Editing Allen Ginsberg (section)

===Inspiration from mentors and idols===
Ginsberg's poetry was strongly influenced by [[Modernism]] (most importantly the American style of Modernism pioneered by William Carlos Williams), [[Romanticism]] (specifically William Blake and [[John Keats]]), the beat and cadence of [[jazz]] (specifically that of [[Bebop|bop]] musicians such as [[Charlie Parker]]), and his [[Kagyu]] Buddhist practice and Jewish background. He considered himself to have inherited the visionary poetic mantle handed down from the English poet and artist [[William Blake]], the American poet [[Walt Whitman]] and the Spanish poet [[Federico García Lorca]]. The power of Ginsberg's verse, its searching, probing focus, its long and lilting lines, as well as its [[New World]] exuberance, all echo the continuity of inspiration that he claimed.<ref name="auto"/><ref name="Deliberate" /><ref name="Spontaneous" />

He corresponded with [[William Carlos Williams]], who was then in the middle of writing his epic poem ''[[Paterson (poem)|Paterson]]'' about the industrial city near his home. After attending a reading by Williams, Ginsberg sent the older poet several of his poems and wrote an introductory letter. Most of these early poems were rhymed and metered and included archaic pronouns like "thee." Williams disliked the poems and told Ginsberg, "In this mode perfection is basic, and these poems are not perfect."<ref name="auto"/><ref name="Deliberate" /><ref name="Spontaneous" />

Though he disliked these early poems, Williams loved the exuberance in Ginsberg's letter. He included the letter in a later part of ''Paterson''. He encouraged Ginsberg not to emulate the old masters, but to speak with his own voice and the voice of the common American. From Williams, Ginsberg learned to focus on strong visual images, in line with Williams' own motto "No ideas but in things." Studying Williams' style led to a tremendous shift from the early formalist work to a loose, colloquial [[free verse]] style. Early breakthrough poems include ''Bricklayer's Lunch Hour'' and ''Dream Record''.<ref name="auto"/><ref name="Spontaneous" />

Carl Solomon introduced Ginsberg to the work of [[Antonin Artaud]] (''To Have Done with the Judgement of God'' and ''Van Gogh: The Man Suicided by Society''), and [[Jean Genet]] (''[[Our Lady of the Flowers]]''). [[Philip Lamantia]] introduced him to other [[Surrealists]] and Surrealism continued to be an influence (for example, sections of "Kaddish" were inspired by [[André Breton]]'s ''Free Union''). Ginsberg claimed that the anaphoric repetition of ''Howl'' and other poems was inspired by [[Christopher Smart]] in such poems as ''Jubilate Agno''. Ginsberg also claimed other more traditional influences, such as: [[Franz Kafka]], [[Herman Melville]], [[Fyodor Dostoevsky]], [[Edgar Allan Poe]], and [[Emily Dickinson]].<ref name="auto"/><ref name="Deliberate" />

Ginsberg also made an intense study of [[haiku]] and the paintings of [[Paul Cézanne]], from which he adapted a concept important to his work, which he called the ''Eyeball Kick''. He noticed in viewing Cézanne's paintings that when the eye moved from one color to a contrasting color, the eye would [[Saccade|spasm]], or "kick." Likewise, he discovered that the contrast of two seeming opposites was a common feature in haiku. Ginsberg used this technique in his poetry, putting together two starkly dissimilar images: something weak with something strong, an artifact of high culture with an artifact of low culture, something holy with something unholy. The example Ginsberg most often used was "hydrogen jukebox" (which later became the title of a [[Hydrogen Jukebox|song cycle]] composed by [[Philip Glass]] with lyrics drawn from Ginsberg's poems). Another example is Ginsberg's observation on Bob Dylan during Dylan's hectic and intense 1966 electric-guitar tour, fueled by a cocktail of amphetamines,<ref>{{Cite news |date=December 30, 1999 |title=A lot of nerve |work=The Guardian |location=London |url=https://www.theguardian.com/culture/1999/dec/30/artsfeatures.bobdylan |access-date=April 23, 2010}}</ref> opiates,<ref>{{Cite web |date=October 4, 2007 |title=The Ten Most Incomprehensible Bob Dylan Interviews of All Time{{snd}}Vulture |url=https://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2007/10/the_ten_most_incomprehensible.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101127162320/http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2007/10/the_ten_most_incomprehensible.html |archive-date=November 27, 2010 |access-date=October 31, 2010 |website=New York}}</ref> alcohol,<ref>{{Cite web |last=Plotz |first=David |date=March 8, 1998 |title=Bob Dylan{{snd}}By David Plotz{{snd}}Slate Magazine |url=http://www.slate.com/id/1855/ |access-date=October 31, 2010 |website=Slate}}</ref> and psychedelics,<ref>{{Cite news |last=O'Hagan |first=Sean |date=March 25, 2001 |title=Well, how does it feel? |work=The Guardian |location=London |url=https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2001/mar/25/features.review7 |access-date=April 23, 2010}}</ref> as a ''[[Dexedrine]] Clown''. The phrases "eyeball kick" and "hydrogen jukebox" both show up in ''Howl'', as well as a direct quote from Cézanne: "Pater Omnipotens Aeterna Deus".<ref name="Deliberate" />