In honor of Allen Ginsberg's birthday (June 3, 1926), we've gathered a few videos together. We've got some poetry for you, a chant, and an interview or two. What are your favorite Ginsberg … [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.
Review – Alleycats and Beatsters: The Hip, the Gone, and the Way Gone
Alleycats and Beatsters, a collection of essays by British writer Kenton Crowther, explores what it means to be Beat, the nature of hipness, and the poets, writers and hipsters who orbited the Beats, … [Read more...]
Empty Phantoms: Interviews and Encounters with Jack Kerouac is reissued
In 2005, Thunder's Mouth Press published my collection of interviews with Jack Kerouac. It was titled Empty Phantoms: Interviews and Encounters with Jack Kerouac. Not long afterwards, the famed … [Read more...]
Addendum to “Lost Letter Found”
Here is an addendum to a previous article written for Empty Mirror. Herewith I will describe the contents of the "lost" letter in both the U.K. and U.S. trade editions of The Sea is My Brother so that … [Read more...]
How Kerouac’s haiku changed my life
When I was twenty-two, I was lucky enough to be the only South African on an American college campus, studying creative writing and trying to figure out what to do with my life (along with every other … [Read more...]
A “lost” Jack Kerouac letter found . . . and “lost” again.
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 … [Read 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 … [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 … [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 … [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, … [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 … [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 … [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 … [Read more...]
Remembering Poet Kirby Doyle
Kirby Doyle & the Snows of Yesteryear by Michael McClure In 1958 Kirby Doyle's menage on Sacramento Street, in a basement apartment of the no-man's land between the wealthy on the Hill and the … [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 … [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 … [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 … [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 … [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 … [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 … [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 … [Read more...]
The Sea is My Brother by Jack Kerouac, Reviewed by Jack Leaf Willetts
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 … [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 … [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 … [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 … [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 … [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 … [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 … [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 … [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 … [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 … [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 … [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 … [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. … [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 … [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, … [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 … [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 … [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 … [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 … [Read more...]
