Beat generation poet Elise Cowen was born in 1933 into a middle
class Jewish family in Washington Heights, New York. While
attending Barnard College she began a brief relationship with Allen
Ginsberg, remaining close to him the rest of her life. From 1956
until 1962 she moved back and forth between California and New
York, struggling with increasingly severe psychological breakdowns.
She committed suicide in 1962 by jumping through a closed window at
her parents house. After her death, the bulk of Cowen's writing was
destroyed at the behest of her parents, who were uneasy with her
representations of sexuality and drug use, but a handful of poems
and fragments have survived and reached publication.
Tony Trigilio's recent books include the poetry collections THE
COMPLETE DARK SHADOWS (OF MY CHILDHOOD) (BlazeVOX Books, 2014),
WHITE NOISE (Apostrophe Books, 2013) and HISTORIC DIARY (BlazeVOX
Books, 2010), and the critical monograph Allen Ginsberg's Buddhist
Poetics, which was released in a new edition by Southern Illinois
University Press in 2012. He is the editor of ELISE COWEN: POEMS
AND FRAGMENTS (Ahsahta Press, 2014), and co-editor of the anthology
Visions and Division: American Immigration Literature, 1870-1930
(Rutgers University Press, 2008). He directs the program in
Creative Writing/Poetry at Columbia College Chicago and is a
co-founder and co-editor of Court Green.
Ask a Question About this Product More... |