The Beats: Poetry, Writing & Life

Over the course of an adventured-filled life, now in its tenth decade, Lawrence Ferlinghetti has been many things: a poet, painter, pacifist, publisher, courageous defender of free speech, and owner of San Franciscos legendary City Lights bookstore.

Allen Ginsberg's poems, from 'Howl' to 'Kaddish' to 'The Fall of America,' have influenced generations of writers and made him a defining figure of the twentieth century. Ginsberg's Collected Poems, first published in 1984, and expanded in 1997, was originally thought to contain all of his poetic work.

Part of the Penguin Orange Collection, a limited-run series of twelve influential and beloved American classics in a bold series design offering a modern take on the iconic Penguin paperback

For his first collection of new poems since his celebrated Danger on Peaks, published in 2004, Gary Snyder finds himself ranging over the planet.

Rainy night on Union Square, full moon. Want more poems? Wait till I'm dead. -Allen Ginsberg, August 8, 1990, 3:30 A.M.

The Beat Generation may be one of the great homegrown countercultures of the United States, but in fact its writers traveled widely and lived abroad for periods of time. Their travels were a vital source of inspiration, and in turn they inspired literary scenes and kindred spirits around the globe.