This content was extracted from Wikipedia and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License
William Cannastra (November 6, 1921 – October 12, 1950) was a member of the early Beat Generation scene in New York. He was a "wild man" figure that the writers in the group found interesting, similar to their fascination with Neal Cassady. Characters based on Bill Cannastra were included in both the John Clellon Holmes novel Go (as "Agatson") and Jack Kerouac's Visions of Cody (as "Finistra"). He is also described in Allen Ginsberg's "Howl".