Spontaneous Mind: Selected Interviews, 1958-1996.

If that is true, then Allen Ginsberg does need an introduction in 2003, for he was one of the finest poets of the last century, perhaps the equal of his mentors such as William Blake or Walt Whitman. At the height of his powers, Ginsberg was at once a mystic, a comedian, a political commentator; and it is difficult, and senseless, to separate those roles. The combination is wholly original and resulted in such achievements as "Howl", "Kaddish", "Wichita Vortex Sutra", and "Kral Majales", to name but a few. To suggest, as numerous critics and journalists have done, that Ginsberg's work is that of a self- promoting, "know-nothing Bohemian" whose poetry was a meaningless outburst of energy, is a misjudgment. If this book of interviews, selected from the entire span of Ginsberg's writing life, is valuable then it is for the way it makes clear the utter seriousness of Ginsberg's poetic vocation. And it is valuable for other reasons also.
[more]

  thanks to wood s lot