One of the founding members of the Beat Generation, Jack Kerouac (1922-1969) was a novelist and poet. When I read his famous book On The Road, it was like being on a crazy journey that could have ended between nowhere and anywhere. As I reflect on it, On The Road WAS Kerouac; offbeat and unconventional.
I am fascinated by the Beat Generation which also gave us Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, Gregory Corso, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti (still going strong at ninety-four). Kerouac wrote whatever came to mind. He called it spontaneous prose. It took me time to understand his poems, which I found somewhat disjointed. I also read Mexico City Blues and enjoyed it. Other books include Big Sur, The Dharma Bums, The Subterraneans, Desolation Angels and Visions of Cody.
Jack Kerouac was proud of his French-Canadian heritage and being an American. He wrote some poems in French which he could speak fluently. Kerouac was also a loyal Catholic. The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado is named in his honor.
Mexico City Blues [113th Chorus] |
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Got up and dressed up and went out & got laid Then died and got buried in a coffin in the grave, Man— Yet everything is perfect, Because it is empty, Because it is perfect with emptiness, Because it's not even happening. Everything Is Ignorant of its own emptiness— Anger Doesn't like to be reminded of fits— You start with the Teaching Inscrutable of the Diamond And end with it, your goal is your startingplace, No race was run, no walk of prophetic toenails Across Arabies of hot meaning—you just numbly don't get there | ||
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