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Nine Lives, September, 1997
by Louis Broome

The Life and Times of Allen Ginsberg
Wednesday, September 17, at 10:00 p.m.
Repeats Sunday, September 21, at 4:00 a.m.

Poet Allen Ginsberg inspired the Beat Generation with the rage and compassion of "Howl" and the tenderness of "Kaddish." Ginsberg was the pacifist who used poetry to calm the violence around him at the Democratic Convention in 1968, the gentle teacher who remains an inspiration to his friends, and an activist who weathered five decades of controversy and fame before his death this past April at age 70. Academy Award nominee Jerry Aronson spent 10 years accumulating 100 hours of footage on Allen Ginsberg's life and developed a warm friendship with Ginsberg, who enthusiastically gave Aronson access to material never before made public. Aronson interviews Norman Mailer, Ken Kesey, Joan Baez, William Burroughs, Timothy Leary, Amiri Barake and Abbie Hoffman, and combines film footage of Ginsberg reading his poetry, home movies and archival photographs to reveal the depth and the complexity of one of the most influential poets of this century.