About
I hope it is true that a man can die and yet not only live in others but give them life, and not only life, but that great consciousness of life.
Jack KerouacClick anywhere

Peter Orlovsky

New York City, New York
Poet & Actor

Peter Anton Orlovsky (July 8, 1933 – May 30, 2010) was an American poet and actor. He was the longtime partner of Allen Ginsberg.

He met Ginsberg while working as a model for the painter Robert La Vigne in San Francisco in December 1954. Prior to meeting Ginsberg, Orlovsky had made no deliberate attempts at becoming a poet.

With Ginsberg's encouragement, Orlovsky began writing in 1957 while the pair were living in Paris. Accompanied by other beat writers, Orlovsky traveled extensively for several years throughout the Middle East, Northern Africa, India, and Europe. Orlovsky was Ginsberg's lover in an open relationship until Ginsberg's death in 1997.

In 1974, Orlovsky joined the faculty of the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado, teaching poetry. In 1979 he received a $10,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to continue his creative endeavors.

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