Read Allen Ginsberg’s Annotations About the Early Years of the Gay Pride Parade

+ info: Hyperallergic

When the 1969 Stonewall Riots erupted in the Greenwich Village, Allen Ginsberg was elsewhere. But the legendary queer poet of the Beat Generation made his way downtown one day after the initial brawl that ricocheted from Christopher Street and across the country. Surveying the damage, Ginsberg recognized how Stonewall would change gay life by rendering undeniably visible the LGBTQ people of America. Discussing the riots, he is believed to have said, “You know, the guys there were so beautiful — they’ve lost that wounded look the [gay men] all had ten years ago.”