TRANSLATING THE COUNTERCULTURE The Reception of the Beats in Turkey by Erik Mortenson / Southern Illinois University Press / 978-0809336548 / 2018 The premise is a fascinating one. Erik Mortenson … [Read more...]
Beat Generation Authors, Poets & Artists
Here you'll find everything relating to the Beat Generation - biographies of the writers, poets, artists, and other players; interviews, book reviews, photo galleries, and more.
Now What’s Wrong? Reflections on Allen Ginsberg’s Cosmopolitan Greetings: Poems 1986-1992
After the accomplishments of late nineteenth and early twentieth century experimentalists Whitman, Dickinson, Rimbaud, and the Modernist poets Apollinaire, Cendrars, Mayakovsky, Stevens, Williams, … [Read more...]
Celebrating ruth weiss on her 90th birthday
ruth was born in Berlin on June 24th, 1928 -- and what a life she’s had so far! Actually, it could have been very short-lived if she and her parents had not managed to escape from Nazi-Germany via … [Read more...]
Walt Whitman and Allen Ginsberg: A Story of Influences
The well-known link between Allen Ginsberg and Walt Whitman comes from both Ginsberg's readers and Ginsberg himself. One of the first explicit mentions of Walt Whitman in Ginsberg's published poetry … [Read more...]
a toast to ti-jean in a liverpool gloom saloon
12 March 2018 It is said that a woman haunts, she sees everything. An observer, a writer, a siren of dreams. In my heart and mind, I am always searching for slivers of paradise while being silently … [Read more...]
Jack Kerouac: Avatar of American Buddhism
"I have nothing to offer but my own confusion." -- JK It is intriguing that secular, educated Americans often have difficulty with the rituals and story of Christianity, seeing it as irrational, … [Read more...]
The Guardian and the Familiar: William S. Burroughs and Cats
“O fiery river “Spread over this American land. “Drown out the falsity, the smug contempt “For what does not pay … “What would you pay Christ to die again?” -- Kenneth Patchen, from “O Fiery … [Read more...]
I, Too, at the Beginning by Ted Joans
I, Too, at the Beginning I am the early Black Beat I read with some of the Best Beat minds When the Apple was Beat Generating I lived in Greenwich Village I was there Where I read poems and … [Read more...]
And When I Die, I Won’t Stay Dead: a review of the Bob Kaufman documentary
THE POET KNOWS HE MUST WRITE THE TRUTH, EVEN IF HE IS KILLED FOR IT, FOR THE SPHINX CANNOT BE DENIED -- Bob Kaufman, "THE POET" The life and times of Bob Kaufman, the influential and … [Read more...]
Here to Learn: Remembering Paul Bowles by Mark Terrill
In the spring of 1982 I was working as a deck machinist on a cable-laying ship based out of Norfolk, Virginia. In a copy of the Village Voice that I’d picked up while on shore leave, I saw an … [Read more...]
Neeli Cherkovski’s Elegy For My Beat Generation, reviewed by Yannis Livadas
Elegy For My Beat Generation by Neeli Cherkovski / Lithic Press / 978-0-9975017-9-7 The Beat Generation as a literary phenomenon was over, or more correctly, was completed, with the last works of … [Read more...]
Passing Through: Allen Ginsberg & Peter Orlovsky in Copenhagen, January 1983
As part of their reading tour through a dozen European countries, poets Allen Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky, and their musical accompanist Steven Taylor, arrive by train in Copenhagen in the chill dark … [Read more...]
The Intersection of Buddhism and the Beat Generation
The 1950s in America was not a period known for its religious diversity. The spiritual consumerism that we know today had yet to be established and the post-War era was defined by adherence to … [Read more...]
Junk Nightmares
William Burroughs was troubled in his childhood by a “fear of nightmares.” The dreams themselves weren’t always so bad. Like when he seemed to wake to find little men playing in a block house he’d … [Read more...]
Visions of Cody, a book of martyrdom
"Time is the purest and cheapest form of doom." -- Jack Kerouac Apropos Kerouac, I think that there is nothing more important, more significant today, than reading his books and evaluate them … [Read more...]
Book Review — First Thought: Conversations with Allen Ginsberg
First Thought: Conversations with Allen Ginsberg edited by Michael Schumacher / University of Minnesota Press / March 17, 2017 / 978-0816699179 Michael Schumacher is one of the major scholars of … [Read more...]
Out to Lunch with William Burroughs: Who Owns the Dropper Owns the Fix
It was summer 1991, I think, when sharing a joint on a brick fire escape after a night of acid-tapped cartoon lunacy, my friend Steve exhaled smoke into the Manchester morning and casually asked if … [Read more...]
Jack Kerouac’s Creative Birth
Excerpted from manuscript titled I Live In Two Worlds: The Literary Cosmos of Jack Kerouac to be published by Rowman & Littlefield in late 2017 We first read a hand-written time-wheel … [Read more...]
Prelude to Big Sur: Kerouac in Spring & Summer 1960
It is sunny, no humidity in the late spring of 1960. A brisk breeze blows in Northport, Long Island where Jack Kerouac has made his home with his mother for two years now. He sits in his yard … [Read more...]
This is IT: Van Gogh and Kerouac
"Dat is Het." In Vincent van Gogh’s Dutch tongue, he extolled this triumphant realization, “Dat is Het!” It lay the foundation for a rich flood of work. He was twenty-four years old. The years … [Read more...]
