The Routledge Handbook of International Beat Literature

2017 | Essays

There was a time when "the Beats" seemed a familiar, even fixed, pantheon: Kerouac, Ginsberg, Burroughs, Corso, Ferlinghetti, with Neil Cassady as Wild Boy and icon and Gary Snyder as Buddhist and eco-guru. But we have infinitely moved on. Scholarship has increasingly recognized the likes of Herbert Huncke, John Clellon Holmes, Michael McClure, Ray Bremser, Andy Clausen, David Meltzer, Jack Micheline, Kathy Acker, Harold Norse, Ed Sanders. Women's Beat authorship looks to established presences like Di Prima, Joanne Kyger, Anne Waldman, Ruth Weiss, Joyce Johnson, Janine Pommy Vega, Hettie Jones, and the hitherto "missing" figure of Elise Cowen. An African American Beat roster has won long overdue recognition - early Jones/Baraka, Ted Joans, Bob Kaufman, A.B. Spellman and the jazz virtuoso Archie Shepp. Part of the moving-on, moreover, has to do with the internationalization of Beat, its waves and echoes well beyond not only the Village, NYC and the West Coast but beyond America itself. In this respect a myriad of international vectors and seams come into play: Beat Europe to Beat Canada, Beat UK to Beat Australia, Beat France to Beat Japan.

This collection seeks to address these developments. What is it to speak of Beat writing in non-American countries? Readers unfamiliar with these "national" Beat pedigrees will be able to learn and engage with new sightings.

A. Robert Lee (Author)