Barry Farrell graduated from the University of Washington in 1956 and became a reporter for The Seattle Post-Inteligencer. He joined Time as a correspondent in San Franscisco in 1960. While at Time, Farrell worked as a music writer in New York, and later, as a correspondent in Paris. In 1968, Farrell joined Life, a sister publication of Time, as a columnist.

[Taken from Barry Farrell's obituary.]

Allen Ginsberg was an American poet and prominent social activist and countercultural figure of the mid-20th century. With such individuals as Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs, Ginsberg was one of the founders of the Beat Generation.

In 1956, Ginsberg published Howl and Other Poems which features "Howl," one of his best-known poems and a seminal work of the Beat Generation. Ginsberg went on to publish numerous collections of poetry and essays, including Kaddish and Other Poems (1961), Reality Sandwiches (1963), Planet News: Poems, 1961-1967 (1968), The Fall of America: Poems of These States (1973), Mind Breaths (1978), White Shroud Poems: 1980-1985 (1986), Cosmopolitan Greetings: Poems, 1968-1992, and posthumously, Death and Fame: Poems, 1993-1997 and Deliberate Prose: Selected Essays, 1952-1995.