An epic poem celebrating the activist, visionary, and original poetic mind, Allen Ginsberg--in many ways the avatar of the Beat Generation--inaugurated the countercultural zeitgeist of the '50s and '60s with his brazen poetry and fluorescent persona. In this allusive, inspired narrative poem, Edward Sanders, one of the Beats' favorite sons and a Ginsberg contemporary and friend, charts a path through what he calls the "Forest Ginsberg."

An unsentimental elegy, a grand tribute, a masterful blazon, The Poetry and Life of Allen Ginsberg shares with us the man, his art, and his times in the confident folksy cadence of a Ginsberg intimate and fellow poet, a man who shares the ecumenical outlook and resolute social conscience of the king of the Beats. Sanders takes us chronologically through history as witnessed, reflected, and created by Ginsberg, introducing us to Ginsberg's friends and foes and the luminaries and common men alike at the center and on the periphery of his sphere. This is a dazzling portrait of a man and his passionately promulgated world view that mines the riches of the literary, cultural, and political history of the 20th century to celebrate the poet whose influence pervades history and whose history comments on an aspect of who we are as Americans.