I think it was when I ran into Kerouac and Burroughs - when I was 17 - that I realized I was talking through an empty skull... I wasn't thinking my own thoughts or saying my own thoughts.

According to fellow poet Michael McClure it was clear "that a barrier had been broken that a human voice and body had been hurled against the harsh wall of America and its supporting armies and navies and academies and institutions and ownership systems and power support bases. She also tried to kill herself by slitting her wrists and was soon taken to Greystone a mental hospital; Allen Ginsberg would spend much of Ginsberg's youth in mental hospitals. The yellow of the sunshine also showed the key on the side of the window.

His moving and angry poem September on Jessore Road calling attention to the plight of Bangladeshi refugees exemplifies what the literary critic Helen Vendler described as Ginsberg's tireless persistence in protesting against "imperial politics and persecution of the powerless. D. " Ginsberg's political activism was consistent with his religious beliefs.