the beatnicks definded
...a) and alcohol use reigned supreme. Drug addiction was not always a bad choice for some. Williams Burroughs (heavy hitter in the Beatnik realm) stated in a 1963 interview with Joseph Barry in Paris, “the whole experience of addiction was useful. For me. Like a war experience. For a writer.” (12). Burroughs had developed a severe dependence to heroin, and it was not until a treatment of apomorphine (a non-hazardous morphine derivative used to induce vomiting from heroin use) that he was cured. It was after the treatment that he was able to compose Naked Lunch, a compilation of Burroughs’ experiences on several lasting trips (lingo of the Beats used to describe events while under the influence). The minds of that generation were all buzzing with fury; the Second World War had ended with a bang, and most just wanted to go back to the “norm.” It was the Beats who just could not return to the “norm” when left alone. It was in their nature to experience the world, good and bad, and let all the colors of the rainbow cover the words and feelings from within. In a poem by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, “Pictures of the Gone World #21 [The world is a beautiful place],” the lines “Oh the world is a beautiful place to be born into if you don’t much mind a few dead minds in the higher places or a bomb or two now and then in your upturned faces or such other improprieties as our Name Brand society” truly showed the indifference explored and felt by these writers (19). Yes, we had won the war but that influential question is always in mind: “At what cost?” Music had always been an outlet for ideas and feelings and could be a release of built pressure. The music that played to their ears was Jazz, and the random spontaneous sounds fueled their writing styles. They had a certain way of mimicking the flow of the Jazz sounds into the written word. Like that of a song blown by a trumpet, meaning was left to the listener, or reader. The overwhelming need to unhinge the system and to force the promised society was now becoming a reality. Leaders of this new movement began to materialize, without wanting or knowing they had eroded the stereotypical “square.” Free thought had fled from the pedaled flower of the stone wall. The best illustration of what, why, and who the Beatniks were can be most powerfully summed with he who is revered among his peers: Mr. Jack Kerouac. His writing, at first glance, appears absurd, complex and confusing, but with further study of his work (or as he puts it, “craft is craft,” from his “Essentials of Spontaneous Prose”) the reader is shown a colorful streaming imagery of mind-speak or “interior monolog” (8,9). Here is a submission of my own work as an example of a Kerouac style prose. I followed strict direction in writing from Kerouac’s “Belief & Technique for Modern Prose,” an example of instruction, “24. No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language & knowledge” (9). Works of Fire Cool night sky waiting, noisy hustle below the games set to play out clearly; let the celebration begin—strike of match punk a yellow...