Editing Allen Ginsberg (section)

===New York Beats===
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In Ginsberg's first year at Columbia he met fellow undergraduate [[Lucien Carr]], who introduced him to a number of future Beat writers, including [[Jack Kerouac]], [[William S. Burroughs]], and [[John Clellon Holmes]]. They bonded, because they saw in one another an excitement about the potential of American youth, a potential that existed outside the strict conformist confines of post–World War II, [[McCarthyism|McCarthy]]-era America.<ref name="auto1">{{harvnb|Raskin|2004}}</ref> Ginsberg and Carr talked excitedly about a "New Vision" (a phrase adapted from Yeats' "A Vision"), for literature and America. Carr also introduced Ginsberg to [[Neal Cassady]], for whom Ginsberg had a long infatuation.<ref>Barry Gifford, ed., ''As Ever: The Collected Correspondence of Allen Ginsberg & Neal Cassady''.</ref> In the first chapter of his 1957 novel ''[[On the Road]]'' Kerouac described the meeting between Ginsberg and Cassady.<ref name="Modern" /> Kerouac saw them as the dark (Ginsberg) and light (Cassady) side of their "New Vision", a perception stemming partly from Ginsberg's association with communism, of which Kerouac had become increasingly distrustful. Though Ginsberg was never a member of the Communist Party, Kerouac named him "Carlo Marx" in ''On the Road''. This was a source of strain in their relationship.<ref name="auto"/>

Also, in New York, Ginsberg met [[Gregory Corso]] in the Pony Stable Bar. Corso, recently released from prison, was supported by the Pony Stable patrons and was writing poetry there the night of their meeting. Ginsberg claims he was immediately attracted to Corso, who was straight, but understood homosexuality after three years in prison. Ginsberg was even more struck by reading Corso's poems, realizing Corso was "spiritually gifted." Ginsberg introduced Corso to the rest of his inner circle. In their first meeting at the Pony Stable, Corso showed Ginsberg a poem about a woman who lived across the street from him and sunbathed naked in the window. Amazingly, the woman happened to be Ginsberg's girlfriend that he was living with during one of his forays into heterosexuality. Ginsberg took Corso over to their apartment. There the woman proposed sex with Corso, who was still very young and fled in fear. Ginsberg introduced Corso to Kerouac and Burroughs and they began to travel together. Ginsberg and Corso remained lifelong friends and collaborators.<ref>{{harvnb|Miles|2001}}{{page needed|date=August 2024}}</ref>{{additional citation needed|date=August 2024}}

Shortly after this period in Ginsberg's life, he became romantically involved with [[Elise Cowen|Elise Nada Cowen]] after meeting her through Alex Greer, a philosophy professor at [[Barnard College]] whom she had dated for a while during the burgeoning Beat generation's period of development. As a Barnard student, Elise Cowen extensively read the poetry of [[Ezra Pound]] and [[T. S. Eliot]], when she met [[Joyce Johnson (author)|Joyce Johnson]] and Leo Skir, among other Beat players.{{fact|date=August 2024}} As Cowen had felt a strong attraction to darker poetry most of the time, Beat poetry seemed to provide an allure to what suggests a shadowy side of her persona. While at Barnard, Cowen earned the nickname "Beat Alice" as she had joined a small group of anti-establishment artists and visionaries known to outsiders as beatniks, and one of her first acquaintances at the college was the beat poet Joyce Johnson who later portrayed Cowen in her books, including "Minor Characters" and ''Come and Join the Dance'', which expressed the two women's experiences in the Barnard and Columbia Beat community.{{fact|date=August 2024}} Through his association with Elise Cowen, Ginsberg discovered that they shared a mutual friend, [[Carl Solomon]], to whom he later dedicated his most famous poem "Howl." This poem is considered an autobiography of Ginsberg up to 1955, and a brief history of the Beat Generation through its references to his relationship to other Beat artists of that time.{{fact|date=August 2024}}