I have realized that despite so many movies, series, and books based on the ’50s and ’60s, Beat Poetry hasn’t been discussed much in the last 6 decades. Today I wanted to shed some light on the History Of Beat Poetry
The 1930s became the era of swing music and it quickly became mainstream and it seemed that everyone was listening to swing. Real Jazz fans, however, did not approve of swing, as they did not appreciate the simplicity of it. They thought swing to be a cheap imitation of real Jazz. Real Jazz musicians would start off with a familiar melody which they ditch in favor of inspiration. It was not easy to listen to that form of Jazz, as you really had to get into the music in order to really appreciate it.
But how does all of that have anything to do with Beat Poetry?
Hang in there, we will get to this part shortly.
Jack Kerouac – an aspiring novelist – used to live near Harlem. He tried to attend every Jazz performance he could, in order to be inspired by the Jazz musicians and their spontaneous creations. His goal was is to write the way the Jazz musicians played.
In 1944 Kerouac met William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg – the trio later became known as the creators of the Beat Generation. They thought that the reason for humans suffering is the rational side and inhuman logic that the human brain follows. Their aim was to free the human mind of any limitations and find a way to freedom. They did that in various ways and of course one of the ways included drugs.
The ‚Beat‘ in ‚Beat Generation‘ meant that someone was beaten by life and the rules that the society pushed upon us. The trio wanted to ‚beat‘ the old personality in favor of a free-spirited mindset.
As already mentioned, Jack Kerouac’s writing was inspired by Jazz musicians and just like they ditched the melody for inspiration, he believed that the only way to write is live and then write your experiences down. It is said that Kerouac bought a roll of typewriter paper so that he could write his thoughts down as they came to his mind, rather than wasting time to change the paper.
San Francisco. Vesuvio Cafe. 255 Columbus Avenue. City Lights Bookstore.
Insert Bob Dylan.
If you have been following the career of Bob Dylan and his ability to write it won’t come to you as a surprise that he has spent numerous days at the famous Vesuvio Cafe in San Francisco with Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Neal Cassady. Cassidy – was also an essential figure of the Beat Generation of the 50s and the psychedelic and counterculture movements of the 1960s. The group spent their days performing poetry and their nights attending Jazz performances across San Francisco.
The City Lights Bookstore was the first publisher to publish Allen Ginsberg’s ‚Howl‘. To this day the City Lights Bookstore is still the most famous independent publisher and the epicenter of progressive thinking. City Lights was also the first publisher to publish all-paperback books – thank you very much!
You can still visit the bookstore as well as the Vesuvio Cafe where you can buy ‚On the Road: The Original Scroll‘ by Jack Kerouac. You can of course also buy it anywhere else, but I really wanted to have this particular version from City Lights. What better souvenir to bring from San Francisco than a book that shaped a whole generation bought at one of the most progressive and independent bookstores of our time?
