The Beat Scene edited by Elias Wilentz

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Literature

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Film

Boy, what a diverse crowd of beats! There's a great poem by just about every major Beat poet, and an expurgated version of Seymour Krim's Making It! The photographs by Fred McDarrah make this a must-have primer for anyone who wants to get to know the Beats in a hurry. This is where I found my very favorite beat poem of all time, Boris Oblesow, which I discuss below. There's a brilliant excerpt from Diane Di Prima's Necrophilia:

in this New York, cell on monastic
cell, they sleep, we sleep; dreams
stream from the women's hair
the highbridge roach
walks
where the kitchen was;
ice claws the windows, wind
unlocks the door

how many nights shall I lay at your side
wearing pyjamas; using a separate
pillow

The poor hip bohemian lifestyle of my youth is in a poem like this. There's a wealth of obscure gems in here. Take this, from Kenneth Elmslie's Families in Iowa:

Dad's crewcut wig smelled of candies.
Son said hug me here, hi pal, voom gee good.
Then Niece fell from the glassed-in crisper
"beset by the junebug plague" - namely Uncle.

Some poet named Howard Hart contributed the goofy exuberance of a poem called Angel:

Angel
Who was walked with me
down nine hundred alleys
Who has re-adhered me
to the floating wounds of Christ

And then ends with this immortal line:

You scare me
Angel

Rain drops are not more simple
that clutter our eyes

There are two wonderful poems by Frank O'Hara (I should find some more stuff by him to read), Ted Joans, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Philip Lamantia ("Can I soup up her eyes in a can of star milk and shoot it for light?") a jam session poem with Jack Kerouac, Albert Saijo, and Lew Welch and this funny, ultra-nuerotic poem called Mother by Robert Nichols.

There are plenty of lousy poems in here also, including one so lousy I just have to point it out: The Castle by Joseph LeSeur. What a piece of crap!