Ginsberg has the best-looking handwriting I’ve ever seen.
at the gym today watching fox news with the captions on, some woman called charlie sheen a ‘poet’ and said, ‘he’s like alan ginsburg.’ i know this is the fault of the caption typist but still.
huh-rumpf.
What an egregious error! First of all, comparing Charlie Sheen to Ginsberg, then spelling his name wrong.
Yet, they may have a point. The Daily Beast has turned Sheen’s rants into pure poetry. And it is kind of beautiful. “Can’t is the cancer of happen” is my new mantra.
Composite view of Allen Ginsberg’s bookshelves in his New York loft.
Dream home
