Directory of Beat Resources

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Consciously non-conformist writing that embraced bohemian lifestyles, rejected so-called "bourgeois middle-class standards" and often celebrated alcoholism and recreational drug use. Began in late 1940s with group of New York writers centered around Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs, and William Corso. Cross-fertilized by writers of the San Francisco Renaissance such as Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Kenneth Rexroth and Bob Kaufman. Associated with non-conformist music and visual arts, from folk music revivalists to more radical expermentation. Gradually supplanted by the hippie counter-culture of the 1960s.

Subcategories

• Books
• Bukowski, Charles
• Burroughs, William S.
• Cassady, Neal
• Corso, Gregory
• Ferlinghetti, Lawrence
• Ginsberg, Allen
• Kerouac, Jack
• Kesey, Ken
• Poetry
• Snyder, Gary
• Trocchi, Alexander

Resources in This Category

• A Blackout Tavern

  http://www.vlib.us/beats/ablackout.html
  Study in 1960s Folklore, by Pat O'Connor. The 1960s hippie scene in Wichita, KS. Includes photographs, and covers the first large LSD bust in Kansas.

• A. D. Winans Looks Back at the Beat Generation

  http://www.emptymirrorbooks.com/beat/winans-beat-generation.html
  San Francisco poet Winans discusses the roots of the Beat Generation poets and writers, and their legacy.

• Ah Puch Is Here

  http://www.lostartofahpook.com/
  Malcolm McNeill and William Burroughs - art work for unpublished image novel (aka, Ah Pook Is Here) created in early 1970s in London.

• Alan Russo, The Locked Man poems

  http://www.vlib.us/beats/alanrusso/
  1960; Wichita, KS, poet Charles Plymell, printer. Very little poetry is available by Russo, considered one of the best by his beat peers.

• Allen Ginsberg and his world: photos by Gordon Ball

  http://www.jacketmagazine.com/33/gb/index.html
  Ball edited three books with poet Allen Ginsberg, including Pulitzer Prize nominee "Allen Verbatim."

• Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl”: Fifty years later and in its own time

  http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2007/04/gins-a05.html
  By Andras Gyorgy; World Socialist take on the conditions that the Beats wrote in versus current realites.

• American Museum of Beat Art

  http://www.beatmuseum.org/
  Museum located in Pasadena, California. Featuring writers, poets, film, artists, photographs, manifestos, and critical writing.

• Amram, David. "A vanishing America?:

  http://www.popmatters.com/chapter/Issue3/amram.html
  Kerouac memories, a Guthrie symphony and a trip to Nathan’s Coney Island hot dog emporium

• And the Beat Goes On

  http://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/AND-THE-BEAT-GOES-ON-City-Lights-and-the-2611121.php
  about City Lights bookstore and the counterculture: 1961 - 1974, on its 50th anniversary, from S.F. Gate, 2003

• Aram Saroyan

  http://www.aramsaroyan.com/
  Writer, poet, playwright, with ties to the Beats; author of "The Saga of Lew Welch and the Beat Generation"

• Ashcan Rantings and Kind King Light of Mind

  http://www.altx.com/io/beatgeneration.html
  Why the Beats Still Matter by actor J.C. Shakespeare

• Ashleigh Brilliant

  http://www.ashleighbrilliant.com/writings.html
  artist and writer, creator of pot-shots cartoons, famous for their 17-word limit.

• Back Beat

  http://thephoenix.com/Boston/Arts/70366-Back-Beat/
  Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs's co-authored noir novel, "And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks" resurfaces. How the post-Beats make money, by infamous boxing sports writer, Beat George Kimball.

• Beat Culture: A Later Manifestation of Bohemia

  https://www.mtholyoke.edu/courses/rschwart/hist255-s01/boheme/beat.html
  Subcultural stories and resources with book reviews, recommended links, original articles and event listings. Featuring Jack Kerouac and influential beat characters. From Mt. Holyoke class.

• Beat Generation in Tangiers

  http://www.vlib.us/beats/burroughstangiers.html
  Author Chuck Woww visits Tangiers and writes to Beat William Burroughs about it, with photographs of Cafe Centrale and the Tangier beach, 2008.

• Beat Papers of Al Aronowitz

  http://www.blacklistedjournalist.com/1beat.html
  A collection of interviews, memories and articles by the late Aronowitz, the infamous Black Listed Journalist, who was actually there; close friend of Ginsberg and introduced Bob Dylan to the Beatles.

• Beat Quotes

  http://www.angelfire.com/al/filosofy/beatquote.html
  Quotes by or pertaining to a beat author.

• Beat-L

  http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/beat-list.html
  An online discussion forum devoted to the study of the lives and works of the writers of the Beat Generation, especially Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William Burroughs.

• Beatnik!

  http://www.tomchristopher.com/?op=home/Beat+Generation/Beatnik!
  from Beat Scene Magazine, by Bill Whipp; on murder, death and violence in North Beach, 1950s

• Beats In Kansas: Interview with George Laughead

  http://blues.gr/profiles/blogs/an-interview-with-george-laughead-beats-in-kansas-ginsberg
  On-line history of the Beat Generation started at Un. of Kansas because of the odd fact that 80 percent of living beats were from Kansas. Interview by Michalis Limnios, Blue@Greece

• Beats In Kansas: the Beat Generation in the Heartland

  http://www.vlib.us/beats/
  Collection of links and original articles. Many Beats were from Kansas. Original photos of William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Michael McClure, Charles Plymell.

• Beatscene

  http://www.beatscene.net/
  Magazine which documents and highlights the writers, poets, musicians and artists of America's Beat Generation.

• Bibliography of The Beat Generation

  http://universityhonors.umd.edu/COURSES/0701/269j0701.html
  A list of books, articles and essays about the Beats from University of Maryland class: The Beat Begins - America in the 1950s.

• Birth of The Beats is Born, 64 years later

  http://www.lawrence.com/news/2008/nov/17/birth_beats_born_68_years_later/
  James Grauerholz on William Burroughs and Jack Kerouac 1946 book, "And the Hippos Were Boiled in their Tanks," the first writing by later Beat literature giants, finally published in 2008.

• Brautigan, Richard (1935-1984)

  http://www.brautigan.net/
  Bibliography and information about the writer told in text, images, and other resources. Maintained by John F. Barber.

• Call Me Burroughs: A Life

  http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/feb/09/call-me-burroughs-a-life-barry-miles-review
  by Barry Miles. A vivid new biography of the beat wild man William Burroughs recasts him as a vitriolic vaudeville performer haunted by the killing of his wife.

• Catfish McDaris Interviews Charles Plymell

  http://www.thing.net/%7Egrist/bove/new/cpinterv.htm
  Beat poets McDaris and Plymell on the 1960s San Francisco scene.

• Characters In Beat and Bohemian Literature

  http://www.bohemianlit.com/charkey.htm
  Listing by person's last name to their fictional character name(s) in Beat literature. From Worchel Institute for the Study of Beat and Bohemian Literature.

• Charles Plymell : The Benzedrine Highway Interview

  http://realitystudio.org/interviews/charles-plymell-the-benzedrine-highway-interview-revised/
  by Paul Hawkins, Reality Studio, photographs; Early beat writer & poet Plymell became well known after the 1971 publication of his novel, Last of The Moccasins. Included are comments from Roxie Powell, Hammond Guthrie, Laki Vazakas, Ginger Killian Eades, and Mike Watt.

• Charles Plymell, from Kansa, Land of the Wind People

  http://www.vlib.us/beats/charlesplymellkansa.html
  biographical writing from Plymell, early beat generation poet, author.

• Charles Plymell, from The Last of the Moccasins

  http://www.vlib.us/beats/charlesplymellmoccasins.html
  On the Wichita Vortex, from outlaw poet and early beat generation author Plymell, friend of Allen Ginsberg and Neal Cassady.

• Cold War Correspondents: Ginsberg, Kerouac, Cassady, and the Political Economy of Beat Letters

  http://www.jstor.org/stable/441956
  by Dr. Oliver Harris, Dept. of American Studies, Keele University, England, leading Burroughs scholar. (registration is required)

• Corban LePell letter on art

  http://www.vlib.us/beats/corbanlepell/letter.html
  Beat artist LePell writes on art in a letter to student Sylvia Smith Kleindinst, 1955

• Corso - The Last Beat

  http://ginsbergblog.blogspot.com/2009/06/corso-last-beat-film.html
  Documentary film following Beat co-founder Gregory Corso, "on the road" in Europe retracing the early days of "The Beats".

• Cultural Chronology of Early Beat Generation Literature

  http://www.connectotel.com/beat/beatchr1.html
  Annotated list of beat publication dates and events, by Larry Smith (Firelands College of BGSU)

• Daniel Abdal-Hayy Moore Poetry

  http://ecstaticxchange.com/
  A selection from the lifework in poetry, theater and art of Moore, whose first book of poems, Dawn Visions, was published by City Lights Books in 1964, and the second, Burnt Heart /An Ode to the War Dead in 1972.

• Death Of The Beat Generation

  http://gaytoday.badpuppy.com/garchive/viewpoint/102797vi.htm
  Gay Today magazine article by Jesse Monteagudo, written following the deaths of gay Beat writers William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg and Herbert Huncke, on their impact on modern culture.

• Denton Welsh biography

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denton_Welch
  Author, painter. 1915-1948. Major literary influence on William Burroughs.

• Dharma Beat Links

  http://www.dharmabeat.com/
  A directory on writer Jack Kerouac, and his friends, including Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, and Neal Cassady.

• George Tsongas: San Francisco Poet

  http://www.thinicepress.com/tsongas1.html
  81 year old Tsongas (1929-2010) was of the Beats but not part of any movement.

• Goodie Magazine

  http://www.goodie.org/
  Lost Beat poets

• Gordon Ball's Beat Generation

  http://gordonballgallery.com/EastHillFarm.html
  Ball teaches at the Virginia Military Institute -- a photo of Allen Ginsberg teaching Ball's class is now a classic.

• Haight Ashbury Song Book

  http://www.vlib.us/beats/haightashburysongbook.html
  by Ashleigh Brilliant, 1967, San Francisco's "Songs of love and haight." Beat Generation to hippie transition.

• Harold Norse, Poet

  http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2009/jun/17/obituary-harold-norse
  Norse (1916- 2009 ) was among the American expatriates in Europe during the 1950's and early 1960's. He was an occupant of the Beat Hotel, Paris, where he first caught up with the Beat generation writers in 1960. Poet William Carlos Williams was his mentor. Obituary from The Guardian newspaper.

• Henry Miller and William Burroughs: An Overview

  http://realitystudio.org/scholarship/henry-miller-and-william-burroughs-an-overview/
  Reality Studio's: the influence of Henry Miller on Burroughs at Harvard in September 1935, his senior year, when the Harvard Advocate printed Miller, his first publication in America.

• Herbert Huncke Interview

  http://realitystudio.org/interviews/herbert-huncke-by-johnny-strike/
  by Johnny Strike, 1982, at Naropa Institute, Boulder, CO. Huncke was the original Beat; major influence on William Burroughs. Reality Studio.

• Hibblen Radio - Beat Generation

  http://www.hibblenradio.com/beat.html
  A portfolio website for CBS News Radio reporter Michael Hibblen featuring sound clips of the Beat Generation

• James Mechem, Beat Writer and Publisher, New York

  http://www.vlib.us/beats/mechemlow.html
  Caprice magazine and Bowery Poetry Club founder; interviewed on his 80th birthday in 2003 by poet Denise Low, original photographs.

• John Long & Philomene Long

  http://www.virtualvenice.info/poets/pl&jt.htm
  Ghosts of Venice Beach; late poets and leaders of Los Angeles beat literature

• Kulchur No. 1 Magazine

  http://realitystudio.org/bibliographic-bunker/kulchur/kulchur-1/
  Spring 1960 edition, edited by Charles Olson and Le Roi Jones [Amiri Baraka] ; includes William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Diane Di Prima, Paul Bowles and Donald Phelps.

• Larry Keenan - Beat Generation & Counter-Culture Photography Galleries

  http://emptymirrorbooks.com/keenan/
  Featuring Keenan's famed fine art photographs of the Beat Generation and Hippies and counterculture, from 1964 to now. Includes a biography and exhibitions, publications. No photographer was closer to the Beats.

• Literary Kicks

  http://www.litkicks.com/
  A free-form study of Beat Literature, literary community and underground culture.

• Malcolm McNeill Interview on William Burroughs, Ah Puch Is Here

  http://www.vlib.us/beats/malcolmmcneill.html
  Emmy award winning artist McNeill worked with Burroughs in London during early 1970s, on comic series, The Unspeakable Mr. Hart, and graphic novel, Ah Puch Is Here (aka, Ah Pook is Here), from Beats In Kansas, 2007

• Michael McClure & Ray Manzarek Official Website

  http://mcclure-manzarek.com/
  Beat poet McClure and former Door's band member Manzarek's website focuses on their collaboration of music and poetry projects and publications, performances, books, CDs, and videos.

• Michael McClure: An Anthology of Poems

  http://www.thing.net/~grist/l&d/mcclure/mcclurea.htm
  Selected by the author for the "Margins" symposium series in 1975. McClure is one of the five poets (including Allen Ginsberg) who read at the famous San Francisco Six Gallery reading in 1955.

• Moody's Skidrow Beanery

  http://www.vlib.us/beats/oconnor.html
  In Wichita, Kansas, Moody Connell believed in a mix of hoboes and Beats and served them simple fare in a place to congregate, by Pat O'Connor.

• Naked Lens:

  http://books.google.com/books/about/Naked_Lens.html?id=QCejNvZMAKYC
  An Analysis of Beat Cinema

• Naropa University - Audio Archive Project

  http://www.archive.org/details/naropa
  Massive oral collection from Buddhist university; includes Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, William S. Burroughs, Philip Whalen, Michael McClure, Gary Snyder, Diane DiPrima, Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

• Observed While Falling: Bill Burroughs, Ah Pook and Me

  http://www.lostartofahpook.com/books-observed-while-falling.html
  Excerpts from new book by artist Malcolm McNeill on the 1970s, London, and working with Burroughs on a graphic novel.

• Oliver Harris on Burroughs

  http://realitystudio.org/scholarship/cutting-up-the-archive-william-burroughs-and-the-composite-text/
  Dr. Harris, a leading Beat scholar on "William Burroughs and the Composite Text," presented at the 4th Annual Symposium on Textual Studies, De Montfort University, Leicester, UK; 25 May 2007.

• On R. Crumb and Zap Comix: Curled in Character

  http://www.vlib.us/beats/plymellrcrumb.html
  by Charley Plymell, Zap's first printer

• On Ray Bremser

  http://www.evergreenreview.com/102/poetry/plymell2.html
  by poet Charles Plymell; Bremser one of the original, and most authentic Beats, a hipster from the same vein as Herbert Huncke

• Paul Bowles Photographs

  http://www.paulbowles.org/photoslit3.html
  Literary friends of writer Bowles, visiting him in Tangier in 1950s and 1960s. Includes Ginsberg, Burroughs, Corso.

• Philomene Long -- Interview for Ruta 66

  http://www.emptymirrorbooks.com/thirdpage/phlmbio.html
  By Jordi Pujol Nadal. Greenwich Village native and the Beat Queen of Venice, CA, poet Long and her late husband, poet John Thomas, helped create the Los Angeles poetry scene.

• Poets Charles Plymell, Roxie Powell

  http://www.vlib.us/beats/plymellroxie.html
  Photograph of Beat writers and poets Plymell and Powell, Cherry Valley, NY, 2009; photograph by videographer Laki Vazakas.

• PoLarity eMagazine

  http://poetrybay.com/poembeat/
  New American Bohemian Literature, George Wallace, editor. Fiction, photographs, Beat events

• Remembering William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg

  http://www.vlib.us/beats/mccrary.html
  Personal observations by poet Jim McCrary, a longtime friend of Burroughs, and his office manager for ten years.

• Robert Cass, New Orleans Beat Legend

  http://www.alaronowitz.com/column75k.html
  Dennis Formento interviews Robert Cass, New Orleans' oldest living beatnik, 1999. Cass published "Climax: A Creative Review in the Jazz Spirit" in 1955 and 1956 from the bar, A Quarterite Place, 733 Bourbon St. It was among the earliest of the Beat literature.

• Roxie Powell — Wild Whispers

  http://www.synaesthesia.net/?cat=67
  Robert Peters said of Powell’s first chapbook, "anyone anxious for an original experience in poetry will love Dreams of Straw." Allen Ginsberg paid for a second printing of the book. From Kansas, friend of Charley Plymell and Dave Haselwood.

• Roxie Powell, Kansas Collateral

  http://www.vlib.us/beats/roxiepowell/
  Poems by Beat related poet published in 1978 by CV Editions, Cherry Valley, NY, edited by poet Charley Plymell. Powell grew up in western Kansas, and started writing in the 1940s. He was part of the San Francisco scene in the early 1960s.

• Ruined Time: The 1950s and the Beat

  http://www.ruinedtime.com/
  Memoir of the Great Depression, World War II, and the 1950s with an uniquely Beat outlook.

• Salon Books | Breaking up with the Beats

  http://www.salon.com/1999/04/12/beats/
  Kerouac and company were David Gates' first literary loves -- but he had to get off their road.

• San Francisco Renaissance

  http://www.blacklistedjournalist.com/column26.html
  6 Poets at 6 Gallery by Al Aronowitz., the late godfather of rock journalism

• Semiology: Beats Vs. Beatniks In 1950s American Culture

  http://rant.bizland.com/beatnik.html
  by Grant L. Allen. Transition from beat idea to beatnik myth distorted the original almost beyond recognition.

• Six Poets at Six Gallery

  http://www.mundomundo.com/6-poets.html
  October 7, 1955 reading with Michael McClure, Philip Lamantia, Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, Phil Whalen, Kenneth Rexroth, San Francisco. First reading of "Howl" by Ginsberg. Start of modern oral poetry tradition.

• Some Notes on Cyberliths

  http://www.bigbridge.org/issue6/cyberliths.htm
  by Bruce Harris; on Beat artist Robert LaVigne's Cyberliths, drawings inspired by the Rosette Stone. LaVigne introduced Allen Ginsberg to Peter Orlovsky.

• Stuart Perkoff / Philomene Long - Death Bed Conversation

  http://www.emptymirrorbooks.com/thirdpage/withperkoff.html
  A central figure in the Venice Beat scene, poet Perkoff died at age 44 on June 24, 1974. Beat Poet Long was his lover.

• Taylor Mead - The Bowery Poetry Club - Part I

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rl11V7PI7JA
  YouTube - Filmed December 22, 2006, at the Bowery Poetry Club, NYC, where Beat poet and artist Mead performed until his death May 8, 2013.

• The 3rd Page

  http://www.emptymirrorbooks.com/thirdpage/escape.html
  Journal of Ongrowing Natures, edited by Hammond Guthrie, author of AsEverWas: Memoirs of a Beat Survivor.

• The Beat Generation of Greenwich Village and Beyond

  http://selvedgeyard.com/2009/03/12/the-beat-generation-of-greenwich-village-and-beyond/
  A photographic essay of Beat Generation landmarks in New York City.

• The Beat Page

  http://www.rooknet.net/beatpage/
  Biographies, photos and included works of Beat Generation writers.

• The Beats and Sixties Counterculture

  http://www.beatdom.com/?p=672
  A guide to the social contexts of the Fifties so to be able to understand why the Beats’ work was considered to be so significant, by Jed Skinner

• The birth of the beatnik

  http://www.chron.com/life/article/This-Is-the-Beat-Generation-by-James-Campbell-2075780.php
  By James Campbell, author of This is the Beat Generation, 1999. Excellent background to the naming of the beats by Herb Caen - post Sputnik.

• The Poetry Center and American Poetry Archives

  http://poetry.sfsu.edu/
  San Francisco State University; artist biographies and MP3 audio files; founded in 1954 on the basis of a gift by W.H. Auden.

• The Wichita Group

  http://www.vlib.us/beats/wichitagroup.html
  by James Johnson; on the Wichita Vortex, including Michael McClure, Bruce Conner, and David Haselwood

• The Wild Bohemian Home Page

  http://wild-bohemian.com/
  Colin Pringle's articles and directory on wild cats and chicks, Hippies, the Beat Generation, Bohemian bands, outlaw bikers.

• This is the Beat Generation

  http://www.rooknet.net/beatpage/writers/holmes.html
  by John Clellon Holmes, A 26-year-old defines his times, New York Times Magazine, Nov. 16, 1952. Very early essay on Beats; Holmes also wrote novel "Go" in 1952, the first book to cover Kerouac, Ginsberg, et al.

• Timothy Leary on William Burroughs, Brion Gysin, and Bou Saada

  http://realitystudio.org/interviews/timothy-leary-on-william-burroughs-brion-gysin-and-bou-saada/
  interview, Pataphysics, October 17, 1989. On beats in Algiers, Tangiers, cut-ups, and the "Dream Machine." From INTO-GAL, 2006

• Unspeakable Visions: The Beat Generation and The Bohemian Dialectic

  http://www.sfu.ca/~hayward/UnspeakableVisions/page1.html
  by Michael Haywood. 1991 paper on the history of the Beat writers in print, from their early stirrings in the underground press, through to their publication by mainstream publishers.

• Wikipedia: Beat Generation

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beat_Generation
  Detailed article lists principal writers in New York, San Francisco and elsewhere, and explains links to music, visual arts, and drug and alcohol use. With section on anti-Beats such as Norman Podhoretz.

• William Burroughs & Allen Ginsberg: PJs photograph

  http://www.vlib.us/beats/burroughsginsberg.html
  Morning in Burroughs' house, with Beat founders in old fashion cotton pajamas. 1984, by Pat Elliott, Lawrence, KS

• William Burroughs Funeral Banquet

  http://www.vlib.us/beats/burroughsfuneral.html
  by George Laughead. Events of August 1997 following Beat writer Burroughs death at age 83. Photographs.

• William Burroughs interviewed by Allen Ginsberg and Gregory Corso

  http://realitystudio.org/interviews/1961-interview-with-william-s-burroughs-by-gregory-corso-and-allen-ginsberg/
  1961 free-form discussion by three of the Beat Generation literary leaders.

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