The Portable Beat Reader

Through poetry, fiction, essays, song lyrics, letters, and memoirs, this authoritative single-volume collection of Beat literature captures the triumphant energy of a movement that swept through American letters with hurricane force. Featuring: Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Gary Snyder, Neal Cassady, Gregory Corso, Diane Di Prima, Bob Dylan, Ken Kesey, Charles Bukowski, Michael McClure, and more.

Ann Charters is the editor of The Portable Sixties Reader, The Portable Jack Kerouac, two volumes of Jack Kerouac's Selected Letters, and Beat Down to Your Soul. She teaches at the University of Connecticut.

Introduction ``Variations on a Generation''

xv

PART 1 ``THE BEST MINDS OF A GENERATION''

East Coast Beats

1

(9)

Editor's Note

8

(2)

Jack Kerouac

On the Road (excerpt)

10

(33)

The Subterraneans (excerpt)

43

(4)

The Dharma Bums (excerpt)

47

(6)

Mexico City Blues (excerpt)

53

(4)

211th Chorus

53

(1)

239th Chorus

53

(1)

240th Chorus

54

(1)

241st Chorus

55

(1)

242nd Chorus

56

(1)

``Essentials of Spontaneous Prose''

57

(1)

``Belief & Technique for Modern Prose''

58

(4)

Allen Ginsberg

``Howl''

62

(8)

``Footnote to Howl''

70

(1)

``A Supermarket in California''

71

(1)

``Sunflower Sutra''

72

(2)

``America''

74

(3)

``Kaddish''

77

(21)

``Song''

98

(3)

``On Burroughs' Work''

101

(3)

William Burroughs

Junky (excerpt)

104

(12)

The Yage Letters (excerpt)

116

(10)

Naked Lunch (excerpt)

126

(10)

``Deposition: Testimony Concerning a Sickness''

136

(10)

Herbert Huncke

``Elsie John''

146

(2)

``Joey Martinez''

148

(6)

John Clellon Holmes

Go (excerpt)

154

(14)

Carl Solomon

Mishaps, Perhaps (excerpt)

168

(4)

Gregory Corso

``I Am 25''

172

(1)

``The Mad Yak''

172

(1)

``Vision of Rotterdam''

173

(1)

``Bomb''

174

(5)

``Marriage''

179

(3)

``Variations on a Generation'' (excerpt)

182

(5)

PART 2 ``HEART BEAT''

Enter Neal Cassady

187

(3)

Editor's Note

187

(3)

Neal Cassady

Letters to Jack Kerouac, 1947--1950

190

(18)

Jack Kerouac

Letter to Neal Cassady, early 1951

208

(4)

Neal Cassady

The First Third (excerpt)

212

(8)

Jack Kerouac

Visions of Cody (excerpt)

220

(7)

PART 3 ``CONSTANTLY RISKING ABSURDITY''

Some San Francisco Renaissance Poets

227

(6)

Editor's Note

227

(6)

Kenneth Rexroth

``Thou Shalt Not Kill''

233

(8)

``Poems from the Japanese''

241

(1)

``Rexroth: Shaker and Maker'' by William Everson

242

(4)

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

``Dog''

246

(2)

``Constantly Risking Absurdity''

248

(1)

``In Goya's greatest scenes . . .''

249

(1)

``One Thousand Fearful Words for Fidel Castro''

250

(4)

``Horn on Howl''

254

(11)

Michael McClure

``Peyote Poem''

265

(8)

Scratching the Beat Surface (excerpt)

273

(16)

Includes Snyder's poem, ``A Berry Feast, ''Whalen's poem, ``Plus Ca Change...''

McClure's poems, ``Point Lobos: Animism'' and ``For the Death of 100 Whales''

Gary Snyder

``Mid-August at Sourdough Mountain Lookout''

289

(1)

``Milton by Firelight''

289

(1)

``Riprap''

290

(1)

``Praise for Sick Women''

291

(2)

``Night Highway Ninety-nine''

293

(11)

``Toji''

304

(1)

``Higashi Hongwanji''

305

(1)

``Note on the Religious Tendencies''

305

(3)

Philip Whalen

``Sourdough Mountain Lookout''

308

(5)

``A Dim View of Berkeley in the Spring''

313

(2)

``Prose Take-Out, Portland 13:ix:58''

315

(3)

Philip Lamantia

``High''

318

(1)

``The night is a space of white marble''

318

(1)

``I have given fair warning''

319

(1)

``There is this distance between me and what I see''

319

(1)

``Fud at Foster's''

320

(2)

Lew Welch

``Chicago Poem''

322

(2)

``The Basic Con''

324

(1)

``Taxi Suite---After Anacreon''

324

(1)

``Not Yet 40, My Beard Is Already White''

325

(1)

``The Image, as in a Hexagram''

325

(1)

``I Saw Myself''

326

(2)

Bob Kaufman

``Round About Midnight''

328

(1)

``Jazz Chick''

328

(1)

``On''

329

(1)

``O-Jazz-O''

329

(2)

PART 4 ``A FEW BLUE WORDS TO THE WISE''

Other Fellow Travelers

Editor's Note

331

(9)

Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones)

``In Memory of Radio''

340

(1)

``Way Out West''

341

(1)

``The Screamers''

342

(7)

Letter About Kerouac's Prose

349

(6)

Ray Bremser

``Funny Lotus Blues . . .''

355

(5)

Diane DiPrima

``Three Laments''

360

(1)

``Song for Baby-O, Unborn''

360

(1)

``The Practice of Magical Evocation''

361

(1)

``Poetics''

362

(1)

``Brass Furnace Going Out''

363

(8)

Bob Dylan

``Blowin' in the Wind''

371

(1)

``The Times They Are A-Changin' ''

371

(2)

``A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall''

373

(2)

Tarantula (excerpt)

375

(6)

Brenda Frazer (Bonnie Bremser)

``Poem to Lee Forest''

381

(4)

Tuli Kupferberg

``Greenwich Village of My Dreams''

385

(2)

1001 Ways to Beat the Draft (excerpt)

387

(9)

Jack Micheline

``Poet of the Streets''

396

(4)

Frank O'Hara

``Les Luths''

400

(1)

``Post the Lake Poets Ballad''

400

(1)

``Personal Poem''

401

(1)

``The Day Lady Died''

402

(3)

Peter Orlovsky

``Lepers Cry''

405

(5)

Ed Sanders

``Poem from Jail'' (excerpt)

410

(8)

``The Cutting Prow''

418

(4)

Anne Waldman

``Our Past''

422

(4)

John Wieners

``A poem for record players''

426

(1)

``A poem for tea heads''

427

(1)

``A poem for museum goers''

427

(3)

``A poem for the insane''

430

(1)

``Feminine Soliloquy''

431

(1)

``Children of the Working Class''

432

(3)

PART 5 ``TALES OF BEATNIK GLORY''

Memoirs and Posthumous Tributes

Editor's Note

435

(3)

Charles Bukowski

Notes of a Dirty Old Man (excerpt)

438

(4)

William Burroughs, Jr.

Kentucky Ham (excerpt)

442

(7)

Carolyn Cassady

Off the Road (excerpt)

449

(10)

Diane DiPrima

Dinners and Nightmares (excerpt)

459

(7)

Brenda Frazer (Bonnie Bremser)

Troia: Mexican Memoirs (excerpt)

466

(7)

Brion Gysin

``The Beat Hotel, Paris'' (excerpt)

473

(4)

Joyce Johnson

Minor Characters (excerpt)

477

(5)

Hettie Jones

How I Became Hettie Jones (excerpt)

482

(7)

Jan Kerouac

Baby Driver (excerpt)

489

(6)

Ken Kesey

``The Day After Superman Died'' (excerpt)

495

(11)

Michael McClure

The Mad Cub (excerpt)

506

(5)

Ed Sanders

Tales of Beatnik Glory (excerpt)

511

(6)

PART 6 ``THE UNSPEAKABLE VISIONS OF THE INDIVIDUAL''

Later Work

Editor's Note

517

(3)

William Burroughs

Nova Express (excerpt)

520

(4)

Gregory Corso

``Columbia U Poesy Reading---1975''

524

(4)

``The Whole Mess . . . Almost''

528

(1)

Diane DiPrima

``April Fool Birthday Poem for Grandpa''

529

(2)

Loba: Parts I-VIII (excerpt)

531

(3)

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

``The Canticle of Jack Kerouac''

534

(6)

``Uses of Poetry''

540

(1)

``Short Story on a Painting of Gustav Klimt''

541

(2)

Allen Ginsberg

``First Party at Ken Kesey's''

543

(1)

``Wichita Vortex Sutra''

544

(4)

``Anti-Vietnam War Peace Mobilization''

548

(1)

``Mugging''

548

(3)

``Ode to Failure''

551

(1)

``White Shroud''

552

(3)

``Fourth Floor, Dawn, Up All Night Writing Letters''

555

(1)

Michael McClure

``Song (I Work with the Shape)''

556

(1)

``It's Nation Time''

556

(1)

``Watching the Stolen Rose''

557

(1)

``The Death of Kin Chuen Louie''

557

(3)

Ed Sanders

``Hymn to Archilochus''

560

(6)

``What Would Tom Paine Do?'' (Song)

566

(3)

Gary Snyder

``Smokey the Bear Sutra''

569

(3)

``I Went into the Maverick Bar''

572

(1)

``Mother Earth: Her Whales''

573

(2)

``The Bath''

575

(3)

``Axe Handles''

578

(1)

``Pine Tree Tops''

579

(3)

APPENDIX---THREE COMMENTATORS

1. Norman Mailer

``The White Negro''

582

(25)

2. Alan Watts

``Beat Zen, Square Zen, and Zen''

607

(8)

3. John Clellon Holmes

``The Game of the Name'' (excerpt)

615

(8)

Books for Further Reading

623

(10)

Index of Authors and Titles

633

(6)

Acknowledgments

639

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The Portable Beat Reader

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials