Alan Ansen (January 23, 1922 – November 12, 2006) was an American poet, playwright, and associate of

Beat Generation The Beat Generation was a literary subculture movement started by a group of authors whose work explored and influenced American culture and politics in the post-war era. The bulk of their work was published and popularized by Silent Generatio ...

writers. He was a widely read scholar who knew many languages. Ansen grew up on

Long Island Long Island is a densely populated island in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, part of the New York metropolitan area. With over 8 million people, Long Island is the most populous island in the United Sta ...

and was educated at

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

. He worked as

W. H. Auden Wystan Hugh Auden (; 21 February 1907 – 29 September 1973) was a British-American poet. Auden's poetry was noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in ...

's secretary and research assistant in 1948-49; he was the main author of the chronological tables in Auden's ''The Portable Greek Reader'' and ''Poets of the English Language''.

Relationship to Beat Writers

He became a close friend of various Beat writers, and was the model for "flamboyant" characters in their fiction (Ansen was gay), including Rollo Greb in

Jack Kerouac Jean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac (; March 12, 1922 – October 21, 1969), known as Jack Kerouac, was an American novelist and poet who, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, was a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Of French-Canadian a ...

's ''On the Road'', AJ in

William S. Burroughs William Seward Burroughs II (; February 5, 1914 – August 2, 1997) was an American writer and visual artist, widely considered a primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodern author who influenced popular cultur ...

' ''Naked Lunch'', and Dad Deform in

Gregory Corso Gregory Nunzio Corso (March 26, 1930 – January 17, 2001) was an American poet and a key member of the Beat movement. He was the youngest of the inner circle of Beat Generation writers (with Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William S. Burrough ...

's ''American Express''. Ansen spent time in

Tangiers Tangier ( ; ; ar, طنجة, Ṭanja) is a city in northwestern Morocco. It is on the Moroccan coast at the western entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar, where the Mediterranean Sea meets the Atlantic Ocean off Cape Spartel. The town is the capit ...

with

Paul Bowles Paul Frederic Bowles (; December 30, 1910November 18, 1999) was an American expatriate composer, author, and translator. He became associated with the Moroccan city of Tangier, where he settled in 1947 and lived for 52 years to the end of his ...

and was a close associate of

Allen Ginsberg Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Gener ...

William Gaddis William Thomas Gaddis, Jr. (December 29, 1922 – December 16, 1998) was an American novelist. The first and longest of his five novels, ''The Recognitions'', was named one of TIME magazine's 100 best novels from 1923 to 2005 and two othe ...

, who spent time in the early 50s on Long Island with Kerouac and Ansen, wrote that Ansen had never quite received the credit he deserved for being "the mentor he was for this whole eatgroup," staying up with Jack until dawn drinking and talking. Ansen lived mostly in Athens after the early 1960s, where he was part of a circle of writers that included

James Merrill James Ingram Merrill (March 3, 1926 – February 6, 1995) was an American poet. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1977 for ''Divine Comedies.'' His poetry falls into two distinct bodies of work: the polished and formalist lyri ...

and

Chester Kallman Chester Simon Kallman (January 7, 1921 – January 18, 1975) was an American poet, librettist, and translator, best known for collaborating with W. H. Auden on opera librettos for Igor Stravinsky and other composers. Life Kallman was born in ...

Rachel Hadas Rachel Hadas (born November 8, 1948) is an American poet, teacher, essayist, and translator. Her most recent essay collection is ''Piece by Piece: Selected Prose'' (Paul Dry Books, 2021), and her most recent poetry collection is ''Love and Dread'' ...

, who also lived in Athens and met Ansen in 1969, described his life in "the tall old house on Alopekis Street":

Alan's apartment was notable for innumerable books and vases full of tall flowers—gladiolas, in particular.... There were two sofas in the flower- and book-filled living room, hard and covered with grubby tapestries, but very comfortable.... He had a sensible policy of not lending anything from his library, but the contents of many of his books, in any case, seemed to be in his head; he recited, declaimed and burst (in the case of opera) into song. Alan lived books, in a way that was rare even then.Rachel Hadas, "Freelance," ''
The Times Literary Supplement ''The Times Literary Supplement'' (''TLS'') is a weekly literary review published in London by News UK, a subsidiary of News Corp. History The ''TLS'' first appeared in 1902 as a supplement to ''The Times'' but became a separate publication i ...
'', August 2, 2013, p. 16.

His works

* ''The Old Religion''.

Tibor de Nagy The Tibor de Nagy Gallery is an art gallery located on Rivington Street in the Lower East Side neighborhood of Manhattan. History Tibor de Nagy Gallery is among the earliest modern art galleries in New York City. The gallery was founded by T ...

Gallery Editions, New York 1959; 300 copies. (poems) * ''Disorderly Houses: A Book of Poems''. Wesleyan University Series, Middletown, CT 1961. Wesleyan Poetry Series. * ''William Burroughs: An Essay''. Water Row Press, Sudbury 1986. (combines three previously published essays) * ''The Vigilantes: A Fragment''. Water Row Press, Sudbury 1987. (from an unpublished novel) * ''Contact Highs: Selected Poems''. Dalkey Archive Press, Elmwood Park, IL 1989. Introduction by Steven Moore. * ''The Table Talk of W.H. Auden''. Sea Cliff Press, New York 1989. Ed. by Nicholas Jenkins, introduction by

Richard Howard Richard Joseph Howard (October 13, 1929 – March 31, 2022; adopted as Richard Joseph Orwitz) was an American poet, literary critic, essayist, teacher, and translator. He was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and was a graduate of Columbia University, w ...

; excerpts from conversation diaries. (reprinted with two other publishers)

References

External links

Beat Generation Biographies

''Disorderly Houses'' by Alan Ansen
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ansen, Alan People from Long Island Poets from New York (state) Harvard University alumni 1922 births 2006 deaths 20th-century American poets American LGBT writers American LGBT poets 20th-century American LGBT people 21st-century American LGBT people

Relationship to Beat Writers

His works

References

Further reading

Archival resources

External links