its arguable of course...but it is hard to deny...he was an amazing poet...a legend as big as whitman, twain, & rimbaud

Yeah, right.


Bowery Blues - By Jack Kerouac

The story of man
Makes me sick
Inside, Outside,
I don't know why
Something so conditional
And all talk
Should hurt me so.
I am hurt
I am scared
I want to live
I want to die
I don't know
Where to turn
In the Void
And when
To Cut
Out

For no Church told me
No Guru holds me
No advice
Just stone
of New York
And on the cafeteria
We hear
The saxophone
O dead Rubu
Died of Shot
In Thirty Two,
Sounding like old times
And de bombed
Empty decapitated

Murder by the clock.
And I see Shadows
Dancing into Doom
In love, holding
Tight the lovely asses
Of the little girls
In love with sex
Showing themselves
In white undergarments
At elevated windows
Hoping for the Worst

I can't take it
Anymore
If I can't hold
My little behind
To my in my room

Then it's goodbye
Sangsara
For me
Besides
Girls aren't as good
as they look
And Samadhi
Is better
Than you think
When it starts in
Hitting your head
In with Buzz
Of glittergold
Heaven's Angels
Wailing
Saying
We've been waiting for you
Since Morning, Jack
--Why were you so long
Dallying in the sooty room?
This Transcendental Brilliance
Is the better part
(Of Nothingness
I sing)

Okay.
Quit.
Mad.
Stop


[www.miyazaki-mic.ac.jp];

Tom, you might be interested in this double CD reading of "Dr Sax" -

[www.rollingstone.com];

Easy to deny, actually. He came, he went and his poetry is largely forgotten as a visit to the poetry shelves of most bookstores would reveal.

Surely not the whole 20th century. He may be outstanding among the beats, though I am not convinced of that either, but you ignore someone of the stature of T.S. Eliot. There were a group of marvelous poets in England around the time of WW1. And how about our wonderful U.S. women poets:Teasdale, Wylie, H.D, Marianne Moore, Millay?

Had there not been Whitman, would there have been beats? But such a difference. Whitman's vision is so large. If there are beat poets of such an order please enlighten me.

Lillian

Thank you Hugh for that poem, whether you agree or not, it is very touching...it shows desperation that seems to have no cure...very touching....rikki I'd like to thank you for that article that to me is great news!... as far as the beats go Kerouac is my favorite poet...I read Burroughs & Ginsberg & the others but Kerouac has the voice of the modern man living in the post ww2, post industrial revolution world...he is a sympathetic angel sent from heaven and told by god "go ahead, go, go roll your bones and of this world report you truly"
I agree, Whitman is the father along with others...but I am afraid Kerouac's work will not get the recognition it deserves...one day I hope he takes a seat at the table of such great writers as whitman, twain, rimbaud, etc...

Yoi might like to read my own tribute to him (and how's that for self-promotion!) -

[www.emule.com] />

Stephen

Although I excitedly read everything he wrote, when I look back
35 years, It seems he had a very natural and off-hand way of
saying very little. Perhaps I'm atavistic but it seems poetry lost
something-some kind of aspiration-this century. He and his ilk
led the way. Isn't poetry without form just prose? Prose can
have rythym and cadence. Poetry has walls around it. Walls like
meter, and unity. When poetry just meanders it seems more like
prose. Prose is poetry without the form. Just an opinion-----
I still like Gary Snyder. best dlc

I high school I got very into Keroauc, Ginsberg, and Brautigan. Now, however, I can't seem to remember what they were all about.

Yes. as a youth I was inspired and excited by his visions.
Now they seem mere ramblings. Not even poetry really.
I think Jack is not a good choice for preiminence. dlc

My favorite of the beat poets is Lawrence Ferlinghetti (I literally read his book "A Coney Island of the Mind" to pieces). Here's my favorite one, "I Am Waiting":

I am waiting for my case to come up
and I am waiting
for a rebirth of wonder
and I am waiting for someone
to really discover America
and wail
and I am waiting
for the discovery
of a new symbolic western frontier
and I am waiting
for the American Eagle
to really spread its wings
and straighten up and fly right
and I am waiting for the Age of Anxiety
to drop dead
and I am waiting
for the war to be fought
which will make the world safe
for anarchy
and I am waiting for the final withering away
of all governments
and I am perpetually awaiting
a rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the second coming
and I am waiting
for a religious revival
to sweep through the state of Arizona
and I am waiting
for the grapes of wrath to be stored
and I am waiting
for them to prove
that God is really American
and I am waiting
to see God on television
piped into church altars
if they can find
the right channel
to tune it in on
and I am waiting
for the last supper to be served again
and a strange new appetizer
and I am perpetually awaiting
a rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for my number to be called
and I am waiting
for the Salvation Army to take over
and I am waiting
for the meek to be blessed
and inherit the earth
without taxes
and I am waiting
for forests and animals
to reclaim the earth as theirs
and I am waiting
for a way to be devised
to destroy all nationalisms
without killing anybody
and I am waiting
for linnets and planets to fall like rain
and I am waiting for lovers and weepers
to lie down together again
in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the great divide to be crossed
and I am anxiously waiting
for the secret of eternal life to be discovered
by an obscure practitioner
and I am waiting for the storms of life
to be over
and I am waiting to set sail for happiness
and I am waiting
for a reconstrcted Mayflower
to reach America
with its picture story and TV rights
sold in advance to the natives
and I am waiting
for the lost music to sound again
in the Lost Continent
in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the day
that maketh all things clear
and I am waiting for retribution
for what America did to Tom Sawyer
and I am waiting
for the American Boy
to take off Beauty's clothes
and get on top of her
and I am waiting
for Alice in Wonderland
to retransmit to me
her total dream of innocence
and I am waiting
for Childe Roland to come
to the final darkest tower
and I am waiting for Aphrodite
to grow live arms
at a final disarmament conference
in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting
to get some intimations
of immortality
by recollecting my early childhood
and I am waiting
for the green mornings to come again
for some strains of unpremeditated art
to shake my typewriter
and I am waiting to write
the great indelible poem
and I am waiting
for the last long rapture
and I am perpetually waiting
for the fleeting lovers on the Grecian Urn
to catch each other at last
and embrace
and I am awaiting
perpetually and forver
a renaissance of wonder

Great poem, Tandy. Thanks for reminding me of Ferlinghetti.

Les