Was allen ginsberg gay

Irwin Allen Ginsberg (/ ˈɡɪnzbɜːrɡ /; June 3, – April 5, ) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the s, he began friendships with Lucien Carr, William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Generation. However, Ginsberg was cleared by the judge who insisted the poem contained socially progressive literary merit and was therefore protected under the First Amendment.

As a gay man himself, his refusal to be quiet about his homosexuality was (and still is) an inspiration to poets and citizens alike. But Allen Ginsberg, the gay one, was the only one who became a close friend and frequent collaborator. They met for the first time at a Boxing Day party in The hosts were Ted and Eli. In a letter from January 20, , Ginsberg writes to Orlovsky from Paris, recounting a visit with his close friend and fellow beatnik, William S.

Burroughs, another icon of literature’s gay subculture. Many of you will know that Allen Ginsberg, who campaigned hard to bring gay rights to public attention, was “married” to Peter Orlovsky – his lover of about forty years. Of course, back gay marriage was not only illegal, but almost unimaginable in the public consciousness. The alternative could have been a stint at Rikers, but a supportive letter from cultural historian Jacques Barzun, one of his Columbia professors, and a deal with the prosecutor sent him to PI instead.

At the time, he had been having visions, and there was concern that he was becoming psychotic, like his mother, who had been in and out of psychiatric hospitals and diagnosed with schizophrenia. On several occasions, he said that his main problem was his homosexuality, which he hoped to change. He partially complied, saying he would have a threesome with a male friend and a woman as a way to transfer his intimacy from him to her.

I was able to review these records when, in the s, Ginsberg himself gave me permission to do so as part of my research for my book about his mental illness and its impact on his work. Nevertheless, some of the PI psychiatry residents on staff were sympathetic to gay men and lesbians. His willingness to offer such an explanation reflected his insecurity about his sexuality and his attempt to accommodate himself to the intolerance of the times.

This was decades before our current understanding of trauma and the removal of homosexuality as a mental illness. She had frequent, long hospitalizations. When she was home, Ginsberg was her primary caregiver. After his parents divorced, he was the primary family member left to make decisions regarding her care. He learned to break down his dichotomous view of sanity and insanity, to see the humanity of persons in the grip of madness, to see its potential for both liberation and injury.

He also came to regard himself as uniquely positioned to understand madness and psychiatric treatments. Ginsberg was relieved that upon his discharge, the psychiatrists told him he was not going to become schizophrenic like his mother.

allen ginsberg america

As it turned out, he had among the best outcomes for those diagnosed with pseudo-neurotic type schizophrenia. He would have to wait several more years before his psychotherapist in San Francisco, Dr. Philip Hicks, went much further in telling him to go ahead and live with his new friend, Peter Orlovsky, and devote himself to writing poetry. The poem then confronts the institutions that confine and sacrifice the vulnerable, and finally expresses solidarity with those in the grip of madness.

It encourages and embraces madness, despite the risks involved, as a potential path to freedom. Ginsberg never truly recovered from the loss of his mother to mental illness, prolonged confinement, lobotomy, and early death. He was tortured by the role he played in signing consent for her lobotomy and sending her back to the psychiatric hospital.

He made it clear that he lived every day with the pain caused by these experiences. Throughout his adulthood, he had a tendency to welcome madness into his life and then try to take care of it. His lifetime partner, Peter Orlovsky, was prone to mania and drug abuse. Ginsberg also had a tendency to choose straight men as partners. Ginsberg never did go mad like his mother, though he never got the therapy he needed to relieve himself of the guilt, trauma, and moral injury of having done such harm to her.

In this way, he incorporated but turned around the psychiatric dogma of the day and made it part of the revolution he led with his poems, helping to open minds and the culture about mental illness and homosexuality. Your Name required. Your Email required. Your Website optional. Don't subscribe All new comments Replies to my comments Notify me by email of follow-up comments.