Allen Ginsberg and September on Jessore Road

Allen Ginsberg Profile

Name: Allen Ginsberg

Full Name: Irwin Allen Ginsberg

Birth Date: June 3, 1926

Birth Place: Newark, New Jersey, U.S.A

Death Date: April 5, 1997

Date Place:  East Village, New York, U.S.A

Cause of Death: Hepatitis

Death Age: 70

Buried Place: Gomel Chesed Cemetery, New Jersey, United States

Literary movement: Beat literature, hippie Confessional poetry

Occupation: Poet, Writer                       

Alma Mater: Columbia University

Zodiac Sign: Gemini

Parents: Louis Ginsberg (Father), Naomi Ginsberg (mother)

Siblings: Eugene Ginsberg

Wife: Peter Orlovsky (1954–1997; Ginsberg's death)

Awards and Achievements

1. National Book Award for Poetry(1974)
2. Robert Frost Medal(1986)
3. Guggenheim Fellowship for Creative Arts, US & Canada(1965)
4. Lifetime Literary Achievement Award(1996)

Allen Ginsberg Notable Works

1. Howl and Iron Horse
2. September on Jessore Road
3. Iron Horse
4.  Deliberate Prose
5. Wichita Vortex Sutra
6. Kaddish, and Other Poems
7.  Empty Mirror: Early Poems
8. Reality Sandwiches
9.  Death and Fame: Last Poems
10. Planet News
11. Wait Till I'm Dead: Uncollected Poems
12. Journals: Early Fifties, Early Sixties
13. Plutonian Ode and Other Poems
14. Cosmopolitan Greetings
15.  Illuminated Poems
16. Indian Journals
17.  Mind Breaths
18. White Shroud

Allen Ginsberg Early Life and Education

Allen Ginsberg is one of the twentieth century's most talented poets, regarded as a founding father of the Beat Movement. He was born into a Jewish family in Newark, New Jersey, United States of America and grew up in nearby Paterson. He grew up in the Patterson area in New Jersey. His father Louis Ginsberg was a school teacher and sometime poet. 

Ginsberg was the second son of Louis Ginsberg. His mother was a Russian but she had immigrated from Russia to the United States while his father Louis was teacher and poet. In 1943 he graduated from Eastside High School. Afterwards, he was admitted to Columbia University after studying at Montclair College for some time. In 1945, he joined a service to pay for education. He worked for some time at the Jester Humor magazine from Colombia and was elected president of the Philoloxan Society.

The young Ginsberg, who wrote a journal from his pre-teen years and took to the poetry of Walt Whitman in high school. Later he went on to attend Columbia University. There he met Ex-Columbia student Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs, who would all become literary icons of a revolutionary cultural movement in his writing.

Allen Ginsberg started to focus on his writing  career during the mid-1940s while also exploring his attraction to men. In 1948 Allen Ginsberg graduated from Columbia, but in the same year he was involved as an accomplice in a robbery. To avoid jail, Allen pleaded insanity, spending time in the university's mental health facilities. When he release, he started to study under poet William Carlos Williams and worked for a time at a Manhattan agency.

Allen Ginsberg moved to San Francisco in 1954 and became part of the countercultural gathering that would come to be known as the Beat Movement, which used a number of artistic and sensory modes to eschew rigid rules of society. It was also in the Bay Area where Allen Ginsberg met model Peter Orlovsky, who would become his companion. 

Allen Ginsberg spent most of his time in India, in Calcutta, in 1962-1963 and he became close to West Bengal poets. With the help of Hagari movement Poet Shakti Chattopadhyay and Moloy Roy Choudhury, he went back to the United States and made arrangements to publish the works of the Hagri movement poets published in the famous magazines. Allen Ginsberg's famous poem 'Howell' and 'kaddish' have been translated into Bengali by Maloy Roy Chaudhury.

September on Jessore Road

September on Jessore Road - A poem by famous American poet Allen Ginsberg, which was later sung. Allen Ginsberg came to Calcutta India at the end of Bangladesh's liberation war in 1971. His friendship with several Kolkata-based writers was one among which Sunil Gangopadhyay He got up at Sunil's house. Many refugees from Bangladesh took shelter in West Bengal and other border cities. During the British Raj East, Bengal and West Bengal were working as the road connecting “Jessore Road”. Jessore road was drowned in the water due to heavy rains. Without being on the road, Ginsberg finally reached Bongaon by boat and reached the Jessore border of Bangladesh. Sunil was also with him. They witnessed the suffering of refugees living in the camps of Jessore and its surrounding camps.

Ginsberg wrote this poem from this experience. He composed this song with the lyrics of this long poem. Returning to America, a concert with the help of his friend Bob Dylan and other famous singers. In this way, Ginsberg collected money for Bangladeshi refugees.

Allen Ginsberg A US poet, songwriter, photographer and stage actors. He was born on June 3, 1926, in New Jersey. He is well-known as a leading preacher of 'Beat Generation 3'.Ginsberg was anti-war In 1971, where the United States government of liberation war supported Pakistan, Allen Ginsberg was vocal about Bangladesh. With his literary friends in Calcutta, he was in the struggle to spread the horrors of war worldwide.

In September of that year, Keith Richards of Rolling Stone gave some money to Ginsberg; Independence struggle in East Bengal has started, thousands of Bengali refugees have taken shelter in refugee camps of India, leaving Bangladesh to suffer from untimely sufferings. Ginsberg's work will be undertaken in the context of the real situation of the war, writing the report.

When Ginsburg was in Calcutta, Geeta Mehta came to report to BBC He came to the house of literary Sunil Gangopadhyay as a friend of some Kolkata-based artists and writers. Sunil Gangopadhyay, along with others, takes refuge with the Ginsberg refugee camps. Many refugees from Bangladesh took shelter in West Bengal and other border cities. During the British rule, Jessore Road was working as a bridge connecting East Bengal and West Bengal.

Jessore road was drowned in the water due to heavy rains. Without being on the road, Ginsberg finally reached Bongaon by boat and reached the Jessore border of Bangladesh. Sunil was also with him. They witnessed the suffering of refugees living in the camps of Jessore and its surrounding camps.

The refugee camp, adjacent to Jessore Road, and the euphoria of thousands of innocent people who travelled from across the country echoed "September on Jessore Road Poetry." He returned to the United States, with the help of his friend Bob Dylan and others, he made this poem in song. They collected money for the help of Bangladeshi refugees by singing this song at the concert.

The best poem in the book 'The Fruit of America' is undoubted 'September on Jessore Road'.

“Allen Ginsberg / Mondriaan String Quartet - September on Jessore Road” In 1971, John Lennon and Yoko Ono organized 'Free John Sinclair' procession. Ginsberg recites ‘Jessore Road’ with Guitarist Gary Geek. Lennon then asked Ginsburg to recite ‘Jessore Road’ with String Quartet (a musical ensemble of four string players- usually two violin players, a violist and a cellist) in the Beatles Eleanor Rigby. In 1982, Director Ben Portset, one of the World's Poetry in Amsterdam, gave StevenTailor and Ginsberg the necessary artists and recording facilities. Steven Wrote for Recordings; After all the arrangement, the Milky Way Theater is recorded on String Quartet - September on Jessore Road in 1983. The artist was Ginsberg himself.

Through this poem, he expressed his solidarity with Bangladesh's war of liberation and returned to America to participate in 'Concert for Bangladesh' organized by Pandit Ravi Shankar and George Harrison at the Modern Square Garden in New York on 1 August 1971. Rekha Concert for Bangladesh was organized to help 71 Bangladesh refugees. The concert includes George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Joan Bayez, and many other popular music artists of America. Pandit Ravi Shankar and another Indian legend singer Ali Akbar Khan also performed the music and collected about two and a half million dollars from this concert.

It was bigger than this money that the concert was able to stir a whole world. We came to the forefront of the barbarity of the Pakistani aggressors and our glorious freedom fight. Since then, public opinion has been formed and the world is waiting for the birth of an independent state named Bangladesh. In addition to “Concert for Bangladesh” to collect money during the War of Liberation, Ginsberg also organized poetry recital lessons with Oreviya Yevgeni Yev Tussossoo.

Ginsberg's ‘September on Jessore Road’ poem was later used by late filmmaker Tarek Masud in the film in 1999. First Khan wanted to use the translated poem as a song but it was difficult to sing from poetry, so Tarek Masud's friend was responsible for singing this song, on the famous singer Mousumi Bhowmik. He is the inspiration and synergy of this poem. This song was given by Tarek Masud for use in his other film 'Muktir Gun', but during the final editing of the film, Muktir singing, Bangabandhu's speech was inserted in addition to this poem.

In the poem of Ginsberg, the image of the devastating British war broke out in front of the eye. The best friend of Bangladesh, Ginsberg died in New York on April 5, 1997. Even though late, President Zillur Rahman and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina expressed their gratitude towards all the foreigners who have made humanitarian and moral assistance, including those who have come to the Liberation War at the 'Liberation War Memorial Award' and 'Bangladesh Liberation War Maitree Award' at the Bangabandhu International Conference Center in Dhaka. At the time, the President and the Prime Minister handed over the Medal of Honor to 83 friends or their representatives.