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Allen Ginsberg, “Howl,” Original Draft Facsimiles, Middlesex, England, (August 30^th, 1955)

Throughout the transcript, a series of annotations reveal a genuine insight to Ginsberg’s style and technique. The title, scripted in legible red ink at the top “Howl for Carl Solomon,” portrays the influence Solomon had on Ginsberg’s timeless poem. Annotated side notes like “drained of brilliance” and “hysterical” demonstrate the writer’s literary approach. Insight on Ginsberg’s method of composing poem makes it an indelible turning point for American freedom of speech. Ginsberg’s touches on sensitive social matter, making the original draft facsimile a footstep into the future of the counter culture movement. The iconic line “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness,” conveys an intimacy between Ginsberg and the poem – ironically, revealing himself as mad as a Beat generation icon. Ginsberg’s persona – a non-conformist and forward thinker – comes out in his writing of topics of post-war cynicism, sexual discovery, and racial discrepancies that reveal societies flaws.

Diane Di Prima, This Kind of Bird Flies Backward, (New York, NY: Totem Press, 1958). J.M. Edelstein Collection.

Diane Di Prima, Dinners and Nightmares, (New York, NY: Corinth Books, 1961). Raymond Danowski Poetry Library.

Diane Di Prima, Selected Poems, 1956-1975 , (Plainfield, VT : North Atlantic Books, 1975). Raymond Danowski Poetry Library.

The above images are a depiction of several iterations of “Love Poems” – a work written by the Beat poet, Diane Di Prima. The first edition of “Love Poems” is found in Di Prima’s first book. The next rendition is titled “More or Less Love Poems” which is composed of new work and different poems from Di Prima’s first book. The final edition combines the work from the previous two books and rearranges it on the page.

This display of Di Prima’s different renditions of this poem show her tendency toward reproduction with modification, as opposed to revision. Instead of returning to her old work to alter it, she keeps the text the same, but relabels, rearranges and repurposes the work. This modification allows her poetry to stay the same in content, but shows a shift in her point of view. She preserves her past self, but subtly embeds her work with the perspective of her present without heavy editing.

This revision ideology is reflected in Jack Kerouac’s “Essentials of Spontaneous Prose.”

Bryce Charles Porter, photographer, Alene Lee, (New York, NY). Jack Sampas Collection of Jack Kerouac Material c. 1900-2005.

Alene Lee, the woman in this photo, was depicted as Mardou Fox in Jack Kerouac’s 1958 novelization of his affair with a black woman, The Subtarraneans.  The couple met while Alene was working as a typist for William Burroughs and Allen Ginsburg.  Though the book was criticized for its surface-level and inaccurate representations of black people and culture, it’s the subject from which Alene Lee is most remembered.

This is one of the few public photos of Alene.  She was a respected colleague of the Beats, but was written off as a “black girl groupie”.  Because of her unwillingness to sensationalize her relationships to the Beats and accept mistreatment as a black woman, she was forced into a self-preservational anonymity.  She belongs in the history of the Beats and her erasure offers a critique on the (mis)representation of marginalized people throughout history and today.

Laura Ulewicz, untitled poem (“[“Houses beyond decay”]”) in a sequence on Locke, CA, undated. Laura Ulewicz papers, 1951-2010.

In 1973, Laura Ulewicz left the San Francisco counterculture scene and relocated to the small Chinese-American town of Locke, California. As time went on, Locke began to deteriorate; the community was threatened with the possibility of being developed into a tourist destination. During this time, Ulewicz crafted a handful of poems to preserve the stories of the community — stories of people who left China to chase the American dream. This particular poem, untitled and seemingly unpublished, sheds light on how the town of Locke was no longer able to provide a chance at the American dream for the new generation. This poem, along with the rest of the sequence, shows the sad portrait of an unnoticed town; Ulewicz, similarly, is an unnoticed figure of the Beat generation. Hopefully the presence of marginalized communities — like the women of the Beat generation and immigrant towns — will be acknowledged as research continues.

Leonard Cohen, The Spice Box of Earth, (New York, NY: Viking, 1965).

Leonard Cohen’s The Spice Box of Earth is a collection of his poetry that captures the spirituality of the Beat generation. Cohen focuses mainly on religious themes: he writes about priests, angels, and the soul. In addition, he draws inspiration from books of the Bible, using biblical themes and characters in his poetry. Cohen was a practicing Jew throughout his life, and it is clear that his religious upbringing and beliefs informed his writing.

Because of Cohen’s focus on religious themes, it is evident that there is a connection between his poetry and Kerouac’s understanding of “beat” as “beatific”, indicating a familiarity with and understanding of the religious and spiritual side of Beat philosophy. Several Beat poets explore religious imagery in their poetry; words like “holy” and “soul” are littered throughout the poetry and prose of many Beat authors. The poems in The Spice Box of Earth capture an essential aspect of Beat writing and philosophy in channeling the spiritual yearning characteristic of the Beat generation.

Neal Cassady, “Joan Anderson Letter,” c. 1950. Jack Kerouac Collection, 1950-1978.

In December 1950, Jack Kerouac received a 16,000 word letter that would utterly revolutionize his approach to narrative prose. After reading Neal Cassady’s rambling, amphetamine-fueled confession detailing everything from his first orgasm to a girlfriend’s attempted suicide, Kerouac abruptly realized the profound importance of rigorous honesty and naked vulnerability in effective storytelling. “What a man most wishes to hide, revise, and un-say is precisely what Literature is waiting and bleeding for,” Kerouac would later insist.

By providing a blueprint for the confessional, unregulated style that so thoroughly captivated his reader, Cassady’s correspondence laid the foundation for Kerouac’s spontaneous prose method and thus changed the course of Beat literature forever. If Kerouac’s work has ever felt like an intimate confessional for your eyes only, thank Neal Cassady and the letter that revealed everything and concealed nothing. It’s a story about a girlfriend that created Beat literature as it is known today.

Neal Cassady, “Joan Anderson letter”, Correspondence to Jack Kerouac. December 17, 1950. Jack Kerouac Collection, 1950-1978.

Said to have been dropped over the side of a houseboat and thought to be lost for good, Cassady’s letter to Kerouac was discovered in 2014 in an attic. The letter, detailing Cassady’s relationship with the titular Joan Anderson, is heralded as supremely influential for the Beats; Kerouac said the prose style inspired his fast-paced writing in On The Road. The last page of the document demonstrates Cassady’s sprawling style as he finishes the letter in pen, writing around the margins of the paper. It also, though, provides insight into the relationship of the two men, as Cassady concludes with wishes for happy holidays for Kerouac, his wife, and his mother, and by sending his love to all of them. While depictions of the Cassady/Kerouac dynamic often lead us to believe Kerouac was chasing and ultimately abandoned by Cassady, this demonstrates a very clear affection between the two, providing a more rounded view of the relationship.

Ted Joans, “Bird and the Beats,” Coda Magazine (1981). Michael Fabre Archives of African American Arts and Letters, Unprocessed Additions.

Ted Joans was a prominent black figure of the Beat Generation. Joans considered himself a former student of “Hip,” crediting his education to the likes of jazz musicians, such as Charles “Bird” Parker, and further highlighting the connection between jazz, the Beats, and the subsequent hipsters. In this direct address to the readers of Coda, Joans reflects on his experience as one of the original hipsters in New York, recalling, “There were black cats on the scene then that should have been given PhD’s in Hipsterism. These men (and women) knew more about the how/who/what/where/why/and when of the human condition than all the four square walled university professors on earth…” This retrospective on the entire movement pays homage to the Beat Generation, and educates readers about the foundations of the contemporary hipster.

Jack Kerouac, “Correspondence to Neal Cassady.” c. 1948. Sampas Collection of Jack Kerouac Material, 1900-2005.

Jack Kerouac met Neal Cassady during his time as a student at Columbia University. Although Cassady did not attend the school, the two quickly became close friends, a bond fueled by a shared passion for freedom and exploration of the unknown. Although they criss-crossed in and out of each other’s lives for the next several decades, they kept in touch through letters, one of which is displayed here.

Written in 1948, it is an intimate account of Kerouac’s dreams for his future and his excitement to realize them with Cassady as his partner in crime. The topic of the letter bounces around from page to page, switching rapidly from a half-baked plan to buy a ranch to expressions of admiration and love. “There is nothing clearer in my mind than my desire to see you again,” Kerouac writes. The two were never publicly anything more than friends, but the language of this letter is a testament to the kind of outsider relationships that the Beat Movement embraced, and the extent to which Neal truly was Jack’s greatest muse.