News at Eleven: [Allen] Ginsberg was hyperaware of

the frequent charge that Beat poetry was little more than improvised mumbo jumbo baked from jazz records and marijuana smoke, and so he sought to establish its genealogical links to heroes of the American tradition such as Whitman and Hart Crane while at the same time proclaiming that Beat poetry was a passionate disavowal of traditional, normative, 1950s American society.

This was obviously a tight rope to walk, and he managed it for the most part with impressive grace.

from PopMatters: The Letters of Allen Ginsberg

~~~~~~~~~~~