In the 1950’s a trio of writers came to be known as the leaders of The Beat Generation: Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and William S Burroughs. Their controversial writing explored drugs, alternative sexualities and a rejection of materialism. Their creative process shunned the established rules as they promoted instantaneous creativity, unpurged expression and cut and paste techniques of assembling stories.
The Beat Generation seem to be timelessly fashionable, their books are still being read, their poems constantly rediscovered by a new generation. Sixty years later their writing can still shock and raise eyebrows and their ideas continue to inspire and challenge our creativity.
Last year Ginsberg was back, looking better than ever chanelled by James Franco for the feature film Howl. This year a new documentary William S Burroughs: The Man Within tours the independent cinema circuit featuring newly discovered footage and comment from… well nearly everyone, while Kerouac’s writings have continued to inspire a host of authors including Richard Brautigan, Tom Robbins, Haruki Murakami and Thomas Pynchon.
William S Burroughs
Born in 1914, Burroughs was born into a wealthy Missouri family and studied Anthropology and English at Harvard. He worked a series of different jobs but in 1943, aged 29, met the younger Ginsberg and Kerouac in New York City.
Burroughs was a heroin addict for most of his life and this had a big effect on his largely autobiographical writing. In 1947 while hiding out in Mexico to avoid drug charges in the US, a drunken Burroughs accidentally shot his common-law wife Joan Volmer in the head. They had been re-enacting the story of William Tell.
Burroughs’ first novels were Junkie and Queer, but it’s his third novel Naked Lunch for which he is best remembered. A sprawling non-linear narrative that is semi-autobiographical, Naked Lunch is one of the last books without images to have been part of an obscenity trial in the USA.
Naked Lunch was turned into a film in 1991. Although most of the book is un-filmable, director David Cronenberg took elements from many of Burroughs’ other novels and real life to create the narrative.
Burroughs’ later work utilised a cut and paste technique where he would write material, cut it into single sentences and then rearrange it into a new piece of writing. His trilogy of novels The Soft Machine, The Ticket That Exploded and The Nova Express are all cut-up works.
In the 1980’s Burroughs regularly collaborated with popular musicians on a series of spoken word recordings with artists such as Nick Cave, Sonic Youth, Tom Waits and the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy. Burroughs makes appearance in Gus Van Sant’s Drugstore Cowboy, and one of his last appearances on film is the video for U2’s song Last Night on Earth. Burroughs died of a heart attack in 1997. He was 82.
Allen Ginsberg
Born in 1926, Ginsberg hailed from New Jersey. In his freshman year at college he met Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs. Both Ginsberg and Kerouac later moved to San Francisco for a period of time.
It was in San Francisco that Ginsberg first performed his epic poem Howl, a stream of consciousness take on American society, capitalism and homosexuality. Shortly after the poem was published it became the subject of an obscenity trial which is documented in the 2010 film of the same name. In the film Ginsberg is played by James Franco.
In San Francisco Ginsberg met Peter Orlovsky who became his life long partner, although the two had an open relationship. The couple travelled the world extensively spending time in Morocco, France and India, where Ginsberg explored his interest in eastern religions.
One of the techniques Ginsberg liked to use in his writing was combining two terms that were opposite or non-related, a strong word and a weak work. An example is the phrase ‘Hydrogen Jukebox’ which was used by composer Philip Glass in his song cycle based on Ginsberg’s lyrics.
Throughout his life Ginsberg was an activist for gay rights and against obscenity laws. His blatant depictions of homosexuality in his writing are acknowledged as a ground breaking change in literature as previously people had spoken through metaphor more than straight-out depictions. Ginsberg was supportive of other artists challenged by obscenity laws such as William S Burroughs and comedian Lenny Bruce.
In 1996 Ginsberg teamed up with Paul McCartney and Philip Glass to record a spoken work piece of music, The Ballad of the Skeletons. It was voted No 8 on Triple J’s Hottest 100 of the year. Ginsberg died in 1997, a few months before Burroughs. He was 70 years old.
Jack Kerouac
Kerouac is best known for his second novel On the Road, which was published in 1957. The largely autobiographical tale follows Kerouac as he travels across America and to Mexico visiting friends. While the names have been changed scholars have linked hundreds of references back to real life events such as Kerouac visiting Burroughs in Mexico. Like his contemporaries Kerouac’s writing also had positive depictions of minority groups, described homosexual acts and drug taking, but he did not become the subject of any obscenity trials.
Kerouac was inspired by jazz, drugs and poetry and wrote in a spontaneous style. The entire novel was written in three weeks as the author expelled a massive stream of consciousness out on his typewriter without worrying about spacing or paragraphs. For the original manuscript, Kerouac taped the pages together creating a massive scroll. He was allegedly high on Benzedrine for the entire three weeks.
Kerouac travelled widely through the United States and wrote constantly, always carrying a notebook. He often got depressed and became immersed in drugs and alcoholism. He wrote 10 more novels, and, after he developed an interest in Buddhism, also wrote some non-fiction.
At one stage in the 1950’s it was reported that a film version of On The Road was in the works with Marlon Brando set to star, but it never eventuated.
Kerouac documented his rules for spontaneous prose in a set of 30 instructions that include ‘You’re a genius all of the time’, ‘Accept loss is forever’ and ‘Be in love with yr life’. While many writers have found creative inspiration in Kerouac’s style others have been less complimentary. Truman Capote commented on Kerouac’s stream of consciousness style saying ‘that’s not writing, it’s typing’.
Kerouac passed away in 1969 aged only 47, a life time of heavy drinking taking its toll.
Beat Inspired
OUTinPerth asked two local writers to take on the styles of these literary legends – to create some writing truly unique from Perth.
Cut Up My Boyfriend
I want a boyfriend
hush me with your sighs
spin, spun dry
tears soak me, we repeat
golden syrup dribbling from the rims
You come inside me
day into night,drain away
I am the hurricane
I flush out
Your my hunk my torpedo pet
erections sprouting from your shorts
high above my bed-body
Spin me great entertainer, quick again
white soap foaming from your fingertips
in this pornographic sweat
pour me into bed with your arms
completely
Whimper and smile I pull myself
I tell you I want every piece of you
I consider your thoughts over breakfast…
I spin on top of you in the opposite direction
Strap a muzzle to my mouth as I spit
reading the text messages on my phone
look at me and grin. That grin
Golden head of hair illuminated by the sun
I think I could love you
Routine, walk out
each cock is the same
home to your dog, drive out
Then it ends
You eject dessert
Blood stains our chests as we kiss
Wet, saturated, pissed in and clinging to the mattress
I lone for nothing more…
Your head above me spins day into night
I fill to the neck and spray
I am the passenger in the opposite direction
plummeting into blackout
Concentric circles of fuck
Shut my eyes with your fingertips
my fantastic boyfriend
Dosh Luckwell
Mind Slogans For Perth
boomtown yr rats. boomtown prospectus maps. dust bowl yr vacant entertainment centre. foreshore redevelopment adventures. kings park the biggest in the world. marilyn monroe is a skyscraper. black swans emblem with kangaroo paws. elizabeth regina, visit before yr dead. rainbow a concerto. haul mineral up out of the dirt. narrow the bridges. doctor yr afternoon’s with prescribed blowing. brew sacred sites over sacred sites that natively grew. crane your neck. crane yr skyline. crane one thousand times the origami of folding buildings. BHP. i am the moon’s will i am, north of the bridge. swamplands. planet books & videos. bell’s tower. lisa’s scaffidi. pride parades annually to commemorate. age yr consent. boans warehouse. money street raves. fairday a flag around your sunburnt throat. abandon yr power station. urban yr sprawl. spot a supermodel & show her to the world. the heath ledges. states theatre. waapa value meals. drink beer on the sidewalk outside the flying scotsman. it’s 4our o’clock in the afternoon. peak hour traffic croons. electric leaded industrial fumes. hoon like there is no tomorrow. pine for the dead lover you thought you’d buried. backstage at connections nightclub. drag queens into james street. stop traffic in the name of us. dive bars & rubber rooms. pink. it was the colour we coloured our thursday with. in a loo. carousel. more lee. joondalup health campus the last place you wanna be sick. the prize of love is coming up roses. willy yr hancock. arcane bookshops were sites where we gathered. bring us yr 10en pound poms. bring us yr immigration. bring us together in the most isolated city in the world. bring us original thought & watch us become the centre of the world.
there are 3hree perths in the world but only 1ne of us. we are like los angeles except our angels aren’t so surgical. shaun’s tan is an academy award winning illustration. cloud streets with tim’s miles franklin. bloom algae tune with the swan river greening. indian the setting sun. dig up everything. watch us explode. we are bursting with potential. we are the best kept secret we haven’t yet shown everyone. are you ready for the underground to rise up into the setting sun?
Scott-Patrick Mitchell
Compiled by Graeme Watson
