Who is Allen Ginsberg from The Portable Beat Reader and what is their importance? The_Portable_Beat_Reader English & Literature Allen Ginsberg | The Portable Beat Reader

Allen Ginsberg is the most important poet of the Beat Generation, primarily known for his poem "Howl." Ginsberg is born into a Jewish family in 1926 and grows up in Paterson, New Jersey. Ginsberg's father Louis is a poet and his mother Naomi is an active member of the Communist Party. When Ginsberg is an adolescent, his mother has a mental breakdown and is forced to live in a mental institution for several years. Ginsberg writes about the experience and living with his mentally ill mother after her death in the poem "Kaddish." Ginsberg attends Columbia University beginning in 1944, where he meets Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs.