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9th
Annual Competition
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Nicole
Nguyen
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The
Heart Beat of America: A Beatnik Collection
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Nicole Nguyen and her collection
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In
high school, I once dated a boy who was something of a rebel – an
intellectual punk kid who liked to cause ruckuses and shock our
fellow classmates with his radical ideas. In all actuality, he
wasn’t much of an original character and our relationship did
not last long – the only thing of his that left a lasting impression
on me was his love of Beatnik poetry and literature. I remember
the
day that I picked up his copy of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road as the day
that
I realized why my rebel then-boyfriend was so enchanted by the Beatnik movement – the
earnestness and sheer urgency of Kerouac’s writing was enough to give me fever
with desire for that kind of real life. I read On the Road in
one afternoon, and when I finished it, I knew that I had just embarked upon a
literary journey that
I would never forget.
“What is that feeling when you're driving away from people and they recede on
the
plain till you see their specks dispersing? – it’s the too-huge world vaulting
us, and it's good-by. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the
skies.” This quote, from On the Road, sums up the necessity that I felt,
upon finishing the novel, for living life as it would move me, rather than living
blindly by socially acceptable perceptions. Like Kerouac’s main character, Sal
Paradise, I aim to live fully and outside of my personal conventions and inhibitions.
Unlike so many of my peers, whose main concerns lie not with the world as a whole,
but in their own private worlds which contain only those whose lives intimately
touch their own, I do not want to exist uninformed, ignorant, or sheltered. Or
rather, I want this entire world in all its glory and
pain to shelter me.
Before discovering these extremely frank and manic writers, I was one of many
that found little merit in American writers and literature, and generally basked
in the eloquence of all things European. However, Beatnik writing has truly opened
up my eyes to the beauty of this country and all her writers. To me, these
writers – in particular, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Charles Bukowski, Diane
Di
Prima, Gregory Corso, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti – helped define a distinctly
American genre of literature with this country in mind. Their rebellious nature
reflects, for me, the very essence of how this country was founded, and relates
a call for Americans to forsake the materialism that held society (and still
does) and retreat
into inner spirituality.
This collection, though small, is continually being added to, hindered only by
lack of funds. I have learned to scan used bookstores’ poetry shelves for the
familiar 4 by 5 inch City Lights Books with the black bands on the top of bottom
of each cover denoting a “Pocket Poets Series” book, and for the lengthy and
amusing titles of Bukowski’s poetry. Regardless of their condition or age, I
will continue to cherish these free-spirited and determined writers.
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Bibliography
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Bukowski,
Charles.
Sifting
through the Madness For the Word, the Line, the Way. Ecco,
an imprint of Harper Collins Publishers: New York, 2004.
Play the Piano Drunk like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers
Begin to Bleed a Bit. Ecco, an imprint of Harper Collins Publishers:
New York, 2003.
Bukowski is one of my very favorite poets. His free-flowing form and frank
subject matter are so refreshing when so much of the poetry that we are
taught in school is structured and deals with lots of metaphor and symbolism.
I love the way he can write about simple things, like talking on the phone
or liking D.H. Lawrence – I love the way he sounds incredibly honest and
gruff. |
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Burroughs,
William S.
Naked
Lunch (1959). Grove Press: New York.*
My first reading of this book made me want to sell it back to the used
book store I had just bought it from – almost. Burroughs writing is incredibly
intense and complements the insanity of the subject matter and the narrator. |
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Corso,
Gregory.
Gasoline. City
Lights Books: San Francisco, 1995.
Mindfield. Paladin, an imprint of Harper Collins Publishers:
London, 1992.
Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs wrote the introductions to Mindfield,
paying tribute to the influence that Corso had on the Beatnik movement. Gasoline is
No. 8 in the City Lights Pocket Poets Series, and includes “Vestal Lady
on Brattle”, one of Corso’s first works. The collection in itself is a
remarkable representation of the Beatnik era. |
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Di
Prima, Diane.
Memoirs
of a Beatnik (1969). Penguin Books: New York, 1998.
Diane Di Prima is one of the very few women associated with the Beatnik
movement. Memoirs of a Beatnik is a fictional account of what being
a female Beatnik was – seeing the world from a woman’s point of view is
quite unique. This book is often criticized for being merely pornographic
in its story, but despite its many sex scenes, the book is artful and poetic. |
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Ferlinghetti,
Lawrence.
Pictures
of the Gone World (1955). City Lights Books: San Francisco,
1995.
Ferlinghetti began a Beatnik tradition in founding City Lights Books in
San Francisco. Pictures of a Gone World is Ferlinghetti’s first
work, as well as the first of the Pocket Poets Series. Unlike Kerouac,
Ginsberg, and Corso, whose images were forceful and delightfully absurd,
Ferlinghetti’s poetry is subtly and quietly beautiful. |
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Ginsberg,
Allen.
The Fall
of America (1972). City Lights Books: San Francisco.*
Howl. City Lights Books: San Francisco, 1997.
After having gifted copies of Howl to several friends without securing
my own copy of the poem, I finally picked up a used copy that I found on
a neglected bottom shelf at a used book store. The Fall of America was
gifted to me by one of the recipients of Howl. I continue to read
and re-read segments of both books; Ginsberg’s imagery is so striking that
every time I read it, I experience it differently. |
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Kerouac,
Jack.
Selected
Letters 1957-1969. Penguin Books: New York, 1999.
On the Road (1957). Penguin Books: New York.*
Dharma Bums (1958). Penguin Books: New York*
Book of Blues. Penguin Books: New York, 1995.
Big Sur. Penguin Books: New York, 1992.
Lonesome Traveler (1960). Grove Press: New York*
Scattered Poems (1945). City Lights Books: San Francisco*
These books are really the treasures of my collection. They are not first
editions and they are not hardcover. The only distinguishing things about
them are the notes in the margins and inscriptions in the covers. Most
were purchased for $5 or less at a local used book store, after much speculation
and price comparison – pristine quality is not a high priority for Jack
Kerouac. The only requirement is that all the words are still there. Flipping
through these, the pages are littered with underlined passages and stars
marking things that I particularly liked. These are the books that I lend
to friends and invite them to mark things they like as well, so that every
time the book is read, the reader is having a conversation with Kerouac
and with those before who have held that copy. |
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Kesey,
Ken.
One Flew
Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Viking Press: New York*
This book is a commentary on mental institutions that ultimately touches
the sense that the loss of individualism is inevitable. The copy presented
here is one of three copies that I have owned: this one I purchased at
a used book store; the other two I received from my mother, who enjoyed
the book so much when she was young, that she kept buying for me, not realizing
that I already had a copy. In 1975, Kesey’s most famous work was turned
into a movie starring Jack Nicholson as Randall Patrick McMurphy, with
Louise Fletcher as the infamous Nurse Ratched. |
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McDarrah,
Fred and Timothy McDarrah.
Kerouac
and Friends: The Beat Generation Album. Thunder’s Mouth
Press, New York, 2002.
This book truly is an album: the many photos of the main Beatnik players
in their natural environments allows a visual understanding of the incredible
madness with which the likes of Kerouac or Ginsberg wrote. Jack Kerouac’s “Belief
and Technique for Modern Prose” is printed, with necessities as “4. Be
in love with yr life” and “21. Struggle to sketch the flow that already
exists intact in mind.” Also included in the album are articles printed
about Beatniks as they were emerging as a movement, as well as the Beatniks
reflections on themselves as Beatniks. |
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Suiter,
John.
Gary
Snyder, Phillip Whalen, Jack Kerouac in the North Cascades:
Poets on the Peaks (1948). Counter Point: Washington, D.C.,
2002.
I received this paperback coffee-table-esque book as a gift from a friend
to whom I had enthusiastically recommended Big Sur. The book is
chock full of black and white photographs and stories about the three Beatnik
icons as they adventured in the North Cascade Mountains, culminating in
Kerouac’s famous summer stay on Desolation Peak. Reading through the book,
I found myself constantly referring to Big Sur for parallels between
the events. |
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| * Most
recent publication dates were unable to be obtained because
these books are in my hometown, safely tucked away on the
bookshelves in my bedroom. |
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