#10 Under the Influence

In 1982, Ginsberg published a summary of “the essential effects” of the Beat Generation in his A Definition of the Beat Generation. They are:

• Spiritual liberation, sexual “revolution” or “liberation,” i.e., gay liberation, somewhat catalyzing women’s liberation, black liberation, Gray Panther activism.
• Liberation of the world from censorship.
• Demystification and/or decriminalization of cannabis and other drugs.
• The evolution of rhythm and blues into rock and roll as a high art form, as evidenced by the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and other popular musicians influenced in the later fifties and sixties by Beat generation poets’ and writers’ works.
• The spread of ecological consciousness, emphasized early on by Gary Snyder and Michael McClure, the notion of a “Fresh Planet.”
• Opposition to the military-industrial machine civilization, as emphasized in writings of Burroughs, Huncke, Ginsberg, and Kerouac.
• Attention to what Kerouac called (after Spengler) a “second religiousness” developing within an advanced civilization.
• Return to an appreciation of idiosyncrasy as against state regimentation.
• Respect for land and indigenous peoples and creatures

The Beats have had such an effect on people and society that there is a Beat Museum and a website for it.  On this site, you can purchase merchandise, follow a blog, read letters, look at pictures, and just gain a personal appreciation for the majesty of the beatnik poets. The creators even sponsor events when one can hear people give talks about their studies. Though the museum is situated in San Francisco, the site and the information it provides can be accessed at any time by anyone.

#9 On “being self-prophetic master of the universe”

Allen Ginsberg. American poet. One of the leading figures of the Beat Generation. “Self-prophetic master of the universe.” He vigorously opposed militarism, materialism and sexual repression. Best known for his epic poem “Howl”, Ginsberg celebrated his fellow Beats and harshly denounced what he saw as the destructive forces of capitalism and conformity in the United States. In an interview with Thomas Clark, Ginsberg discusses Beat influence on literature: “So I began finding, in conversations with Burroughs and Kerouac and Gregory Corso, in conversations with people whom I knew well, whose souls I respected, that the things we were telling each other for real were totally different from what was already in literature. And that was Kerouac’s great discovery in On the Road. The kinds of things that he and Neal Cassady were talking about, he finally discovered were the subject matter for what he wanted to write down. That meant, at that minute, a complete revision of what literature was supposed to be, in his mind, and actually in the minds of the people that first read the book.”

During his stay at the Beat Hotel in Paris, Ginsberg began writing the poem, Kaddish. It is often considered one of Ginsberg’s finest poems, with some scholars holding that it is his best poem. The title Kaddish refers to the mourner’s prayer or blessing in Judaism. This long poem was Ginsberg’s attempt to mourn his mother, but also reflects his sense of loss at his estrangement from his born religion. The traditional Kaddish contains no references to death, whereas Ginsberg’s poem is riddled with thoughts and questionings of death.

#8 “The judge said I was a menace to society because I had put crime on a scientific basis.”

A brief history of the infamous Gregory Corso. In 1957, Allen Ginsberg voyaged with another poet to visit Williams Burroughs in Morocco. Corso, already in Europe, joined a larger group in Tangiers and together, they made an attempt to take Burroughs’ hectic writings and organize them into a text. This later became Naked Lunch. From Tangiers, Corso went to Paris and introduced Ginsberg to a Left Bank lodging house at 9 rue Gît-le-Coeur that he named the Beat Hotel. They were soon joined by William Burroughs and others. It was a haven for young expatriate painters, writers and musicians. There, Corso composed his poems Bomb and Marriage. Corso’s Parisian adventure resulted in his third volume of poetry. Corso returned to New York in 1958, amazed that he and his compatriots had become famous, or notorious, emerging literary figures.

In an interview with Robert King, Corso said, “You see, because people were worrying about dying by the Bomb in the Fifties. So I said, what about falling off the roof, what about heart attack. And I used the double old-age: old age I picked as being the heaviest–‘old age, old age.’ One line that I’ve written in that poem that’s not in the poem, and it should be in there is ‘Christ with the whip,’ like ‘St. George with a lance.’ I read it yesterday. I don’t augment or take away, but it could be a smart idea if I did add that Christ with the whip number.”

#7 “I guess it’s about time for our William Tell routine”

Let’s start with some background on William Burroughs. He enlisted in the U.S. Army early in 1942, just after Pearl Harbor was bombed. But when he was made an Infantry man and not an officer, he became disheartened. His mother recognized her son’s depression and got Burroughs a civilian disability discharge, which is a release from duty based on the premise he should have not been allowed to enlist due to previous mental instability. After being evaluated by a family friend, who was also a neurologist at a psychiatric treatment center, Burroughs waited five months before being discharged. During that time he met a Chicago soldier also awaiting release, and once Burroughs was free, he moved to Chicago and held a variety of jobs, including one as an exterminator. When two of his friends from St. Louis left for New York City, Burroughs followed. In 1944, Burroughs began living with Joan Vollmer Adams in an apartment they shared with Jack Kerouac. This began a time of trouble with the law, drug abuse, and rampant writing. Because of the trouble with the law, Burroughs was forced to leave the cities he loved. He began to move around and this is the time he began writing Naked Lunch.

The book is extremely controversial in both its subject matter and its use of obscene language which is something Burroughs wanted, the book was banned in Boston and Los Angeles in the United States and actually was controversial enough to be involved in an obscenity trial. It was possibly his most well known work and that is why I’m studying it during this lovely trip.

#6 Beats + London = UK Underground

On May, 1965, Allen Ginsberg arrived at Better Books, London, and offered to read anywhere for free. Shortly after his arrival, he gave a reading at Better Books, of which Tom McGrath wrote, “This could well turn out to have been a very significant moment in the history of England – or at least in the history of English Poetry”. Shortly after Ginsberg’s reading at Better Books, plans were hatched for the International Poetry Incarnation. The events attracted an audience of 7,000 people to readings and live and tape performances by a wide variety of figures, including Adrian Mitchell, Alexander Trocchi, Allen Ginsberg, Harry Fainlight, Anselm Hollo, Christopher Logue, George Macbeth, Gregory Corso, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Michael Horovitz, Simon Vinkenoog, Spike Hawkins, Tom McGrath, Ernst Jandl, and William S. Burroughs.

The event was formative for what became the UK underground over the subsequent years. Jeff Nuttall, author of Bomb Culture said “the Underground was suddenly there on the surface”. Many in the blossoming underground movement were influenced by 1950s Beat generation writers such as William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, who paved the way for the hippies of the 1960s.  The Underground was a countercultural movement in the United Kingdom linked to the underground culture in the United States and associated with the hippie phenomenon. It generated its own magazines and newspapers, bands, clubs and alternative lifestyle, associated with cannabis and LSD use and a strong socio-political revolutionary agenda to create an alternative society. Through the International Poetry Incarnation, American beatnik poets affected not only literary culture, but society as a whole in London.

#5 Wherefore art thou, Shakespeare and Company Bookstore

They were a generation of lovers, addicts, authors, poets, and artists. What better place to hang out than in a bookstore? Originally opened by Sylvia Beach, an American expatriate from New Jersey in 1919 on 8 rue Dupuytren, the store functioned as a lending library as well as a bookstore. Beach moved to a larger location at 12 rue de l’Odéon in 1921, where the store remained until 1941. During this period, the store was the center of American literary culture and modernism in Paris. Writers and artists of the “Lost Generation,” such as Ernest Hemingway, Ezra Pound, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, and Man Ray spent a great deal of time at Shakespeare and Company. Its books were considered high quality and reflected Beach’s own literary taste. Shakespeare and Company, as well as its literary residents, was mentioned in Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast. Patrons could buy or borrow books like D. H. Lawrence’s controversial Lady Chatterley’s Lover, which had been banned in Britain and the United States.

In 1951, another English-language bookstore was opened on Paris’ Left Bank by American George Whitman, under the name of Le Mistral. Much like the original Shakespeare and Company, the store became a focal point for literary culture in bohemian Paris, and was frequented by many Beat Generation writers, such as Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, and William S. Burroughs.

In 1964, after Sylvia Beach’s death, Whitman changed his store’s name to Shakespeare and Company in tribute to the original venture. He described the bookstore’s name as “a novel in three words.” The bookstore includes sleeping facilities, with 13 beds, and Whitman claims as many as 40,000 people have slept in the shop over the years.

#4 It’s down at the end of a lonely street, the Beat Hotel

It was a “class 13” hotel, meaning bottom line, a place that was required by law to meet only minimum health and safety standards. The rooms had windows facing the interior stairwell and not much light. Hot water was available Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. Bathing could take place in the only bathtub, situated on the ground floor, provided the guest reserved time in beforehand and paid the surcharge for hot water. Curtains and bedspreads were changed and washed every spring. The linen was usually changed every month.

The Beat Hotel was managed by a married couple, Monsieur and Madame Rachou, from 1933. After the death of Monsieur Rachou in a traffic accident in 1957, Madame was the sole manager until the early months of 1963, when the hotel was closed. Besides leasing rooms, the establishment had a small bistro on the ground floor. Due to early experiences with working at an inn frequented by Monet and Pissarro, Madame Rachou would encourage artists and writers to stay at the hotel and even at times permit them to pay the rent with paintings or manuscripts. One unusual thing that appealed to a base of bohemian artists was the permission to paint and decorate the rooms rented in whichever way they wanted.

In 1957, Ginsberg surprised the literary world by abandoning San Francisco. After a spell in Morocco, he and Peter Orlovsky joined Gregory Corso in Paris. Corso introduced them to this shabby lodging house at 9 rue Gît-le-Coeur that was known by no other name than the Beat Hotel. They were soon joined by Burroughs and others. It was a productive, creative time for all of them. There, Ginsberg finished his epic poem “Kaddish”, Corso composed Bomb and Marriage, and Burroughs (with help from Ginsberg and Corso) put together Naked Lunch, from previous writings.

A movie has been made about the Hotel and the Beats’ times there. Check out its site.

#3 Hitchhiker’s guide to Beatdom?

More than any other literary movement, the Beats asked the question, “Where are you going?!” They have influenced the world of travel in many ways and helped to shape the way people look at the world around them. Jack Kerouac’s hitchhiking and other Beats’ travels abroad have inspired many to go seek solace in their ways.

Though most people look directly to Kerouac when citing the Beat poet travels, many of the poets and artists searched for new influences in new countries. Yes, Jacky K is considered the father of Beat travel because of his famed On the Road, but fellow authors such as Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, and William Burroughs were also known for their travels. The Naked Lunch is a fictionalized version of Burroughs’ travels around the world. In fact, these three spent times together working in Paris. It is their Parisian cooperation that led me to want to do this project. Their travels in general have pushed me to want to do this trip. I also seek the journey.

The first places that come to mind when thinking about Beat poetry are often New York and San Francisco because that is where the magic really began. However, in between those cities “lay thousands of miles that they all travelled, and beyond them lay a near infinite abyss that many sought to explore.” Check out this lovely fellow beatnik blog for more travel facts.

#2 They didn’t start the fire; they just danced in it

History is essential to the study of literature. It has been said that writing reflects the times. Thus, in this blog, we shall venture into postwar America of the 40s and 50s! In any case, we will begin as we should begin all things: with a song.

If you can’t keep up or don’t know the references, just check this site here.

As William so kindly pointed out in his song, the times were chaos and catching fire, figuratively. The United States in the 1950s experienced marked economic growth with an increase in manufacturing and home construction among a post-World War II economic boom. The Cold War and its associated conflicts helped create a politically conservative climate in the country, as the international confrontation intensified throughout the entire decade. Fear of communism lead to anti-communism becoming the prevailing sentiment in the United States throughout the period. Conformity and conservatism characterized the social mores of the time. Accordingly, the 1950s in the United States are generally considered both socially conservative and highly materialistic in nature. The 1950s are noted in United States history as a time of both compliance, conformity and also, to a lesser extent, of rebellion. Major U.S. events during the decade included: the Korean War; the 1952 election of Second World War hero and retired Army General, Dwight D. Eisenhower, as President and his subsequent re-election in 1956; the Red Scare and anti-communist concerns of the McCarthy-era; and the U.S. reaction to the 1957 launch by the Soviet Union of the Sputnik satellite, a major milestone in the Cold War. For a little decade breakdown of the 1950s, check this out!

The Beats stood against much of the materialism and conservatism of the time. It was in these oppressive times that the free nature of the Beats blossomed into their identity.

#1 Let’s start at the very beginning (a very good place to start)

Hello readers. I know what you’re all wondering: who are these Beat Poets of which this articulate woman is blogging. Are they mystical like the unicorn or am I just unaware of their brilliance, like the majestic, but often forgotten narwhal? They are very real. The Beat poets were a group of American post-World War II writers who came to fame in the 1950s, as well as the cultural phenomena that they both documented and inspired. Central elements of the “beat” culture included drug use (and often abuse), an openness of sexual orientation, an interest in Eastern religion, a rejection of materialism, and the importance of energetic and uncensored means of expression and being.

The name “Beats” came from famous writer, Jack Kerouac. He said that though the adjective “beat” usually meant “tired” or “beaten down”, it could be expanded to meaning “upbeat”, “beatific”, and the musical association of being “on the beat”. These men certainly went off the “beaten” trail to forage their own paths through life. And they marched to the “beat” of their own drummers.

“Beat” puns aside, this generation of artists originated in New York on the east coast and San Francisco on the west coast. The end of World War II left poets like Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Gregory Corso questioning mainstream politics and culture. They, in turn, abandoned the stifling society as it was to go against the grain and live in their own world of drugs, alcohol, obscenity, and above all, freedom. For some more about them, check out the Academy of American Poets’ brief history of the Beats.