Biography
Allen Ginsberg was a Beat Generation poet, then teaching at Naropa Institute in Boulder, and a prominent participant in the Rocky Flats Truth Force protests of 1978-1979. Alongside Daniel Ellsberg and Anne Waldman, he was arrested for blocking train tracks at the Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant during demonstrations beginning April 29, 1978; he composed the poem "Plutonian Ode" in connection with these actions. Approximately 75 protesters were arrested in the May 1978 mass action.
The October 1978 Poetry Project newsletter reproduces Ginsberg’s courthouse haiku dated August 9, 1978 and explicitly says it was written after his arrest. Its account places that day’s Nagasaki memorial die-in at Rocky Flats, with approximately seventy-seven arrests. His anticipated November trial is not recorded as a completed conviction or release. Source: https://www.poetryproject.org/file-library/58-newsletter.pdf#page=3
