Beat Profiles
Neal Cassady: Neal Cassady was born on February 8, 1926 in the skid row hotels of Denver's Larimer Street. He was raised by an alcoholic father and became a car thief which landed him reform schools and juvenile prisons. Cassady went to New York City in December 1946 to visit a friend attending Columbia University where he met Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. He immediately began a sexual relationship with Ginsberg, while still maintaining several heterosexual relationships; he also persuaded Kerouac to teach him how to write fiction. Soon after meeting them he and Kerouac went on the series of cross-country trips that later became 'On The Road.' Cassady set the pace and agenda of the trip while Kerouac recorded their adventures; however, Kerouac could not find the voice he was looking for so he shelved the project for awhile. Years later, inspired by a series of letters from Cassady, Kerouac decided to write 'On The Road' in the same way Cassady talked, "in a rush of mad ecstasy, without self-consciousness or mental hesistation" (www.litkicks.com). Cassady married several women and fathered lots of children before he finally settled down in Los Gatos, California with Carolyn Cassady; however, he remained close with Kerouac and Ginsberg. In the 1960's Cassady went on a new series of adventures with novelist Ken Kesey which ended up taking him "to the New York World's Fair in a psychedelic bus named 'Further,' [in which] Neal Cassady was the madman behind the wheel. This trip is chronicled in Tom Wolfe's 'The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test'" (litkicks.com). Cassady never actually published anything but he was a huge influence behind the Beat Generation.
Gregory Corso: Gregory Corso was born on March 26, 1930 (my birthday!) on Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village. He was sent to prison on robbery charges at the age of 16 and probably never would have become a poet had he not met Allen Ginsberg in a Greenwich Village bar when he was 20. He showed Ginsberg the poetry he had written and prison and Ginsberg was very impressed so he showed Corso's work to others. Corso's first poems were published in 1955. Corso became one of the most widely-read poets of the Beat Generation alongside Ginsberg, his "anarchic style similar to Ginsberg's, though his favorite poet is Shelley, a Romantic poet who was much too flowery for most Beats" (www.beatmuseum.org). Corso's work has a slightly different tone from the rest of the Beats who were never known for achieving the light tone his work displayed, which came from his sense of humor. An excellent example of this is his poem "Marriage."
Lawrence Ferlinghetti: Lawrence Ferlinghetti was born in Yonkers in 1919. Ferlinghetti attended the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill and then served the U.S Navy in WWII as a ship's commander. He then went to Columbia University where he received his master's degree in 1947. After that, he received a Doctorate de l'Universite de Paris (Sorbonne) in 1950. He settled in San Francisco in 1951and taught French in an adult education program until he met Peter D. Martin. The pair went on to found the City Lights Bookstore in 1953, "the first all-paperbound bookshop in the country, and by 1955 he had launched the City Lights publishing house. City Lights Publishers began with the Pocket Poet Series, through which Ferlinghetta aimed to create an international dissident ferment" (www.citylights.com). In 1956, after publishing Ginsberg's "Howl & Other Poems," Ferlinghetti was "[arrested] on obscenity charges, and the trial that followed drew national attention to the San Francisco Renaissance and the Beat movement writers. (He was overwhelmingly supported by prestigious literary and academic figures, and was acquitted.) This landmark First Amendment case established a legal precedent for the publication of controversial work with redeeming social importance" (www.citylights.com). Ferlinghetti was not only a poet, he also did translation, fiction, theater, art criticism, film narration, and essays. "Often concerned with politics and social issues, Ferlinghetti's poetry countered the literary elite's definition of art and the artist's role in the world. Though imbued with the commonplace, his poetry cannot be simply described as polemic or personal protest, for it stands on his craftmanship, thematics, and grounding in tradition" (www.citylights.com). An great example of his work is "I Am Waiting."
Allen Ginsberg: Allen Ginsberg was born on June 3rd, 1926 in Neward, New Jersey. His father, Louis, was a "modestly successful published poet and high school teacher" (www.allenginsberg.com). His father introduced him to poetry by reading Dickinson, Shelley, Keats, Poe and Milton to him and his siblings during their early childhood. His mother suffered from a series of mental breakdowns starting in 1932. In 1937 she attempted suicide which resulted in a two year stay in a mental hospital. Ginsberg began writing at eleven in a personal journal, which was mostly a diary more than a journal for fiction writing but. One entry, in 1938, which was a rant against the Nazi movement, showed his early interest in world politics. Ginsberg was "known for his prodigious energy, [he] labored tirelessly to promote not only his own work, but also the writings of Kerouac, Burroughs and many others associated with the Beat Generation. In 1973, he and poet Anne Waldman co-founded the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado, ensuring a continuing legacy of the study and practice of Beat Generation-influenced writings" (www.allenginsberg.com). "Howl & Other Poems" was published in 1956 and "established Ginsberg as an important voice in American poetry. But Ginsberg would achieve international fame a year later with the highly publicized "Howl" obscenity trial in San Francisco and the publication" (www.allengisnberg.com).
Michael McClure: Michael McClure was born on October 20, 1932 in Marysville, Kansas. He moved to San Francisco as a young man and ended up being one of the five poets who read at the famous San Francisco Six Gallery reading in 1955 where Ginsberg first read "Howl". He quickly became a prominent member of the Beat Generation and is immortalized, along with so many other Beats, in Kerouc's novels. McClure is the influence for Pat McLear in Kerouac's Big Sur. Most of McClure's work is "infused with awareness of nature, especially in the animal consciousness that often lies dormant in mankind. Not only an awareness of nature, but the poems are organized in an organic fashion, continuing with his appreciation of nature's purity" (www.wikipedia.com). Besides poetry, he he also published eight books of plays and four collections of essays. As well as being a prominent Beat poet, he was a big part of the 1960's Hippie counterculture. A great representation of his writing is the poem "Point Lobos: Animism."
Diane di Prima: "Diane di Prima was born in Brooklyn, New York on August 6, 1934, a second generation American of Italian descent. She began writing at the age of seven, and made the decision to live her life as a poet at the age of fourteen. She lived in Manhattan for many years, and is often considered the most important woman writer of the Beat movement. Among her activites: she co-founded the New York Poets Theatre, and founded the Poets Press, which published the work of many new writers of the period. Together with Amiri Baraka she edited The Floating Bear, a literary newsletter. In 1965 she moved to upstate New York where she participated in Timothy Leary's psychedelic community at Millbrook. Later she lived and worked in northern California, where she took part in the political activities of the Diggers, lived in a late-sixties' commune, studied Zen Buddhism, Sanskrit and alchemy, and raised her five children. From 1980 to 1986 she taught hermetic and esoteric traditions in poetry in a short-lived but significant program at New College of California. Her work has been translated into over twenty languages. She now lives and works in San Francisco, where she is one of the co-founders and teachers of the San Francisco Institute of Magical and Healing Arts. Her current works in progress include 'Not Quite Buffalo Stew', a satire of California life, an autobiographical memoir called 'Recollections of My Life as a Woman', and a book on Shelley as magician/poet" (www.litkicks.com).
Gary Snyder: "He was born on May 8, 1930 in San Francisco, California but grew up in the Pacific Northwest. He attended Reed College along with his friends Philip Whalen and Lew Welch, and then went to Berkeley to study Asian Languages. He had a particular interest in Chinese and Japanese culture and poetry, an interest shared by Kenneth Rexroth. Through Rexroth he fell in with the Beat crowd, read his great mythical poem 'A Berry Feast' at the famous 1955 poetry reading at the Six Gallery, and inspired the Zen Buddhist craze that swept the Beats, as well as some notable mountain climbing expeditions that certainly tested the physical endurance of a few writers more accustomed to scaling the inner heights of their minds. Snyder participated in many left-wing activities, along with Allen Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, during the Sixties. He was onstage during the original San Francisco Be-In in January 1967. He has since continued to fight for peace, environmental awareness and freedom from nuclear weaponry, and has never wavered in his devotion to these noble causes. Bruce Cook said it well: if Ginsberg is the Beat movement's Walt Whitman (he is), Gary Snyder is the Henry David Thoreau. He is currently teaching at the University of California at Davis. He continues to publish poetry in volumes such as "No Nature," and won the Pulitzer Prize in the mid-seventies. Here is one of Snyder's most well-known poems, "Riprap" (www.litkicks.com).
Michael McClure: Michael McClure was born on October 20, 1932 in Marysville, Kansas. He moved to San Francisco as a young man and ended up being one of the five poets who read at the famous San Francisco Six Gallery reading in 1955 where Ginsberg first read "Howl". He quickly became a prominent member of the Beat Generation and is immortalized, along with so many other Beats, in Kerouc's novels. McClure is the influence for Pat McLear in Kerouac's Big Sur. Most of McClure's work is "infused with awareness of nature, especially in the animal consciousness that often lies dormant in mankind. Not only an awareness of nature, but the poems are organized in an organic fashion, continuing with his appreciation of nature's purity" (www.wikipedia.com). Besides poetry, he he also published eight books of plays and four collections of essays. As well as being a prominent Beat poet, he was a big part of the 1960's Hippie counterculture. A great representation of his writing is the poem "Point Lobos: Animism."
Diane di Prima: "Diane di Prima was born in Brooklyn, New York on August 6, 1934, a second generation American of Italian descent. She began writing at the age of seven, and made the decision to live her life as a poet at the age of fourteen. She lived in Manhattan for many years, and is often considered the most important woman writer of the Beat movement. Among her activites: she co-founded the New York Poets Theatre, and founded the Poets Press, which published the work of many new writers of the period. Together with Amiri Baraka she edited The Floating Bear, a literary newsletter. In 1965 she moved to upstate New York where she participated in Timothy Leary's psychedelic community at Millbrook. Later she lived and worked in northern California, where she took part in the political activities of the Diggers, lived in a late-sixties' commune, studied Zen Buddhism, Sanskrit and alchemy, and raised her five children. From 1980 to 1986 she taught hermetic and esoteric traditions in poetry in a short-lived but significant program at New College of California. Her work has been translated into over twenty languages. She now lives and works in San Francisco, where she is one of the co-founders and teachers of the San Francisco Institute of Magical and Healing Arts. Her current works in progress include 'Not Quite Buffalo Stew', a satire of California life, an autobiographical memoir called 'Recollections of My Life as a Woman', and a book on Shelley as magician/poet" (www.litkicks.com).
Gary Snyder: "He was born on May 8, 1930 in San Francisco, California but grew up in the Pacific Northwest. He attended Reed College along with his friends Philip Whalen and Lew Welch, and then went to Berkeley to study Asian Languages. He had a particular interest in Chinese and Japanese culture and poetry, an interest shared by Kenneth Rexroth. Through Rexroth he fell in with the Beat crowd, read his great mythical poem 'A Berry Feast' at the famous 1955 poetry reading at the Six Gallery, and inspired the Zen Buddhist craze that swept the Beats, as well as some notable mountain climbing expeditions that certainly tested the physical endurance of a few writers more accustomed to scaling the inner heights of their minds. Snyder participated in many left-wing activities, along with Allen Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, during the Sixties. He was onstage during the original San Francisco Be-In in January 1967. He has since continued to fight for peace, environmental awareness and freedom from nuclear weaponry, and has never wavered in his devotion to these noble causes. Bruce Cook said it well: if Ginsberg is the Beat movement's Walt Whitman (he is), Gary Snyder is the Henry David Thoreau. He is currently teaching at the University of California at Davis. He continues to publish poetry in volumes such as "No Nature," and won the Pulitzer Prize in the mid-seventies. Here is one of Snyder's most well-known poems, "Riprap" (www.litkicks.com).
