Allen Ginsberg
‘I experience joy very easily’: Patti Smith on Springsteen, the climate fight and the meaning of punk
The singer, poet and writer answers your questions about playing music with her children, being at her friend Allen Ginsberg’s deathbed and maintaining hope in a troubled world
As told to Dave Simpson
31, Mar, 2022 @2:00 PM
Jack Kerouac: still roadworthy after 100 years
The author of On the Road had a messy, contradictory life. Yet he’s as relevant as ever – and not just for obsessed young men
David Barnett
13, Mar, 2022 @7:45 AM
Ai Weiwei: ‘It is so positive to be poor as a child. You understand how vulnerable our humanity can be’
From living in a dugout in Little Siberia to his friendship with Allen Ginsberg in New York, artist and activist Ai Weiwei reveals what drives his restless creativity
David Shariatmadari
30, Oct, 2021 @9:30 AM
Howl: illuminating draft of Allen Ginsberg's seminal poem found
Early draft of Howl is on sale for $425,000 and ‘allows a look into the mind’ of the influential Beat poet
Alison Flood
26, Mar, 2021 @2:10 PM
Lawrence Ferlinghetti obituary
Poet whose outlook spanned anarchism, ecology, publishing and the City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco
James Campbell
23, Feb, 2021 @10:42 PM
Lawrence Ferlinghetti, poet and founder of City Lights bookshop, dies aged 101
Poet and countercultural pioneer put on trial for publishing Allen Ginsberg’s Howl went on to become a beloved icon of San Francisco
Sian Cain
23, Feb, 2021 @7:42 PM
Elaine Feinstein obituary
Poet and novelist who transformed literary writing in the 1970s
Fiona Sampson
01, Oct, 2019 @2:57 PM
All aboard the Bob Dylan express! How Rolling Thunder revved round America
When Dylan chanced upon a huge Roma gathering in France, he was transfixed – and formed his own travelling supergroup. As Martin Scorsese brings its ragtag magic to screens, we hitch a ride back to 75
Richard Williams
11, Jun, 2019 @2:26 PM
Graham Keen obituary
Other lives: Photographer of 1960s bohemia who seems to have attended every street protest and happening during that decade
Rozemin Keshvani
16, Apr, 2019 @5:18 PM
WS Merwin obituary
Prolific American poet whose work engaged with both the bleak and the beautiful
Michael Carlson
25, Mar, 2019 @3:17 PM
Writers’ wilderness haven split over Brecon Beacons phone mast plan
Novelist Ian McEwan is among literary figures objecting to plans for a 17.5-metre tower
Jamie Doward
15, Sep, 2018 @1:24 PM
William Ferris: the folklorist who made black America immortal
Going from farm to front porch across America’s south in the 1960s, William Ferris recorded everything from praying pigs to haunting blues – a political act, he says, at a time when black voices were being silenced
Rebecca Bengal
13, Jun, 2018 @11:00 AM
1 / 7 pages