Kristle Aranas, Roohil Hamid,
Marijo Fabunan & Kevin Malibiran
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Beat poetry was created during 1940s in both the east and west coast
New York City and San Francisco became the heart of the movement in 1950s
Poets were questioning mainstream politics and culture after world war II
The battle against social conformity and literary tradition was the main works of the
movement
Drugs were used by the poets to achieve higher consciousness
Buddhism was a main religion many of the poets studied
Themes
Disillusionment - At the end of World War II, Americans enjoyed a period of blissful
relief and charged-up happiness unlike any realized before. Although an odd mixture of
pride and sorrow over the dropping of atomic bombs left many people uneasy about the
path to victory, it did not waylay the renewed spirit of optimism and drive for prosperity
that swept the country at a feverish pace.
Spontaneity - While spontaneity is more an action than an idea, it has been called the
primary virtue and a oneword summary of the Beat Movement. This theme more than
any other speaks to the frenzied, intense emotional states that many Beats found both
exhilarating and necessary.
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Born in 1930, New York
Died in 2001
Youngest writer in “Beat Generation”
Went to Catholic parochial schools
“I’d spill jello and the foster home people would beat me,” he wasn’t treated well in foster
home
After his father was drafted, Corso became a homeless child on streets of Little Italy
Slept in subways during winter
Slept on rooftops during summer
Employee of Los Angeles Times
He made an appearance in Andy Warhol’s film Couch, who was an artist
Pressed for social and political changes
“awakener of youth” Allen Ginsberg called him
 Imprisoned for stealing (3 years)
- Was his inspiration, met classical writers
 “ Marriage”
 “Destiny”
 “I am 25”
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Born In May 8, 1930
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Born in San Francisco, California
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His family impoverished by the Great Depression
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Attended Reed College (1951), University of California, Berkley and Lincoln High School
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Served as a Faculty member in University of California and Davis and California Arts
Council
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American Poet Associated with Beats Movement and the San Francisco Renaissance
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Environmental Activist who was often described as 'laureate of Deep Ecology'
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His work reflects an immersion in both Buddhist spiritually and nature
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Snyder has translated literature into English from ancient Chinese and modern Japanese
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Lawrence Ferlinghetti later referred to Snyder as 'the Thoreau of the Beat Generation‘
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Snyder is a winner of a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
 “Turtle Island”
 “The Real Work”
 “A Place in Space”
 “Mountains and Rivers Without End”
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Birth/Death: June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997
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From New Wark New Jersey
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Published poet, high school teacher, and moderate Jewish socialist
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Mother was insane all his life because she though the whole world was plotting against
her
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Discovered Walt Whitman while in high school
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Went to Columbia University but later suspended because of young delinquent
philosophers that were obsessed with drugs, crime, sex, and literature
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Involved with time square junkies and experimented with Benzedrine and marijuana
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Craziness of his friends was a symbolic counterpoint because bizarreness was a style of
life
 “Howl”
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Helped to spark the San Francisco literary renaissance of the 1950s and “Beat” movement
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His City Lights bookstore provided a gathering place for the fertile talents of the San
Francisco literary renaissance
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Ferlinghetti was originally born as Lawrence Monsanto Ferling.
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He received his master’s degree from Columbia University in 1948, and finished his
doctoral degree at the University of Paris in 1951
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He was a painter and enlisted in the Navy
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In 1951, Ferlinghetti moved from Paris to San Francisco
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He and Peter Martin started a magazine called ‘City Lights’ and decided to open the City
Lights bookstore
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In 1955 he launched the City Lights Pocket Poets publishing venture
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The first volume he issued was a book of his own poems, Pictures of the Gone World
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His publication of Allen Ginsberg's Howl & Other Poems in 1956 led to his arrest on
obscenity charges and that trial drew national attention to the San Francisco Renaissance
and beat movement writers
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The trial ended when Judge Clayton W. Horn found Howl not obscene and acquitted him
in October 1957
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In 1958, his poem Coney Island Of The Mind sold well over a million copies making it his
most popular poem
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In 1962, Jack Kerouac wrote Ferlinghetti into the character “Lorenzo Monsanto” in his
autobiographical novel Big Suri
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In 1976, he published his other famous poem Just As I Used to Say
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Ferlinghetti is still working today as a poet and as a proprietor of City Lights
 “Starting from San Francisco”
 “ The Secret Meaning of Things”
 “Landscapes of Living and Dying”
 “These Are My Rivers”
A. Lawrence Ferlinghetti
B. Gary Snyder
C. Allan Ginsberg
D. Gregory Corso
A. Gregory Corso
B. Lawrence Ferlinghetti
C. Gary Snyder
D. Allen Ginsberg
True or False
A. Ordinary
B. Awesome
C. Bizarre
D. Reckless
 Read the following poem carefully. Then write an essay
discussing how the poet uses literary techniques to
reveal the speaker’s attitudes toward nature and the
artist’s task.
 Read the following poem carefully. Then write a wellorganized essay in which you analyze how the poet
uses language to describe the scene and to convey
mood and meaning.
A. Coney Island Of The Mind
B. Howl & Other Poems
C. Turtle Island
D. Destiny
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_Corso
 http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/409
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Snyder
 http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/Gary-Snyder
 http://www.beatmuseum.org/ginsberg/AllenGinsberg.htm
l
 http://www.notablebiographies.com/supp/SupplementCa-Fi/Ferlinghetti-Lawrence.html
 http://www.notablebiographies.com/supp/SupplementCa-Fi/Ferlinghetti-Lawrence.html