“to just start at the beginning and let the truth seep out” Grant Street, San Francisco, 2009 You can quite intentionally make a Beat pilgrimage in San Francisco, soaking in the aura, the … [Read more...]
Book Review – Kenton Crowther’s Kerouac on the Binge
Kenton Crowther's latest short e-book, a 3200-word essay titled Kerouac on the Binge (perhaps rather indelicately), is not an in-depth study of the author and his work, but rather the thoughtful … [Read more...]
The Road Toward Visions of Cody
In March 2015, Jack Kerouac's masterpiece, Visions of Cody, will be reprinted by Library of America (along with Visions of Gerard and Big Sur). Edited by Todd Tietchen, the novel has been extensively … [Read more...]
Jack Kerouac’s “Strange Cemetery in Jamaica”
--- from a work-in-progress, I, Duluoz!: An Appreciation of Jack Kerouac If I had to pick my favorite poem of Jack Kerouacʼs, it would be “Strange Cemetery in Jamaica” published in Some of the … [Read more...]
An interview on Jack Kerouac and Library of America
March 2015 will mark the occasion of the publication of the third volume of Jack Kerouac works published by Library of America. I took this occasion to catch up with editor, Todd Tietchen, assistant … [Read more...]
The Great Consciousness of Life
Reaching in, pulling out. The great divide is conquered; and there lies an ever-evolving mission to extract meaning from chaos. This, then, is where it resides, the theater of the soul and the … [Read more...]
Wordsworth and the Beats: The Longevity of Influence
Although William Wordsworth once stated that he was “not a critic” and, in fact, “set little value upon the art” (Leitch 556), in his “Preface to Lyrical Ballads” he nevertheless proposed and … [Read more...]
Two poems by Nick D’Annunzio Jones
Good Morning, God At breakfast, I launch a small pink quasar into a black hole. Minutes later, receptors blocked, serotonin-flooded, my cosmos collapses; heaven-humming, orbiting hypomania, … [Read more...]
October in the Railroad Earth – Jack Kerouac
Every October, I think of Jack Kerouac's short story, "October in the Railroad Earth." Jack recorded it for his album with Steve Allen, Poetry For The Beat Generation; take a listen … [Read more...]
At the Carnival of Drunken Poets
I ran into Kerouac at the carnival where those just dead meet those about to be reborn. He and I have wandered through the zodiac again and again, like prodigal suns. Both of us enter this … [Read more...]
Paul Maher Jr. considers Kerouac’s Haunted Life
The Haunted Life and Other Writings / Da Capo Press / March 11, 2014 / 208 pp. Seventy years ago, in May 1944, Jack Kerouac toiled over a novella-length work set in Lowell, Massachusetts. It was … [Read more...]
Kerouac Before the Jazz: a review of “The Haunted Life”
There are some great lost manuscripts in American literature and some are truly lost. Ernest Hemingway famously lost the only draft of the first short stories he ever wrote on a French train. Most … [Read more...]
Sleeping by Big Sur
I slept with a copy of Big Sur by my pillow a read of a man charting alcoholic decline I have drunk too much to remember my face I have drunk too much to remember the facts I have drunk too … [Read more...]
Movie Review – Kill Your Darlings
Long before Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and William S. Burroughs would be celebrated as the poetical and political figureheads of a 'beat generation,' there was a murder. In the new film, Kill … [Read more...]
Jack Kerouac Eats an Eggroll by Andrea Bates
JACK KEROUAC EATS AN EGGROLL San Francisco, March, 1952 Hey hunger, typewriter scroll of walled up mysteries. Here’s to you, binge three weeks’ wide, dragon hitched to your sleeve. The love … [Read more...]
Interview – Paul Maher Jr., author of Burning Furiously Beautiful: The True Story of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road
Burning Furiously Beautiful: The True Story of Jack Kerouac's On the Road is an accurate, up-to-date, meticulously researched account of how Jack Kerouac's 1957 novel, On the Road came to be … [Read more...]
David Handley interviews Paul Rogers about his work & the On the Road illustrations
Chances are that if I said the names Sal Paradise, Dean Moriarty or Carlo Marx that you would already know a couple of things about them. You’d know that I was talking about the generation defining … [Read more...]
Jim Morrison and Jack Kerouac
“If he (Jack Kerouac) hadn’t written On The Road, The Doors never would have existed.” — Ray Manzarek Manzarek might have added that if Jack Kerouac hadn’t written On The Road, none of … [Read more...]
Excerpt from Burning Furiously Beautiful: The True Story of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road
Editor's note: Burning Furiously Beautiful: The True Story of Jack Kerouac's On the Road is an accurate, up-to-date account of the development of Jack Kerouac's groundbreaking 1957 novel, On the Road. … [Read more...]
BIG SUR Film Preview in Selected Theatres – week of October 14, 2013!
Gathr Films has announced a series of one-day-only showings of Big Sur in indie theatres in selected cities across the USA the week of October 14, 2013. These screenings are in advance of the film's … [Read more...]
