By dividing the Beat Collection into three sections: The Original Beats - New York 1944-53; The San Francisco Scene 1954-57 and The Second Wave - New York 1958-60, New York Times bestselling author and Beat expert Barry Miles pulls together writings from, among others, Jack Kerouac, Gregory Corso, John Clellon Holmes, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Philip Lamantia, Frank O'Hara, Diane DiPrima and Alexander Trocchi to create a fascinating compendium that epitomizes the Beat vibe.
Barry Miles is the critically acclaimed author of biographies of Bukowski, Ginsberg, Kerouac and Burroughs and of The Beat Hotel. He also wrote Hippie and the authorised biography of Paul McCartney, Many Years From Now. He lives in London, U.K. and France. Jack Kerouac coined the title, The Beats, to define the exhausted exhaltation of a generation that came to maturity in the 1950s; whose rejection of the social and political systems of the West was expressed through contempt for normalized occupations, possessions, traditional dress, and espousal of anarchism, communal living, and drugs; and who produced a body of works infected with a new energy. Their spontaneous, often unedited style epitomized their own era and their familed close-knit literary community continues to inspire writers today. By dividing the Beat Collection into three sections: The Original Beats - New York 1944-53; The San Francisco Scene 1954-57 and The Second Wave - New York 1958-60, New York Times bestselling author and Beat expert Barry Miles pulls together writings from, among others, Jack Kerouac, Gregory Corso, John Clellon Holmes, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Philip Lamantia, Frank O'Hara, Diane DiPrima and Alexander Trocchi to create a fascinating compendium that epitomizes the Beat vibe. Miles] was right in the groovy swim from the start. He was Mr. Alternative before the Beatles or the Rolling Stones got going . . . Miles was the one they all liked, confided in and trusted with their lives (at least their published ones).--The Independent (U.K.)
Miles's mastery of beat generation know-how must surely be unrivalled.--The Sunday Telegraph (U.K.)
Table of Contents
THE ORIGINAL BEATS: NEW YORK, 1944-53
Jack Kerouac
Home at Christmas
Jazz of the Beat Generation
Belief and Technique for Modern Prose
Essentials of Spontaneous Prose
(From) Railroad Earth
(From) Old Angel Midnight
William Burroughs
Twilight's Last Gleamings (With Kells Elvins)
(From) Junky: Definitive Edition, 2003
Roosevelt After Inauguration
(From) Interzone
International Zone
(From) The Naked Lunch
The Black Meat
Hospital (Benway)
Ordinary Men and Women
Allen Ginsberg
Pull My Daisy (with Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady)
Howl
Footnote To Howl
A Supermarket in California
Sunflower Sutra
America
Many Loves
To Aunt Rose
Kaddish
Herbert Huncke
Elsie John
Bill Burroughs
Bill Burroughs, Part II
Carl Solomon
Sex at 20 in America
Report from the Asylum
Neal Cassady
One Night in the Summer of 1945 . . .
Letter to Jack Kerouac, 7 March 1947
Letter to Jack Kerouac, 3 July 1949
Adventures in Auto-Eroticism
Leaving L.A. by Train at Night, High . . .
John Clellon Holmes
(From ) Go: Part One, Chapter 3
Gregory Corso
Italian Extravaganza
The Last Gangster
The Mad Yak
For Miles
Last Night I Drove a Car
Hair
Marriage
Bomb
Peter Orlovsky
First Poem
Second Poem
Creedmore State Mental Hospital Night Shift Look & Mop
Signature Change
THE SAN FRANCISCO SCENE: 1954-1957
Gary Snyder
Riprap
For a Far-Out Friend
(From) Myths and Texts: 17. The Text
Philip Whalen
Sourdough Mountain Lookout
Further Notice
Lew Welch
Chicago Poem
In Answer to a Question From P.W.
I Saw Myself] Wobbly Rock 1
(From) Taxi Suite
I Know A Man's Supposed To Have His Hair Cut Short]
Michael McClure
From the Introduction to Ghost Tantras
Ghost Tantra 39
Ghost Tantra 51
A Garland
Mad Sonnet
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Loud Prayer
Underwear
Sometime During Eternity . . .
They were Putting up the Statue . . .
Constantly Risking Absurdity . . .
Autobiography
Dog
The World is a Beautiful Place . . .
John Wieners
Act #2
A Poem for the Old Man
A Poem for Cocksuckers
A Poem for Vipers
A Poem for Record Players
Bob Kaufman
Abomunist Manifesto
Notes Dis- and Re- Carding Abomunism
Further Notes
$$ Abomunus Craxioms $$
Still Further Notes Dis- and Re- Carding Abomunism
As Usual
War Memoir: Jazz, Don't Listen to it At Your Own Risk
Jazz Chick
Crootey Songo
Waiting
Lenore Kandel
First They Slaughtered the Angels
THE SECOND WAVE: NEW YORK 1958-60
Diane DiPrima
Thirteen Nightmares
LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka
In Memory of Radio
For Hettie
Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note
Black Dada Nihilismus
Frank O'Hara
A Step Away From Them
The Day Lady Died
Poem
Personal Poem
Why I Am Not a Painter
Alexander Trocchi
(From) Cain's Book
Ted Joans
The Truth
Uh Huh
Whiteyes on Black Thighs
They Forgot to Fast
Open Minded
Duke's Advice
Watermelon
My Bag
Natural
Jazz is My Religion
No More
The Nice Colored Man
Ray Bremser
Backyards and deviations
Jack Micheline
Let's Sing a Song
River of Red Wine
Jenny Lee
Night City
South Street Pier
Poet of the Streets