In the U.K. edition of Jack Kerouac's 1945 novel, The Sea Is My Brother (Penguin 2011), there is an addendum of material meant to represent Jack Kerouac's formative writing experience during the early to mid-1940s. The thrust of this formative experience, according to this added text, hinged on Kerouac's sporadic friendship with Sebastian Sampas. Never mind the willful … [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.
4 terrific Gregory Corso videos
In honor of Gregory Corso's birthday (he was born March 26, 1930), we've collected some videos of him. Check 'em out. 1. & 2. Gregory Corso Walks and Talks in Roma, 1989 "Two weeks with Gregory during one of his long stays in Roma, with Michael Sullivan, Francis Kuipers, Adriano Gangi, Mimmo Cioffarelli, Dario Bellini and friends. *Transcription of all talks from two hours … [Read more...]
In honor of Jack’s birthday: 4 Kerouac videos
In honor of Jack Kerouac's birthday (March 12), here are some videos to enjoy. 1. Kerouac & friends in New York "Silent footage of Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Lucien Carr, and others in New York, Summer 1959. The location is in and around the Harmony Bar & Restaurant at E 9th St. and 3rd Ave. Others seen are Mary Frank (wife of film-maker Robert Frank) and children … [Read more...]
Review – Anywhere Road: Retracing Jack Kerouac, by Joerg Haeske
"What's your road, man?—holyboy road, madman road, rainbow road, guppy road, any road. It's an anywhere road for anybody anyhow." - Jack Kerouac, On the Road For the last several years, on his website www.RetracingJackKerouac.com, Joerg Haeske has documented his travels to places which figured in Jack Kerouac's life and work. Now Joerg has gathered together some of his … [Read more...]
Review – Free Beer: Kicks and Truth with Jack Kerouac by Cliff Anderson
Free Beer: Kicks & Truth with Jack Kerouac, and other strong drinks is a collection of twelve stories by Cliff Anderson. Also included is Kerouac scholar Rod Anstee's 1990 interview with Anderson, titled "Dare to be Kind." In the tale that gives this collection its title, "Free Beer," Anderson recounts his friendship with Jack Kerouac, which began in St. Petersburg, Florida … [Read more...]
Kerouac and An American Marriage
an excerpt from a work-in-progress) In January 1945, Jack Kerouac set out to write his Great American Novel. His newly-drafted notes embraced the activities of the last four years and scaffolded the events up to, during and after his hastily-arranged marriage to Edie Parker on August 22, 1944. He titled this new tome An American Marriage. Kerouac's relationship with Edie … [Read more...]
Are There Any Good Unpublished Kerouac Books Left?
With the glut of books that thankfully made our way in the past 20 years or so, we now have (probably) just as many posthumous titles as those Kerouac published in his lifetime. These have added exponentially to our understanding toward what Kerouac achieved in his own right as an American writer. However, there is still much more that can be published. Or, think of them as my … [Read more...]
Jack Kerouac – “Big Sur” Movie Trailer
The film, Big Sur, based upon Jack Kerouac's novel of the same name, released nationwide on November 1, 2013. Directed by Michael Polish, who also wrote the screenplay, it stars Jean-Marc Barr as Jack Kerouac. Other cast are: Stana Katic as Lenore; Henry Thomas as Phillip Whalen; Josh Lucas as Neal Cassady; Kate Bosworth as Billie; Radha Mitchell as Carolyn Cassady; Anthony … [Read more...]
Earwitness Testimony: Sound and Sense, Word and Void in Jack Kerouac’s Old Angel Midnight
“the ineluctable modality of the audible” – James Joyce Ulysses So much of Jack Kerouac’s writing seems impelled by an impatience with all verbal restraints and by an urgent purpose that strains to push and pivot, dodge and drive – like the star running back Kerouac once was – past syntax and grammar and language itself in order to touch a truth beyond language. Nowhere in … [Read more...]
Who was Neal Cassady?
Neal Cassady: a brief biographical sketch Born on February 8, 1926, Neal Cassady grew up in Denver, Colorado. He was the son of a barber who moved the family from cheap hotel to cheap hotel. As a young man, Neal was usually a truant, hanging out in pool halls, hitchhiking, stealing cars, and, finally, landing in reform school, where he read his way through the library's … [Read more...]
The Official Kerouac “On the Road” Movie Trailer is Here!
"On the Road," the movie based on Jack Kerouac's novel of the same name, will be released in the United States on December 21, 2012. Produced by Francis Ford Coppola's American Zoetrope, it's directed by Walter Salles (Motorcycle Diaries) and stars Sam Riley, Garrett Hedlund, and Kristen Stewart. Check out the official trailer below! Haven't read On the Road yet, or want … [Read more...]
“The Old Maestro”: an interview with Kerouac friend Henri Cru by Dave Moore
Henri Cru was one of the friends that Jack Kerouac met at Horace Mann School, New York, in 1939. Their friendship sustained for many years, and Cru featured as a character in several of Kerouac's books. He was the model for "Remi Boncoeur" in On the Road and "Deni Bleu" in Visions of Cody, Lonesome Traveller, Desolation Angels, Vanity of Duluoz and Book of Dreams. After a … [Read more...]
La Picaudiere — and Hundertwasser’s Honey
Asked in an interview what he would remember most about his life as an artist, Man Ray replied "the women." I was a bee whisperer, like Edmund Hillary who climbed Mount Everest and who was a beekeeper in New Zealand, and I was writing poetry, it tumbled out of me. There was the feeling of total isolatedness. The road there — if you'll let a guide direct you who never … [Read more...]
Kerouac — “My really best friend…” an interview with Seymour Wyse by Dave Moore
Seymour Michael Wyse was one of Jack Kerouac's closest friends. An Englishman, educated at Charterhouse School, Wyse met Kerouac when they both attended Horace Mann School, New York, in 1939. They remained in close contact until Wyse returned to England in 1951. Seymour (under the pseudonym 'Lionel Smart') features as a character in many of Kerouac's books, including Maggie … [Read more...]
The Language of Bebop: Syncopated Sounds and Rhythms in Allen Ginsberg’s ‘Howl’
America, mid-twentieth century. Wearied by civilization, excesses and ornamentation, complications and. All precursors to extinction: The drone of war, the machinery of death, the atomic bomb, crew cuts, grey flannel, and hydrogen jukeboxes. The Beats were the unholy and battered, bleak and blue and sad-eyed, surrounded by the trees of machinery, … [Read more...]
The Sea is My Brother by Jack Kerouac
The Sea is My Brother was Jack Kerouac's first attempt at a novel. Technically it fits the criteria of a novella, the original manuscript weighing in at 158 pages. Published for the first time in its entirety by Penguin Classics (2011) and bound together with other collected juvenilia, it is important to remember that this manuscript is exactly that, juvenilia. Penned by … [Read more...]
Heeding the Call of the Open Road
Beat culture and hippie culture were both long gone as a central movement by the time I was growing up, but hop on the bandwagon I did. As a teenager, there was nothing I wanted more than to get the hell out of dodge, my hometown in the California Bay Area, filled with cow patties, rednecks and suburban normalcy. Without having read Jack Kerouac’s books (yet), I adopted … [Read more...]
Beat Generation Photos by Rob Lee
[Editor's note: These photos are small! This page was first created many years ago for smaller screens. I have larger photos somewhere and will update this page as soon as possible.] Shig MuraoOctober 16,1989 Shig was one of the founders of City Lights. A generous, kind and unassuming person, Shig was a quiet fixture in the North Beach art community. Ginsberg stayed at … [Read more...]
Kerouac and the Outsider – A Puzzle
It was Horst who started it. Horst Spandler had been translating the 1971 Kerouac anthology Scattered Poems into German. Along the way he'd been asking others their advice on the meaning of parts of Jack's poems. One such query I received concerned Kerouac's rather fine "Sept. 16, 1961, Poem" (on page 29). Horst wanted to know whether the line which reads "sad today glad … [Read more...]
Book Review – The Practice of the Wild by Gary Snyder
When someone comes up with a fresh and startling way of looking at our world, you can bet that it is drawn from a combination of sources, fields, and disciplines. Gary Snyder has done just this with The Practice of the Wild, joining his backgrounds in mythology, history, religion, literature, anthropology, language, and natural history. The result is a series of interlocking … [Read more...]
The Rebirth of the Author in Jack Kerouac’s On the Road
"Time stops. He's filling empty space with the substance of our lives, confessions of his bellybottom strain, remembrance of ideas, rehashes of old blowing. He has to blow across bridges and come back and do it with such infinite feeling soul-exploratory for the tune of the moment that everybody knows it's not the tune that counts, but 'IT--' Dean could go no further; he was … [Read more...]
Jack Kerouac’s Books
This is a listing of Jack Kerouac's books, arranged by their date of publication. We've also noted the date(s) when the book was written. If the book covers a particular period of time, we've noted the approximate dates. Book Published Written Time Covered The Town and the City 1950 … [Read more...]
Blowing: Poetry Meets Music in the Writing of the Beat Generation
PROCEDURE: Time being of the essence in the purity of speech, sketching language is undisturbed flow from the mind of personal secret idea-words, blowing (as per jazz musician) on subject of image. --Jack Kerouac (1953), quoted from The Essentials of Spontaneous Prose In the history of art and literature, poetry and music have always had a very close (almost … [Read more...]
Juxtaposition of Wor[l]ds: The Cultural and Literary Legacy of the Beat Generation
“What’s your road, man?–holyboy road, madman road, rainbow road, guppy road, any road. It’s an anywhere road for anybody anyhow.” –Jack Kerouac (1957), quoted from On the Road “Despite the skepticism I brought here, I am suddenly experiencing their feeling. I am sure of it. I feel like I am in on something the outside world, the world I come from, could not comprehend. And … [Read more...]
Jack Kerouac’s On the Road Manuscript Scroll
Jack Kerouac wrote On the Road in a unique fashion -- he typed it on a continuous roll of paper, without paragraph breaks, in a marathon writing session in 1951. It is somewhat different than the version which was published in 1957. Finally, the original version has been published. The scroll was auctioned in 2004; Indianapolis Colts owner & Beat Generation aficionado Jim … [Read more...]
Remembering Surrealist Mario Cesariny
Portuguese Surrealist poet, painter, and playwright Mario Cesariny passed away on November 19, 2006 in Lisbon, at the age of 83. He met Andre Breton in Paris in 1947, was greatly influenced by the French Surrealists, and was part of the Surrealist Group, and later Dissident Surrealist Group, in Portugal. Thanks to Rik Lina for providing the impetus for this page. To … [Read more...]
David Amram: To Laura for Ted Joans
Dear Laura: I just heard about Ted's passing and wanted to tell you how sorry I was, and hope you will know that you are not alone, and that many like myself (I knew Ted since 1956) will always miss him, as you and his children. So will all the people around the world of all ages, whose lives he touched. As I wrote in my book Offbeat; Collaborating with Kerouac, Ted … [Read more...]
Robert Creeley: Ted Joans, Primary Poet
Sad news indeed that old friend and ally Ted Joans has died in Vancouver, British Columbia, where he'd been living for the past few years. Apparently his health, affected by diabetes, had not been good, and though there is as yet no clear report, that seems at the root of what's happened. What to say about this terrific, unbeatable and indefatigable person, wedder of bop and … [Read more...]
The Teducated Mouth: John Barbato interviews Ted Joans
Ted Joans, one of the original Beat poets, was born in Cairo, Illinois on 4 July 1928. By his twenties, living in New York City, he moved in the surrealist world of painters, jazz players, and poets. If a scene was happening Joans had it covered. A partial list of his friends reads like a who's who of the important creators of the 20th century: Allen Ginsberg, Ella … [Read more...]
Philip Whalen
Philip Whalen Resources on the Web BIG BRIDGE: On the Occasion of the Publication of Philip Whalen's Collected Poems BIG BRIDGE published this feature, which includes essays on Whalen & his work by Whalen's work by Dale Smith, Ron Silliman, David Schneider, Karl Young, Neeli Chrkovski, Brian Howlett, John Tarrant, Tom Clark, Anne Waldman, David Meltzer, and a book … [Read more...]
Interview with Kenneth Tindall: From Bellevue to Lynæs. An Interview by Lars Movin
(First published in "Maskinfabrikken," Copenhagen) Kenneth Tindall (b. 1937) is a well-kept literary secret. He first appeared in 1967 with Vindharpen, a novel about Copenhagen in the sixties, and has in all written five novels (of which three are unpublished). They are books which draw their material from a long life's incredible journey: from Los Angeles in the nineteen … [Read more...]
Pete Winslow, Beat/Surrealist Poet
Best known for his poetry, Pete Winslow was also a newspaper columnist, essayist & novelist. A surrealist poet, Pete was also sometimes associated with the Beat Generation. Born October 19, 1934 in the state of Washington, Winslow passed away in September 1972 of complications following surgery, leaving a wife and 5-year-old son behind. Following his death, his last … [Read more...]
Poet Kay Johnson, aka Kaja
Gerry George: i knew kay johnson as swami-ji in berkeley in 1973 when we were very close friends for a time. she gave me the typewriter she had carried in greece, an orange portable with a large white "om" painted on it. i gave it to a friend from college with whom i just had my first conversation in 17 years and he mentioned using the typewriter and i looked for kay on … [Read more...]
About Gregory Corso
Gregory Corso passed away on January 19, 2001 at the age of 70, after a long illness. Corso was one of the major figures of the Beat Generation. He was a poet, painter, traveler, and occasional lecturer. His vibrant, vital, authentic poetry celebrates the mystery of life and death through everyday detail and mystic visions. Though he never gained the truly widespread fame … [Read more...]
A.D. Winans on A.D. Winans
I was born in San Francisco, and have lived here almost my entire life. I was born at home, premature. My mother said the doctor told her I would not live a long life. Now I'm 71 and the doctor is long dead. My father was seventeen years older than my mother, and they fought constantly... When my mother wasn't yelling at my father, she was yelling at me. This left deep … [Read more...]
About Ken Kesey
Ken Kesey passed away on November 10, 2001 at the age of 66, of complications following surgery for a tumor on his liver. The following biographical sketch was written by Jason Reott several months before Kesey's death. Ken Kesey Perhaps Ken Kesey is best known for his work One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, a novel symbolizing the corruption of freedoms in America, … [Read more...]
Book Review – The Beat Hotel by Barry Miles
With the July 2000 Grove Press release of The Beat Hotel, author (Barry) Miles revisits 9 rue Git-le-Coeur, an historic set of decaying digs amid a rat infested slum on the Left Bank of Paris, "a decrepit rooming house with hole-in-the-floor toilets shared by all..." circa 1957-1963. A spectral time in diminutive spaces where life's more literate mysteries were eloquently … [Read more...]
Max Douglas, Poet
Max Douglas was a Kansas poet who died much too young, leaving behind many admirers, and a thick volume's worth of really fine work. Douglas, born in 1949, passed away in 1970 of an accidental heroin overdose. During his life, many of his poems were published in literary periodicals, and his Collected Poems was published in 1978 by White Dot Press. It's now very hard to … [Read more...]
Remembering poet Howard Hart
SOME LINES FOR YOUWRITTEN UNDER A REDWOOD IN THE CITY PARKNOT YET THREE MONTHS SINCE YOU DIED IN MY ARMSIN OUR HOME ON CHESTNUT STREET, SAN FRANCISCO Drawn to the Temple where you worshipped I slink along the edges of the city like a cat Hawk family nesting in our Autumn Garden Turning overhead like something out of Yeats's Second Coming Marble Angel still holding … [Read more...]
Beat Generation Writer Seymour Krim
Seymour Krim was born in 1922 and moved into Greenwich Village in 1943 to hang around the New York Intellectuals and wait for the arrival of the Beats. Krim knew he was a writer, but he complained later that the book reviews he wrote for the Times and the criticism he published in literary quarterlies "made a cramped miniature" of his spirit. Then in 1957 On the Road appeared … [Read more...]
