[1926-1997]  US Poet.  Written in 1956, his poem Howl was one of the most influential of the Beat Generation.  It criticized the materialism of contemporary US society.  In the 1960's, he travelled widely in Asia and was a key figure in introducing Eastern thought to the students of that decade. http://www.boppin.com/sunflower.html Look at the Sunflower, he said, there was a dead gray       shadow against the sky, big as a man, sitting       dry on top of a pile of ancient sawdust-- --I rushed up enchanted--it was my first sunflower,       memories of Blake--my visions--Harlem and Hells of the Eastern rivers, bridges clanking Joes       Greasy Sandwiches, dead baby carriages, black       treadless tires forgotten and unretreaded, the       poem of the riverbank, condoms pots, steel       knives, nothing stainless, only the dank muck       and the razor-sharp artifacts passing into the       past--                                                                    ~Allen Ginsberg