JOHN PALLESCO, KACIELYN BAGORIO, JOVETTEE GAMBAN, AND STEPHANIE TAP

The Beats

Beat Generation

Famous Authors:

Allen Ginsberg

Gregory Corso

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Gary Snyder

Jack Kerouac

With the reappraisal of the conservative and conventional structures of society after World War II the beat generation emerged as a counterculture, opposing materialism and experimenting with sexuality and drugs. The writers wanted to defy social conformity and literary tradition by creating bold and expressive literature that offset the twentieth century modernist style. The writers were influenced by romanticism, modernism, French realism, and Buddhism.

Techniques and Themes

Techniques: Allusion Imagery Personification Symbolism Syntax

Themes: Freedom Opposition to “the man” Drugs Sexuality

Allen Ginsberg

Notable Works:

1)Howl

2)Kaddish

3)A Supermarket in California

4)Five A.M.

Allen Ginsberg, born June 3, 1926 in Newark, New Jersey.

He was admitted to Columbia University as a student and there he began close friendships with William S. Burroughs, Neal Cassady, and Jack Kerouac. - all became influential in the beat

generation. Died on April 5, 1997 in New

York City

A Supermarket in California

What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, forI walked down the sidestreets under the trees with a headacheself-conscious looking at the full moon. In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I wentinto the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations! What peaches and what penumbras! Whole familiesshopping at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives in theavocados, babies in the tomatoes!--and you, Garcia Lorca, whatwere you doing down by the watermelons?  I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber,poking among the meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the groceryboys. I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed thepork chops? What price bananas? Are you my Angel? I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of cansfollowing you, and followed in my imagination by the storedetective. We strode down the open corridors together in oursolitary fancy tasting artichokes, possessing every frozendelicacy, and never passing the cashier.  Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors close inan hour. Which way does your beard point tonight? (I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in thesupermarket and feel absurd.) Will we walk all night through solitary streets? Thetrees add shade to shade, lights out in the houses, we'll both belonely.  Will we stroll dreaming of the lost America of lovepast blue automobiles in driveways, home to our silent cottage? Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher,what America did you have when Charon quit poling his ferry andyou got out on a smoking bank and stood watching the boatdisappear on the black waters of Lethe?

Gregory Corso

Notable Works :

The Mad Yak

Marriage

I am 25

Destiny

Born on March 26, 1930 in New York City to a 16 years old mother She abandoned him as a child and he spent most of his childhood in orphanages and foster home.

At the age of 17 he was convicted of theft and was sent to Clinton State Prison for three year. There he began writing poetry. Known as the poets prison

The youngest of the inner circle of Beat Generation writers.

Died January 17, 2001 in Minnesota

The Mad Yak

I am watching them churn the last milk they'll ever get from me.They are waiting for me to die;They want to make buttons out of my bones.Where are my sisters and brothers?That tall monk there, loading my uncle, he has a new cap.And that idiot student of his -- I never saw that muffler before.Poor uncle, he lets them load him.How sad he is, how tired!I wonder what they'll do with his bones?And that beautiful tail!How many shoelaces will they make of that!

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Notable Works:

A Coney Island of the Mind

The Changing Light

Vast Confusion

Born March 24, 1919 in Yonkers New York is a poet and liberal activist.

After time in WWII, he enrolled at Columbia University where he earned a master’s degree in English literature.

In 1953, he and Peter Martian started City Lights Bookstore which eventually opened up to a publishing venture. Published mainly beat poetry Used as the meeting ground for the beat poets

in San Francisco. San Francisco named a street after him

in 1994 and was named the first Poet Laureate of San Francisco in 1998

Received the lifetime achievement award from the National Book Critics Circle in 2000.

The Changing Light

The changing light at San Francisco is none of your East Coast light none of your pearly light of Paris The light of San Francisco is a sea light an island light And the light of fog blanketing the hills drifting in at night through the Golden Gate to lie on the city at dawn And then the halcyon late mornings after the fog burns off and the sun paints white houses with the sea light of Greece with sharp clean shadows making the town look like it had just been painted   But the wind comes up at four o'clock sweeping the hills   And then the veil of light of early evening   And then another scrim when the new night fog floats in And in that vale of light the city drifts anchorless upon the ocean

Gary Snyder

Notable Works

Turtle Island The Real Work A Place in Space Mountains and Rivers Without End

Born May 8, 1930 in San Francisco, California is an American poet, environmental activist and lecturer.

Impoverished during childhood due to the great depression which opened the doors to his love for nature (grew up on a farm).

Was influenced by the Chinese and Japanese culture Which caused the beat movement to be influenced

by the Zen Buddhist Fights for peace, environmental awareness

and freedom from nuclear weaponry, and has never wavered in his devotion to these noble causes.

Pulitzer Prize for poetry(1975) Bollingen Prize for Poetry(1997) John Hay Award for Nature Writing (1997)

Resides in San Francisco, where he is still writing and giving speeches.

For All Ah to be alive

on a mid-September mornfording a streambarefoot, pants rolled up,holding boots, pack on,sunshine, ice in the shallows,northern rockies.

Rustle and shimmer of icy creek watersstones turn underfoot, small and hard as toescold nose drippingsinging insidecreek music, heart music,smell of sun on gravel.

I pledge allegiance

I pledge allegiance to the soilof Turtle Island,and to the beings who thereon dwellone ecosystemin diversityunder the sunWith joyful interpenetration for all.

 

AP Style Writing Prompts

Read the following poem “The Mad Yak” by Gregory Corso and write an essay in which you describe the speaker’s attitude. Using specific references to the text, show how the use of language reveals the speaker’s attitude.

Read the following poem “A Supermarket in California” by Allen Ginsberg and then write a well-organized essay in which you analyze poets use of language to convey mood and meaning of the poem.

Quiz

Describe the beat generation. Who wrote famous poems such as “Howl” and “Five A.M.? Who started a publishing venture known as City Lights,

which became the heart of the beat movement? What is a common theme in beat literature? Name one of Lawrence Ferlinghetti famous poems. Who coined the term “Beat Generation?”

Resources

http://www.online-literature.com/periods/beat.php

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americannovel/timeline/beatgeneration.html

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5646

http://www.poemhunter.com/allen-ginsberg/biography/

http://www.poemhunter.com/gregory-corso/http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/gary-sny

derhttp://www.nndb.com/people/387/000104075/