Cedar Bar Redux

I believe that Gregory Corso had to write poetry to live. He was another hustler/addict. Writing kept him in touch with the life around him. His poems are sometimes raw and hard. But most of the time they give you a peek into a brilliant mind and sweet, gentle soul. I am in love with this man.

This is not an easy poem to write about. In fact, I think it’s the only thing that really has me stumped. All I can say is this: it’s beautiful and it must be read dozens of times. To get a feel for how important it is, please read “Howl” Fifty Years Later, edited by Jason Shinder. Allen Ginsberg is an important, thoughtful poet and this is his most important book.

This was the first Beat book ever published. John Clellon Holmes was not one of the wild beat guys and this book tells a wild story from a quiet point of view.

Holmes’ approach to writing was not like the Beats. He wrote like an observer, and gives us an amazing picture of the whole scene.

This book is basically Neal Cassady’s autobiography. After reading On the Road, you get an idea of what a crazy man Neal was. It’s a good thing he wrote about his life so we can understand why. This is the only book he ever published.

2007 marks the 50 year anniversary of this book! To me this is a good boy/bad boy story: Sal Paradise (good boy) and Dean Moriarty (bad boy). These guys have some crazy adventures that take them across the country. I can’t help but notice that when they aren’t together you get to see Sal’s heart. After all, Dean is only out for kicks, Sal even starts calling him “the Holy Goof.” Keep in mind that this book is a true story, names and places were changed. Sal is really Jack Kerouac and Dean is Neal Cassady.

The Beat Generation was a group of writers that came into being during the mid to late 40’s. The first few were Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso and William S. Burroughs. The Beats approach to writing was very different that what most of America was used to, and they struggled for years to get published. A great example of this is Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. He wrote it in 1951 and it wasn’t published until 1957. The Beats wrote about real life. What you see, touch, feel and do. I guess you could cheaply say they wrote about sex, drugs, and rock n roll in the 50’s. To me they are so much more.