Celebrating the centenary of a Beat Poet #allenginsberg #20BOS26 – Book 1

Although I revisited one of Allen Ginsberg‘s seminal poetry collections earlier in the year, for our 1961 Club reading week, I had somehow missed that 2026 is the centenary of his birth. However, a good number of social media posts alerted me recently to the fact that his 100-year celebration was on 3rd June and so I decided I must mark the day by reading some of his work! Fortunately, I remembered that I had picked up a slim anthology of his poetry issued as one of the Penguin Archive volumes, and it turned out to be the perfect book to celebrate Ginsberg’s centenary. “Sunflower Sutra” takes its title from one of the poems included, and it contains a range of work from across Ginsberg’s life and work. The first verse, from 1949, is ‘Paterson’; the final poem, ‘After Lalon’ (1992), is from the end of Ginsberg’s time ((he died in 1997) and it’s fascinating to watch his work evolve as he ages. This little volume is a wonderful introduction to Ginsberg’s writing, as it features most of…