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That time Allen Ginsberg wrote a Socialist poem — about Bernie Sanders

JL;DR SUMMARY Celebrating Allen Ginsberg's centennial, this piece revisits "Burlington Snow," a poem he wrote in 1986 about Bernie Sanders, reflecting on the intersection of art and politics. A way out west there was a fella, fella I want to tell you about, fella by the name of Jeff Lebowski. At least, that was the handle his lovin' parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. This Lebowski, he called himself the Dude. Now, Dude, that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from. But then, there was a lot about the Dude that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. And a lot about where he lived, likewise. But then again, maybe that's why I found the place s'durned innarestin'.

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Tags

PoetryActivismBernie SandersSocialismDemocratic SocialismAllen GinsbergBeat GenerationBurlington SnowEliot KatzJewish American Poets

Places mentioned

Burlington, Vermont, United States
"archival material about Bernie Sanderss four terms as the mayor of Burlington, Vermont"
West Orange, New Jersey, United States
"an Auschwitz survivor who went on to hold elected office for 12 years as a councilwoman in West Orange, New Jersey"
New York City, New York, United States
"That they might have met at a NYC fundraiser years later"
Hoboken, New Jersey, United States
"Katz said when I visited him in his Hoboken apartment."
New Hampshire, United States
"on a February day in snow-covered New England like the one on which Sanders won in New Hampshire"
San Francisco, California, United States
"when an editor at the San Francisco Chronicle asked me to review a collection of essays about Howl."
United Kingdom
"a reporter for the British newspaper the Guardian found a poem by Allen Ginsberg."
Washington DC, United States
"organizations for the homeless in New Jersey and Washington, DC."

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Retrieved 2026-06-04 05:30:58 UTC
Curated 2026-06-04 08:30:32 UTC