Ginsberg is God

26.12.2010 | Art , Blog , Culture | BY:

When Allen Ginsberg first performed his epic hallucinatory poem Howl in 1955, it was seen as the desolate cry of an awakening counterculture. A 3600 word hymn to drugs, jazz, love and lust that defined the Beat Generation.

“Angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night, who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz.”

Ginsberg evoked the atmosphere of William S. Burroughs’ Junkie and laid the perceptual path for Jack Kerouac’s On The Road (picture above). But long before their literary apotheosis these Fifties radicals were for him, simply, “a bunch of friends looking to get published.” During those early days Ginsberg often photographed his contemporaries – young dispossessed men that would go on to define the subterranean era.

This January, a selection of Ginsberg’s images will be exhibited at the National Theatre in London. While the exhibition charts the infaltration of the Beats into the mainstream literary consciousness, it’s also a healthy reminder of the potency of youth.

Angelheaded Hipsters: Images of the Beat Generation is at the National Theatre from 24 January – 20 March 2011
nationaltheatre.org.uk

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