SOURCE: Parkinson, Thomas. “Reflections on Allen Ginsberg as Poet.” In Poets, Poems, Movements, pp. 309-11. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1987.

In the following essay, originally published in 1969, Parkinson debates the poetic value of Ginsberg's verse, contending that it belongs “in the area of religious and spiritual exploration rather than that of aesthetic accomplishment.”

Allen Ginsberg is a notoriety, a celebrity; to many readers and nonreaders of poetry he has the capacity for releasing odd energetic responses of hatred and love or amused affection or indignant moralizing. There are even people who are roused to very flat indifference by the friendly nearsighted shambling bearded figure who has some of the qualities of such comic stars as Buster Keaton or Charlie Chaplin. And some of their seriousness.

His latest book, Planet News, grants another revelation of his sensibility. The usual characteristics of his work are there; the rhapsodic lines, the...