Dear George,
Katja and I went to college in the late 1950’s, and, like most of our contemporaries, we were caught up in all sorts of new and exciting ideas. Existentialism, psychoanalysis, Zen buddhism, etc. The most powerful of all was the Beat Generation movement. Rebellion, hedonism, the search for meaning fit our life stage and circumstances, and “On the Road” became our bible. Katja took to wearing all black and scrapping makeup, while I let my hair grow long and tried (unsuccessfully) to grow a scraggly beard. When we went to co-op jobs in New York City, we hung out in Greenwich Village coffee houses and jazz clubs, hoping to catch a glimpse of Jack Kerouac. Now, some 65 years later, I’ve become immersed in reading and writing poetry, and I find myself going back to revisit the beat poets. Here’s a quick review.
“Beat Generation” refers to a literary and cultural movement that initially formed in New York City in the late 1940’s and became influential nationally and worldwide in the 1950’s and early 1960’s. The initial core group of Beat Generation authors — Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Herbert Huncke, and Lucien Carr — met in 1944 in and around the Columbia University campus. Many of their ideas were formed in response to Columbia professors like Lionel Trilling and Mark Van Doren. Kerouac introduced the phrase “Beat Generation” in 1948. The term “Beat” is believed to have originated from the jazz term “beatnik” which referred to a group of artists and musicians who embraced a countercultural lifestyle. “Beat” was slang for “beaten down” or “downtrodden”. The Beat Generation authors often challenged societal norms and explored themes of alienation and disillusionment. In the mid-1950’s Kerouac, Ginsberg, and others moved to San Francisco’s North Beach neighborhood, drawn by the burgeoning literary scene there.
Beat Generation poets had a major impact on American literature and society, challenging traditional values and exploring unconventional themes. The Beat poets pioneered a new literary style that emphasized spontaneity, improvisation, and personal experience, and that rejected traditional poetic forms, e.g., rhyme and meter. Often addressing social and political issues, the Beat poets explored a wide range of unconventional themes, including spirituality, free love and sexual liberation, drug use, and the search for meaning. Their emphasis on individuality, freedom, and self-expression inspired a generation of young people to question traditional values and to embrace more unconventional life styles. Major Beat poets included Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, William S. Burroughs, and Gregory Corso.
Jack Kerouac. Kerouac was born into a French-Canadian family in Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1922, and he grow up in a family shaped by his father’s death and his mother’s struggle with alcoholism. He received a football scholarship to Columbia University where he met 17-year-old Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs and became involved in the emerging Beat Generation scene. Serving in the U.S. Navy during World War II, he was honorably discharged on psychiatric grounds with a diagnosis of “schizoid personality”. Kerouac is best-known for his novel, “On the Road”, based on his cross-country road trips with his friend Neal Cassady. Kerouac’s poetry explored many of the same themes as his prose, the allure of the road, the search for meaning, and the spiritual quest. He employed a stream-of-consciousness style, and his poems often reflected the rhythms and spontaneity of jazz, creating a sense of musicality. Kerouac published three poetry collections: “Mexico City Blues” (1959), “Book of Dreams” (1962), and “Scattered Poems”, published posthumously. Despite his literary success, Kerouac struggled with alcoholism, drug addiction, and financial instability, never fully achieving the fame and fortune that he sought. He died in 1969 at age 47 from internal bleeding caused by alcoholism.
Allen Ginsberg. Ginsburg was born in Newark, New Jersey, in 1926, growing up in a family with a history of mental illness. His mother’s struggle with schizophrenia deeply influenced his personal life and his work. Ginsberg attended Columbia University in the 1940’s where he formed a close-knit community with fellow poets like Kerouac and William Burroughs, the group striving to break free from societal constraints and to explore unconventional themes. Ginsberg’s early career involved struggles with drug addiction, mental health issues, and financial instability. His breakthrough came with the publication of “Howl” in 1956, a poem that explored alienation, conformity, and sexual liberation, and that immediately led to Ginsburg’s fame. Throughout the 1960’s and 1970’s Ginsberg was actively involved in the civil rights and anti-war movements, his poetry addressing issues such as police brutality, racism, and the Vietnam War. His main influences were William Blake and John Keats. Ginsberg won the National Book Award in 1993. He died in 1997 of liver cancer, leaving behind a legacy of poetry, activism, and cultural influence.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Ferlinghetti was born in Yonkers in 1919. His father died when he was 6 months old, and his mother was committed to an a mental institution shortly afterward. Ferlinghetti spent time with an aunt in France, an orphanage, and the mansion of a wealthy family. After serving in the U.S. Army during World War II, he earned a B.A. at North Carolina, an M.A. from Columbia, and a Ph.D. in comparative literature from the University of Paris. He moved to San Francisco in 1951, and in 1953 he and a partner opened the City Lights Bookstore, publishing the works of Kerouac, Ginsberg, and other Beat poets and becoming a West Coast hub for the beat Generation. Ferlinghetti’s poems often addressed social and political issues, criticizing conformity, materialism, and the Vietnam War. His most famous work is a collection of poems published in 1958, “A Coney island of the Mind.” He was a committed activist as well, engaging in civil rights, anti-war, and environmental protests. Ferlinghetti died peacefully at home in 2021 at the age of 101.
William Burroughs. Born in 1914 in St. Louis, Missouri, Burroughs attended Harvard where he studied anthropology and served in the U.S. Army during World War II. He formed a close friendship with Ginsberg and Kerouac in the 1950’s. Burroughs was a heavy drug user, and his exploration of altered states of consciousness had a profound impact on his writings. Burroughs developed a unique literary technique known as the “cut-up” in both poetry and prose which involved taking fragments of text, rearranging them randomly, and creating new, often nonsensical, narratives. Though primarily known for his prose works, Burroughs published several collections of poetry, including “The Cities of the Red Night” (1981) (a series of prose poems exploring sexuality, violence, and the occult) and “Queer” (1991) (exploring gender, sexuality, and identity). Burroughs died of a heart attack in 1997 at the age of 83.
Gregory Corso. The youngest of the original Beat group, Gregory Corso was born in New York City in 1930. In his early years, he spent time in foster homes and orphanages, was homeless for a period, and was imprisoned multiple times. Despite this background, Corso discovered a passion for poetry in prison and then became friends with Ginserg and Kerouac in Greenwich Village. His poetry was characterized by its simplicity, directness, themes of rebellion and spirituality, and often humorous tone. “Bomb”, one of his most famous poems whose text was shaped like a mushroom cloud, is a scathing critique of war and the destructiveness of human society. Corso was known for his unconventional lifestyle, struggled with alcohol and drugs, traveled extensively, and lived in various parts of the world. He died of prostate cancer in 2001. His ashes were deposited at the foot of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s grave.
The beats had major influences on the culture, paving the way for the counterculture movement of the sixties. Among other bits of trivia, the Beatles spelled their name with an “a” as a reference to the Beat Generation. Other notable figures who have acknowledged the Beat’s influence on their work include Bob Dylan, David Bowie, Andy Warhol, Ken Kesey, Timothy Leary, Tom Wolfe, Quentin Tarantino, and Francis Ford Coppola. In 1982 Ginsberg published a summary of the effects of the Beat Generation. His list included: spiritual liberation, gay liberation, liberation from censorship, decriminalization of marijuana and other drugs, ecological consciousness, opposition to the military-industrial machine, and respect for land and indigenous peoples.
When my spouse walked by and asked what I was doing the other day, I told her, “I’m writing about the Beat Generation. It takes me back to when we were Beatniks.” She laughed. “Or trying to be,” she replied. “That’s more like it.” I guess she’s right.
Love,
Dave
APPENDIX: Brief excerpts from poems by Beat authors to illustrate their styles.
How to Meditate
by Jack Kerouac
-lights out-
fall, hands a-clasped, into instantaneous
ecstasy like a shot of heroin or morphine,
the gland inside of my brain discharging
the good glad fluid (Holy Fluid) as
i hap-down and hold all my body parts
down to a deadstop trance-Healing
all my sicknesses-erasing all-not
even the shred of a 'I-hope-you' or a
Loony Balloon left in it, but the mind
blank, serene, thoughtless…
Howl
by Allen Ginsberg
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical
naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry
dynamo in the machinery of night,
who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the
supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities
contemplating jazz,
who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and saw Mohammedan angels
staggering on tenement roofs illuminated…
The World is a Beautiful Place
by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
The world is a beautiful place
to be born into
if you don't mind happiness
not always being
so very much fun
if you don't mind a touch of hell
now and then
just when everything is fine
because even in heaven
they don't sing
all the time...
Where Flesh Circulates
by William S. Burroughs
Its so hard to remember in the world - - Weren't you there? Dead so you
think of ports - - Couldn't reach flesh - - Might have to reach flesh from
anybody - -
And i will depart under the Red Masters
for strange dawn words of color exalting their
falling on my face impending attack satellite in a
Gold and perfumes of light city red stone
shadows brick terminal time wet dream flesh creakily
the
the last feeble faces fountains play stale
spit from crumpled cloth Weimar youths on my face
bodies where flesh circulates Masters of color
exalting their dogs impending attack of light…
Bomb
by Gregory Corso
Budger of history Brake of time You Bomb
Toy of universe Grandest of all snatched sky I cannot hate you
Do I hate the mischievous thunderbolt the jawbone of an ass
The bumpy club of One Million B.C. the mace the flail the axe
Catapult Da Vinci tomahawk Cochise flintlock Kidd dagger Rathbone
Ah and the sad desperate gun of Verlaine Pushkin Dillinger Bogart
And hath not St. Michael a burning sword St. George a lance David a sling…