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Alan Ansen (23 January 1922 — 12 November 2006) was an American poet, playwright, and associate of Beat Generation writers. Alan Ansen - Information, bio, obituary, bibliography & books Dalkey Archive Press: Alan Ansen He was a widely-read scholar who knew many languages. Ansen grew up on Long Island and was educated at Harvard. He worked as W. H. Auden'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.

He became a close friend of various Beat writers, and was the model for flamboyant characters in their fiction, including Rollo Greb in Jack Kerouac's On the Road, AJ in William S. Burroughs' Naked Lunch, and Dad Deform in Gregory Corso's American Express.

Ansen lived mostly in Athens after the early 1960s, where he was part of a circle of writers that included James Merrill and Chester Kallman.

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