Allen Ginsberg Library

On July 3, 1994, Boulder Mayor Leslie Durgin proclaimed the day to be Allen Ginsberg Day. The new library was dedicated in ceremony in Allen’s honor, with poetry readings, tributes and seven Buddhist monks chanting blessings.

“Beats and Other Rebel Angels: A Tribute to Allen Ginsberg,” a ten-day literary conference, was the center of Naropa’s twentieth anniversary celebrations in that year.

Reporters came from as far away as Sweden, England and Japan to see Ginsberg friends, musicians, poets, activists and artists including Cecil Taylor, Amiri Baraka, Philip Glass, Ken Kesey, Robert Creeley, Marianne Faithfull, Ed Sanders, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Gary Snyder, Meredith Monk, David Dellinger and Francesco Clemente.

Estimates were that as many as ten thousand people attended the events of the week, including many young Generation X’ers.