I saw th e best minds of my gen er ation destroyed by madness, starving hyste rical naked, dragging t hemselves t hroug h th e negro streets a t da wn lookin g for an angry fix , angel headed hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the star ry dynamo i n th e machi ner y of nig ht, who poverty and tatters and hollow -eyed and high sat up smoking i n the supernatural darkness of col d-wat er fl ats floating across th e top s of citie s contempl at i ng jazz_ - Excerpt from Howl Ginsberg reading Howl at the Poetry Center, San Francisco, November 1955. Photograp h y from Self-po rtrait of Allen Gin s berg in his cramped Lower East Side t he Walt er Lehrman Beat Collection. apartment. By 1996. Ginsberg was a Pulitzer Prize Finali s t , Distin guis hed Professor of Eng lis h at Brooklyn College, a nd el ected to t he National Institute of Arts a nd Letters. Life Sketch Chronology Poet, mystic, Buddh ist, activist, psychiatric patient, professor - All en Gi nsberg contained multitudes . 1926 - Born in Newark, New J ersey. Before Howl , h e was a private poet struggling wi th psyc h ological trauma from living with h is 1944 - Meet s J ack Kerouac at Columbia University. sch i zophr enic mother. In 1947, after taking t i me off from hi s st udies at Columbia University, Gin sberg 1949 - Ente r s Columbi a Pr esbyt erian Psy chiatric Inst itute as part traveled to Dakar to att empt su ici de due to h is of a plea barga i n follow i ng an a rres t as an a ccessory to theft. repre ssed homosexuality . In New York City, 1948, he ha llucinated Willi am Bl ake's poetry, wh ic h 195'1 - Meets h is life -long partner, Peter Orl ovsky, in San solidified his decision to write poetry. I n 1949, h e Fran cicso, wh ere they take a marr i age vow to enter Heaven was arrested as an ac cessory to t h eft and spent together. eig ht months i n a psych i atric hosp i tal. Ginsberg gained notoriety following the first public 1955 - Fi rst public reading of Howl at the Six Gallery. read i ng of Howl a t the Si x Gallery in 1955. Originally a pr i vate poem about homosex ua lity , t h e 1968 - Reads "Wales Vi s i tation, " a poem written under the i nfluence unders i de of New Yor k City kn own t o impoveri shed of LSD, on William F. Buckley J r.'s Firing Line , an extremely poets, and h i s psyc h i atr ic h ospit a li zat ion, Howl popular TV show. Ginsberg da nces and chants the Hare Krishna mantra defined the Beats. After Howl, Gin sb erg became a at a Be-I n in San Francisco in 1967. An activist and public f i gure, a symbol of t h e counterculture , and prominent member of the counterculture , he was 1995 - Named a Pulitz er Pr ize Fin alist . one of America's celebr at ed poets . cons i dered "t he hipp ie 's hipp ie." 1997 - Die s from liver cancer on Apr i l 5 in New York City . .