Allen Ginsberg (1926 - 1997) is one of the most respected and recognized poets of the Beat writers. Born in Newark, New Jersey, and educated at Columbia, he established his literary reputation in the 1950s through a series of controversial public readings and publications of his poetry, which was considered obscene at the time. He constantly asserts himself within the American tradition of Walt Whitman, William Carlos Williams, and appropriates the mystical elements of William Blake. "A Supermarket in California," one of his famous early poems, is a fine example of Ginsberg's exuberant free verse style, which he uses to create a humorous, engaging, larger than life persona.