Pontificia Universidad Javeriana

United States 60s Literature

April 24th 2023
Student: María Lucía Zárate Mahecha

60’s First Test

Reinvention and Action in the Beat conception

Introduction

The generation we call the “Beats” (1950 – 1960) is a heterogeneous group of poets
whose writing centered around social critique, opposition to the dominant culture, an urgent
desire for social change, and political issues like race, gender, class and the environment.
The Beat generation was not part of a strictly formed literary movement, but rather a
collective reaction against the worldview of their parents, or the generation before them.
Moreover, the Beats are a heterogeneous group because every one of these poets is
different. The authors all come from different backgrounds, but they have their very
particular themes in common. In this essay we will be looking, without a particular order, at
works by Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Kenneth Rexroth, Diane Di Prima, and Lawrence
Ferlinghetti.
To end the definition of the Beat generation as a proper introduction, a pretty good
idea of the point of view of the Beats, without generalizing too much, comes from the word
“Beat”. The straightforward definition of the word might be one who is defeated, down and
out, or exhausted. The best example of this notion is in the poem Howl by Allen Ginsberg,
which gives us an idea of the Beat as the type of person the dominant culture would deem
as destroyed, but the irony is in the fact that the system is the one that has “destroyed” them
or simply the one that sees them as such. The Beat refers to a counterpart to the figure of
the “American dream” and all it entails as a lifestyle, a popular ideal at the time, and even
now.
Jack Kerouac expands on the definition of Beat by adding a spiritual dimension
with the notion of enlightenment that comes from gaining a new vision of the world,
radically different from the dominant culture’s, which points to another paradoxical
definition of the word “Beat”: it refers to beatific or beatitude, which we see again in
Ginsberg’s work, with his repeated allusions to angelic beings and (critically and ironically)
religion, and in Kerouac with his fixation on Buddhism and practices from the east. This
part of the definition can point to an idea of a different conception of what a good life is,
separate from the ideal of the American dream. While the Beat might be defeated in the
eyes of the system, he is an angel, as Ginsberg puts it, who fights the evil of the demon that
is the system, and, as we will explore in the essay, Ferlinghetti gives us the idea that he (the
Beat) fights that evil using poetry. There are, however, countless things to say about the
meaning of the Beat generation, and I hope that at the end of the essay this conception is
clearer.
Having said these first considerations, in this essay I will argue that, through
recurrent styles and poetic themes, the Beat generation’s poetry centers around the notions
of reinvention and action through the spoken and written word in a materialist and capitalist
society. I will evaluate these two aspects (reinvention and action) in some examples of Beat
literature considering both style and thematic content of the works. I will conclude that the
lasting impact of the Beat conception is directly related to the development of themes, the
critical and compelling way they are portrayed throughout the texts, and the construction of
the notion of poetry itself in the poets’ works.

Style

Firstly, I will explore the Beats’ style, especially in Ginsberg, Kerouac and
Ferlinghetti, to reflect on the reinvention and action aspects of the Beat conception. In his
article Essentials of Spontaneous Prose, a list of considerations a writer, author or poet
should have in mind when trying to write or speak spontaneously about something,
Kerouac introduces one of the central aspects of the Beat style, spontaneity. In Beat poetry,
letters and chronicles, spontaneity in the sense of fluidity is manifest, and it serves to get
words to be true or loyal to the object of thought (to the world or the aspect of the world the
speech is about). This characteristic of the Beat style I believe explains the practical
fixation with jazz and bebop music, which gives an account of reinvention because it is
specifically characteristic of these authors and it implies a reinvention of a way to describe,
analyze and experience the world, different from the Beats’ predecessors. I believe this can
be one meaning of Ferlinghetti’s phrase “See the rose through world-colored glasses.”,
which points at the idea of looking at the world differently, and in speech, talking about the
world through a different perspective from the dominant or popular one. If what
spontaneity aims to do is to speak about the object of thought exactly or almost exactly as
we experience it, and not through the filter of the mind’s analyses, it could give a good
explanation to what Ferlinghetti means by this.

Kerouac talks about the “purity” of speech,

“undisturbed flow of the mind”, and says that a writer or speaker must aim for the
intermediary that is the mind to intervene as little as possible in the process of object to
mind, mind to speech. In this spirit, he gives a list of almost norms to create spontaneous
prose, from the set-up, as he puts it, to the mental state one must have. In the article,
Kerouac writes:

METHOD No periods separating sentence-structures already arbitrarily riddled by

false colons and timid usually needless commas-but the vigorous space dash
separating rhetorical breathing (as jazz musician drawing breath between outblown
phrases)--"measured pauses which are the essentials of our speech"--"divisions of
the sounds we hear"-"time and how to note it down." (William Carlos Williams)
(Kerouac, 1957)

The practical aspect of spontaneous prose includes the space dash, the figure of “rhetorical
breathing”, and the likeness of spontaneous prose with jazz music. An example of the idea
of the space dash and the comparison to the jazz musician can be, if we want a literal
instance, the reading of Kenneth Rexroth’s poem Thou Shalt not Kill, from the collection
named Poetry Readings in the Cellar. In this reading, the Cellar Jazz Quintet plays in the
background of the track. It almost sounds like the pauses the poet makes in accordance with
the rhythm of the poem are mirrored by the jazz musicians, sounding, as Kerouac says, like
a space dash, between both the poem’s and the music’s phrases respectively. However, a
speech does not need to have a jazz track in the background to keep to Kerouac’s idea,
since the mention of the jazz musician is simply a simile to illustrate what he means by the
space dash. In Kerouac’s novel, On the Road, a prosaic example, he uses the space dash in
repeated occasions as an atypical punctuation mark that gives the fluidity to the speech the
comma or the period cannot.

Now he’d bought a new suit to go back in; blue with pencil stripes, vest and all—
eleven dollars on Third Avenue, with a watch and a chain, and a portable typewriter
with which he was going to start writing in a Denver rooming house as soon as he
got a job there. (Kerouac, 1957, p. 16).

In this quote, the space dash is used in a rather long sentence, and if you read it out loud, it
serves as a draw of breath to enunciate the rest of the sentence. If a comma or a period was
in its place, the sentence would not be as fluent as it is, and perhaps it would not express as
it does such a natural association in the train of thought of the narrator.
To sum up the aspect of spontaneity, let us look at an example from Ginsberg’s
Howl, which I consider appropriate to show the notion of the “undisturbed flow of the
mind” or free deviation or association in the train of thought that is characteristic of the
spontaneity in the style of the Beats.

Peyote solidities of halls, backyard green tree cemetery dawns, wine drunkenness
over the rooftops, storefront boroughs of tea-head joyride neon blinking traffic
light, sun and moon and ashcan rantings and kind king light of mind, (Ginsberg,
1956).

Even though Ginsberg’s style is not the same as Kerouac’s, this excerpt from Howl
is a good example of spontaneity. Here, and repeatedly in this poem, Ginsberg uses the
literary devices of listing and alliteration to create the fluidity Kerouac talks about. The
listing especially, gives us an idea of the undisturbed flow of the mind, since Ginsberg
enunciates a sequence of very clear images that construct the global image of the people he
talks about, “The best minds of my generation”. This is connected to the idea of reinvention
because the style in Howl, with the accumulative effect the alliteration and listing produce,
is used to describe these people, whose lives, if we look at the vocabulary Ginsberg uses,
would be seen as decadent or “destroyed by madness” as he puts it, but at the same time it
is a clear criticism to this negative way of judging them, because they are completely
different from what the dominant culture would expect. The beatific aspect of the Beats is
clear here, because there is a contraposition in the poem between the demonic evil of the
system (he names it Moloch) and the angelic beings that refuse to partake in Moloch and
try to fight it. The reinvention then, is in the innovative portrayal of a new, transgressive
way to live a good life; the reinvention of a livable life and the way to describe it. The all-
encompassing reinvention manifested in Ginsberg’s Howl can be encapsulated by
Ferlinghetti’s phrase, “Poetry is a guillotine for accepted ideas...”.

Another, while not estranged from spontaneity, aspect of the Beat style is mentioned
with insistence in Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s poems and articles, but it is enunciated in his
book Poetry as Insurgent Art: the idea that poetry should focus on the sung word.
Ferlinghetti writes:

Your language must sing, with or without rhyme, to justify it being in the
typography of poetry.

Make it more than “spoken word” poetry; make it “sung word” poetry.

Back up your voice with a musical instrument or other sound and let you poems
blossom into song. (Ferlinghetti, 2007).

This idea of singing language also enables Ferlinghetti’s idea of the “work in progress”,
which he says applies to his works, the idea of movement in poetry. For Ferlinghetti, poems
are not words on a page, they are not static. Every time he read a poem, he changed words
and verses. The ideas came out differently from what he had written on the page. This is
more related to the notion of action, which Ferlinghetti insists on, saying that poetry should
not be a “sedentary occupation”. The sung word poetry idea, in Ferlinghetti’s book, is
directly related to bringing language closer to reality, being enunciated directly after the
phrase, “Find the further reality, if there is one.” Singing language can be related and help
Kerouac’s notion of spontaneity and make a bigger impact on the world than simply a
written poem. In this spirit, the insurgence of poetry is not possible if language is static: the
sung word makes the poem alive.
Themes

Ferlinghetti’s poem Autobiography, from the collection Oral Messages, a

compilation of seven poems “conceived specifically for jazz accompaniment and as such
should be considered as spontaneously spoken “oral messages” rather than as poems
written for the printed page.” (Ferlinghetti, 1958) is a good example of the action and sung
word aspect of his poetry. Firstly, in the reading from the Poetry Readings in the Cellar
collection, the poet changes the order of the stanzas, some words, and eliminates some of
the stanzas printed, showing that the poem is not determined by what is printed on the page
but by its interpretation and the poet’s voice. Even if the message or what is said does not
change, it does gain a further strength when it is read or sung by the poet. On the other
hand, Autobiography, more than an actual autobiography, is a call to action. He exposes all
the aspects of his life that would make him part of the notion of what an American person
is:

I am an American.

I was an American boy.

I read the American Boy Magazine

and became a boy scout in the suburbs.

I thought I was Tom Sawyer

catching crayfish in the Bronx River

and imagining the Mississippi. (Ferlinghetti, 1958, p.61).

His upbringing as a “regular” American boy did not prevent him from being critical
of the American culture and singing about it.

I have dreamt

that all my teeth fell out

but my tongue lived

to tell the tale.

For I am still

of poetry.

I am a bank of song.
 I am a playerpiano

in an abandoned casino

on a seaside esplanade

in a dense fog

still playing. (Ferlinghetti, 1958, p. 65).

Even though he was brought up as any American boy from the suburbs, he has seen
the deep flaws of his culture by being an observer of the world (he says at one point “I have
wandered lonely as a crowd”, which is a reference to William Wordsworth’s poem I
wandered lonely as a Cloud, in which I understand the cloud as a pure observer of the
world. He changes the word “cloud” to “crowd”, referencing how he has been the observer
from the interior of the culture, of the American crowd). He is critical of the American
dream and worldview, and even if he is in a dense fog, an abandoned casino (the interior of
the crowd) he still sings, which is the same as acting against this abrasive culture.
Another Ferlinghetti poem that clearly develops the notion of action in poetry is
Junkman’s Obbligato, also in the Oral Messages collection. In this poem, the notion of
action is more practically seen, since it calls to poets not only to make sung poetry, but it
sings about not being an accomplice to the system in general, it calls to a radical change of
perspective.

Let us not wait for the write-up

on page one

of the New York Times Book Review

images of insane success

smiling from the photo.

By the time they print your picture

in Life Magazine

you will have become a negative anyway

a print with a glossy finish.

They will have come and gotten you

to be famous
 and you still will not be free. (Ferlinghetti, 1958, p. 57).

In this excerpt we get the idea that freedom does not come from working within the
system and becoming famous, which is what poets may want in capitalist society, but it
comes from “walking out on the whole scene.” In terms of Ginsberg, it would be escaping
Moloch as a means to fight it.
Another Beat poet that can help us further exemplify the idea of action in poetry is
Diane Di Prima. Even though the theme of revolution is implied by other poets, she exalts
it. In her 63 Revolutionary Letters, she treats a variety of topics like politics, history,
science, urban renewal, education, processed food, etc., criticizing and condemning a lot of
widely accepted American practices and views. In accordance with Ferlinghetti’s phrase
“Poetry is a guillotine for accepted ideas”, Di Prima guillotines a lot of ideas that seem to
be fixed in the hive mind that is the United States’ dominant culture. I believe that the fact
that Diane Di Prima wrote these letters in a poetic form gives the revolution she talks about
another, deeper dimension. It is an all-encompassing revolution; it is not a prosaic
revolution in which there is an agenda that you present to the people in power. Diane Di
Prima´s revolution is a completely transgressive one, that passes through all aspects of life,
and that cannot be talked about in prosaic form. It is deeply rooted in life. This rather
mystical aspect of reinvention and action is one that is noticeable in all the Beat conception.
In Revolutionary Letter #48, Diane Di Prima writes:

Be careful.

With what relief to we fall back

on the tale, so often told in revolutions

that now we must

organize, obey the rules, so that later

we can be free. It is the point

at which the revolution stops. To be carried forward

later & in another country, this is

the pattern, but we can

break the pattern.

// Learn now we see

 with all our skin, smell with our eyes too

sense & sex are boundless & the call

is to be boundless in them, make the joy

now, that we want, no shape

for space & time now but the shapes we will (Di Prima, 1968, p. 32)

This letter precisely criticizes those revolutions that follow an agenda, that
“organize” in a way that is convenient for the people in power. This, the Beat revolution, is
a different kind of revolution. One very important theme in this revolution is the connection
to the notion of the third world. Ferlinghetti mentions this in one of his phrases: “The war
against the imagination is not the only war. Using the 9/11 Twin Towers disaster as an
excuse, America has initiated the Third World War, which is the War against the Third
World.” Di Prima also alludes to the war against the third world in letters like the number
42:

(…) 40% of the women of Puerto Rico

Already sterilized, transistor radios

The sterilization bonus in India; all propaganda

Aimed at the ‘non-white’ and ‘poor white’ populations (…) (Di Prima, 1968, p. 29)

The war on the third world by the United States is a common point Ferlinghetti and
Di Prima have in their criticism against their culture. However, in Ginsberg we can also see
a consideration of the third world, specifically Latin America, in Elegy Che Guevara,
which shows his interest in a world beyond his borders, and his recognition of something
within Latin America that could be applied to the problems of his frame of reference. Che
Guevara is portrayed as the face of holiness Ginsberg had talked about in Howl, like an
angel that fights Moloch outside of Moloch, from a completely different perspective, as is
the perspective their poetry puts on the table. Therefore, in the Beat conception the notion
of action is related not only to the criticism of their culture and how the people in power
influence places outside their borders, but it is also about applying conventions from other
cultures to fight against the system.
Having seen all these examples of the manifestation of the notion of action in Beat
poetry in mind, I find it significant that these poets’ notion of poetry itself is a deeply
transgressive one, rooted in the belief that the sung or spoken word is enough to change the
world, challenge accepted ideas, and make an all-encompassing revolution.
Now that we have explored the notion of action in the Beat conception from the
thematic point of view, I wish to also explore the idea of reinvention, basing the
investigation on two of Ferlinghetti’s phrases from Poetry as Insurgent Art: “Reinvent the
idea of truth” and “Reinvent the idea of beauty”. Of course, the transgressive role of Beat
poetry is connected to the idea of reinvention, since what the revolution in poetry tries to do
is a paradigm change, a radical shift from what is considered normal to a different way of
life, not dependent or conformant to the system. This is manifested in two enormous
concepts, which in the dominant culture seem to be taken for granted: beauty and truth. In
his book Coney Island of the Mind, Ferlinghetti speaks about the reinvention and
reinterpretation of these two concepts. Poem number 15, which introduces the notion that
the poet is “constantly risking absurdity” is a good example of Ferlinghetti’s account of
how beauty and truth fit into his idea of poetry and what a poet must do.

Constantly risking absurdity and all without mistaking

and death any thing

whenever he performs for what it may not be

above the heads For he’s the super realist

of his audience who must perforce perceive

the poet like an acrobat taut truth

climbs on rime before the taking of each

stance or step
to a high wire of his own
making in his supposed advance

and balancing on eyebeams toward that still higher perch

above a sea of faces where Beauty stands and

waits
paces his way to the other
side of day with gravity

performing entrechats to start her death-defying leap

and sleight-of-foot tricks And he

and other high theatrics a little charleychaplin man

 who may or may not catch of existence

her fair eternal form (Ferlinghetti, 1958, p. 30)

spreadeagled in the empty air

In this poem, Ferlinghetti uses a simile comparing the poet to an acrobat who is
constantly risking death (absurdity) in this poem, we get the impression that the poet for
Ferlinghetti is searching to portray beauty and truth, since he must make an accurate
account of the world and reality. The absurdity would be mistaking something for what it is
not. Furthermore, in poem number 29, Ferlinghetti criticizes the tradition of poetry in which
love is always portrayed the same way: “there we go again there we are again there’s the
same old theme and scene again with all the citizens and all the characters all working up to
it right from the first (…)” (Ferlinghetti, 1958, p. 44). In the light of poem number 15, we
could say that in this sense the poetic tradition might have fallen in a bit of an absurdity and
there is a need for poetry to reinvent concepts like love and portray them differently.
Conclusion
In a nutshell, the Beat conception revolves around a dynamic notion of poetry that
has at its root the belief that the sung word has power to act against the system and reinvent
concepts that are deep-rooted in society, or at least question them. The long-lasting impact
of the Beat conception comes precisely from the fact that sung language is a changing agent
of society, since the Beat poets succeeded in innovating poetry radically both in style and
thematic content, which has influenced authors succeeding those from the Beat generation.
Their unique style and outlook of the world is something completely unprecedented, and I
believe they succeeded in the reinvention of a way of life and a way to look at the world.
Moreover, reinvention and action cannot be evaluated separately. On the contrary, they are
closely related to each other, since reinvention is a part of the action Beat poetry takes.
Reinvention is understood in the sense of the poetic style, the way to understand concepts
like beauty and truth, and reinvention of a way to live life and in general to look at the
world.
References

Ferlinghetti, L. (1958). A Coney Island of the Mind.

Ferlinghetti, L. (1958). Oral Messages.

Ferlinghetti, L. (2007). Poetry as Insurgent Art.

Ginsberg, A. (1955). Howl.

Ginsberg, A. (s.f.). Elegy Che Guevara.

Kerouac, J. (1957). Essentials of Spontaneous Prose.

Kerouac, J. (1957). On the Road.

Kisner, M. J. (2010). Perfection and Desire, Spinoza on the Good. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly,
98, 99, 104 - 106.

Prima, D. D. (1968). Revolutionary letters.

Rexroth, K. (1955). Thou Shalt not kill.

Spinoza, B. (1986). Tratado teológico-político. Madrid: Alianza.

Spinoza, B. (2020). Ética demostrada según el orden geométrico . Madrid: Trotta.