Allen Ginsberg

Ginsberg was a poet and a central figure of the Beat Generation whose 1956 poem 'Howl' broke open American poetry with its raw candor and, after an obscenity trial that it won, expanded free-speech protections for literature. He remained an influential voice for counterculture, peace and gay rights. He was born to a Jewish family in Newark; his father Louis was a poet and his mother a Russian-Jewish immigrant.