The Beat Poets

Who Where the Beat Poets?

The Beat Poets, sometimes known as the Beat Generation or the Beat Movement, were a group of friends and poets who came to the limelight in the United States in the 1950s.

The most well known Beat Poets included William Burroughs, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and Gary Snyder. Kerouac was generally considered the leader of the group.

The Beat Poets tended to appear in a variety of places, from Greenwich Village in New York City to North Beach in San Francisco.

Beat Poet readings were often acompanied by jazz music.

Two books of poetry written by beat poets were at the center of obscenity trials. These trials led to the liberalizing of publishing laws in the U.S.

What Was the Beat Movement All About?

Ginsberg summed up the Beat Movement in the following points:

Spiritual liberation, sexual "revolution" or "liberation," i.e., gay liberation, somewhat catalyzing women's liberation, black liberation, Gray Panther activism.

Liberation of the word from censorship.

Demystification and/or decriminalization of some laws against marijuana and other drugs.

The evolution of rhythm and blues into rock and roll as a high art form, as evidenced by the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and other popular musicians influenced in the later fifties and sixties by Beat generation poets' and writers' works.

The spread of ecological consciousness, emphasized early on by Gary Snyder and Michael McClure, the notion of a "Fresh Planet."

Opposition to the military-industrial machine civilization, as emphasized in writings of Burroughs, Huncke, Ginsberg, and Kerouac.

Attention to what Kerouac called (after Spengler) a "second religiousness" developing within an advanced civilization.

Return to an appreciation of idiosyncrasy as against state regimentation.

Respect for land and indigenous peoples and creatures, as proclaimed by Kerouac in his slogan from On the Road 'The Earth is an Indian thing.'

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