I have Jack’s On the Road Scroll queued up for a bus trip next week. I feel at home reading “Beat” literature and once a long time ago I spent a good chunk of my reading time exploring the Beats.
I don’t know where this is from originally, but it is Jack Kerouac’s guide to writing and it reads like a Beat poem. There’s some good stuff here (along with weird, stupid and crap, but that’s Jack).
Kerouac on technique: “3. Try never get drunk outside yr own house”
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He doesn’t look like a Beatnick.
He was THE beatnick. All the others were imitating him.
I thought Allen Ginsberg was.
Ginsberg and Kerouac went to Columbia U together in the late 40s. Ginsberg was the poet, Kerouac was the novelist. The book, On the Road is what spread the idea of Beat all over the world.
I met Ginsberg a few times. He lived in NYC’s East Village at the same time I did and I would see him with his dumb signs or giving poetry readings.
The reason I mentioned Ginsburg is because (imo) The Greatest Rock n’ roll band in the world-The Clash, invited him to do some things on a few of their albums.