1926-1997 - Allen Ginsberg was one of the Trinity of Beat Generation writers revolutionized American letters in the mid-1950s and 1960s (the other two members being Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs, both of whom were close friends of his). His poem "Howl" and Kerouac's 1957 novel On the Road (1006) were the two gospels that launched the Beat movement, or more properly, introduced it to mainstream culture. (Both writers, plus Burroughs, were featured in the other's works.) "Howl," by attacking the negative values of consumer society that were destroying the sensitive and the creative, was a major indictment of the conformity that flourished during the Eisenhower years' negative human values.