By:
Mark Rojales
Chelsea Lu
JR Lim
Rachael Bautista
THE BEAT MOVEMENT
•
Beat Movement:
•
Started in the 1940’s around New York City and the west coast
•
During the 1950’s, San Francisco was the heart of the movement
•
After WWII, many poets questioned politics and culture of the U.S
•
The purpose of beat poets were to change consciousness and defy conventional writing
•
Go against conformity and literary traditions
•
Hallucinogenic drugs were used to achieve higher consciousness plus meditation and
Eastern religion
•
Buddhism was crucial to their movement
POETIC THEMES AND
TECHNIQUES
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•
•
•
•
•
•
•
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Allusion
Compare and contrast
Guilt power
Personification
Repetition
Imagery
Alliteration
Assonance
Symbolism
BIOGRAPHY
•
Born on May 8, 1930 and still currently
living till this day, Gary Snyder had not
just an impact on the Beat Movement
but is also known to have other roles
within literature such as being an
essayist, lecturer, and even an
environmental activist.
•
He is able to translate foreign
languages literatures such as
Japanese Poems to English.
•
Snyder currently lives in San
Francisco and is continuing making
more poems.
NOTEABLE WORKS:
1. Turtle Island (1975)
2. The Real Work (1980)
3. Mountains and Rivers
4. Without End (1996)
CIVILIZATION
• Civilization: Those are the people who do complicated things.
they'll grab us by the thousands and put us to work. World's
going to hell, with all these villages and trails. Wild duck flocks
aren't what they used to be. Aurochs grow rare. Fetch me my
feathers and amber * A small cricket on the typescript page of
"Kyoto born in spring song" grooms himself in time with The
Well-Tempered Clavier. I quit typing and watch him through a
glass. How well articulated! How neat! Nobody understands the
ANIMAL KINGDOM. * When creeks are full The poems flow
When creeks are down We heap stones.
BIOGRAPHY
•
During WWII, he served in the US Naval
Reserve and then was sent to Nagasaki
after it was bombed
•
In 1953, he started a magazine called
City Lights with Peter Martin
•
Both eventually opened the City Lights
Book Shop in San Francisco and a bookpublishing venture known as City Lights
which became the heart of the beat
movement
•
In 1994, San Francisco named a street in
his honor and was also named the first
Poet Laureate of San Francisco in 1998
•
In 2000, he received the lifetime
achievement award from the National
Book Critics Circle
• Notable Works:
1. Coney Island of the Mind
(1958)
2. The Secret Meaning of
Things (1969)
3. Pictures of the Gone World
(1955)
4. Vast Confusion
Long long I lay in the sands
Sounds of trains in the surf
in subways of the sea
And an even greater undersound
of a vast confusion in the universe
a rumbling and a roaring
as of some enormous creature turning
under sea and earth
a billion sotto voices murmuring
a vast muttering
a swelling stuttering
in ocean's speakers
world's voice-box heard with ear to sand
a shocked echoing
a shocking shouting
of all life's voices lost in night
And the tape of it
someow running backwards now
through the Moog Synthesizer of time
Chaos unscrambled
back to the first
harmonies
And the first light
BIOGRAPHY:
•
•
•
•
Gregory Corso was a key member of the
Beat movement; a group of conventionbreaking writers who were the ones
responsible for many social and political
change that transformed the United
States in the 1960s.
Born on March 26, 1930- January 17,
2001. The youngest of the inner circle of
Beat Generation writers.
His mother was 16 years old when he
was delivered, abandoned the family a
year later and returned to Italy. Corso
spent most of his childhood years in
orphanages and foster homes.
At the age of 17 he was convicted of theft
and was sent to Clinton State Prison for
three year. There he read from the prison
library and began writing poetry.
Noticable Works:
1. Destiny
2. Last Night I Drove A Car
3. I Held A Shelley Manuscript
4. I Am 25
5. The Mad Yak
THE MAD YAK BY: GREGORY CORSO
I am watching them churn the last milk they'll ever get from me.
They are waiting for me to die;
They want to make buttons out of my bones.
Where are my sisters and brothers?
That tall monk there, loading my uncle, he has a new cap.
And that idiot student of his-I never saw that muffler before.
Poor uncle, he lets them load him.
How sad he is, how tired!
I wonder what they'll do with his bones?
And that beautiful tail!
How many shoelaces will they make of that!
BIOGRAPHY:
•
•
•
Allen Ginsberg, born in Newark, N.J.,
June 3, 1926, is an American poet and
leading apostle of the beat generation.
Notable Works:
Ginsberg sees himself as a part of the
prophetic tradition in poetry begun by
William Blake and continued by Walt
Whitman. He names his contemporary
influences as William Carlos Williams
and his friend Jack Kerouac.
2) Kaddish
He was admitted to Columbia
University, and as a student there in
the 1940s, he began close friendships
with William S. Burroughs, Neal
Cassady, and Jack Kerouac, all of
whom later became leading figures of
the Beat movement.
1) Howl
3) Reality Sandwiches
4) Planet News
5) Five A.M.
Elan that lifts me above the clouds
into pure space, timeless, yea eternal
Breath transmuted into words
Transmuted back to breath
in one hundred two hundred years
nearly Immortal, Sappho's 26 centuries
of cadenced breathing -- beyond time, clocks,
empires, bodies, cars,
chariots, rocket ships skyscrapers, Nation
empires
brass walls, polished marble, Inca Artwork
of the mind -- but where's it come from?
Inspiration? The muses drawing breath for
you? God?
Nah, don't believe it, you'll get entangled in
Heaven or Hell --
Guilt power, that makes the heart beat wake
all night
flooding mind with space, echoing through
future cities, Megalopolis or
Cretan village, Zeus' birth cave Lassithi
Plains -- Otsego County
farmhouse, Kansas front porch?
Buddha's a help, promises ordinary mind no
nirvana -coffee, alcohol, cocaine, mushrooms,
marijuana, laughing gas?
Nope, too heavy for this lightness lifts the
brain into blue sky
at May dawn when birds start singing on East
12th street -Where does it come from, where does it go
forever?
Writing Prompt #1
•
During WWII, Lawrence Ferlinghetti served for the U.S Naval Reserve and was then sent to
Nagasaki after it was Bombed. In Ferlinghetti’s “A Vast Confusion” analyze how his personal life
experience relates to this poem.
Long long I lay in the sands
Sounds of trains in the surf
in subways of the sea
And an even greater undersound
of a vast confusion in the universe
a rumbling and a roaring
as of some enormous creature turning
under sea and earth
a billion sotto voices murmuring
a vast muttering
a swelling stuttering
in ocean's speakers
world's voice-box heard with ear to sand
a shocked echoing
a shocking shouting
of all life's voices lost in night
And the tape of it
someow running backwards now
through the Moog Synthesizer of time
Chaos unscrambled
back to the first
harmonies
And the first light
WRITING PROMPT #2
•
The Following prompt is by beats poet Gregory Corso. Read the poem thoroughly. Then
write a well-written essay that analyzes how the poet compares the Yak and the uncle by
using literary devices.
I am watching them churn the last milk they'll ever get from me.
They are waiting for me to die;
They want to make buttons out of my bones.
Where are my sisters and brothers?
That tall monk there, loading my uncle, he has a new cap.
And that idiot student of his-I never saw that muffler before.
Poor uncle, he lets them load him.
How sad he is, how tired!
I wonder what they'll do with his bones?
And that beautiful tail!
How many shoelaces will they make of that!
WRITING PROMPT #3
•
In the vast moment of finding ones self lost in a pit of consuming thoughts, Allen Ginsberg’s poem Five
A.M. finds himself in this predicament. After reading the poem, analyze how his thoughts compare to
yours if you were in his place. What differences do you find and in your own words what do you think is
the meaning behind Ginsberg’s early morning thoughts.
Elan that lifts me above the clouds
into pure space, timeless, yea eternal
Breath transmuted into words
Transmuted back to breath
in one hundred two hundred years
nearly Immortal, Sappho's 26 centuries
of cadenced breathing -- beyond time,
clocks, empires, bodies, cars,
chariots, rocket ships skyscrapers, Nation
empires
brass walls, polished marble, Inca Artwork
of the mind -- but where's it come from?
Inspiration? The muses drawing breath for
you? God?
Nah, don't believe it, you'll get entangled in
Heaven or Hell --
Guilt power, that makes the heart beat
wake all night
flooding mind with space, echoing through
future cities, Megalopolis or
Cretan village, Zeus' birth cave Lassithi
Plains -- Otsego County
farmhouse, Kansas front porch?
Buddha's a help, promises ordinary mind no
nirvana -coffee, alcohol, cocaine, mushrooms,
marijuana, laughing gas?
Nope, too heavy for this lightness lifts the
brain into blue sky
at May dawn when birds start singing on
East 12th street -Where does it come from, where does it go
forever?
WRITING PROMPT #4
• The poem Civilization by
Gary Snyder emphasizes
and shows recognition on
nature and the
environment. Explain how
the emphasis on nature
and the environment
relates to Gary Snyder’s life
by writing an essay.
•
Those are the people who do
complicated things. they'll grab us by
the thousands and put us to work.
World's going to hell, with all these
villages and trails. Wild duck flocks
aren't what they used to be. Aurochs
grow rare. Fetch me my feathers and
amber * A small cricket on the
typescript page of "Kyoto born in
spring song" grooms himself in time
with The Well-Tempered Clavier. I quit
typing and watch him through a glass.
How well articulated! How neat!
Nobody understands the ANIMAL
KINGDOM. * When creeks are full The
poems flow When creeks are down We
heap stones.
RESOURCES:
•
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-vast-confusion/
•
http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/367
•
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-mad-yak/
•
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/gregory-corso
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http://poemhunter.com/allen-ginsberg/
•
http://poemhunter.com/poem/five-a-m/
•
www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/8
•
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Allen_Ginsberg#Style_and_technique
•
http://slaughterhousevonnegut.blogspot.com
•
http://www.wenaus.com/poetry/gs-civil.html
•
http://www.garysnyder.bplaced.net/Gesamtseite.htm
QUIZ
1. Name one of Gregory Croso’s famous poems.
2. What was Corso convicted with at the age of 17?
3. What city named a street after Lawrence Ferlinghetti?
4. What was the name of the first book shop Ferlinghetti started?
5. What tradition does Ginsberg see himself a part of?
6. What college was Ginsberg admitted into during the 1940’s?
7. Where does Snyder currently live?
8. What types of languages through poems is Snyder able to translate into English?
ANSWERS
1. The Mad Yak, Destiny, Last Night I Drove A Car, I Held A Shelley Manuscript, I Am 25
2. Corso was convicted of theft.
3. San Francisco
4. City Lights
5. Prophetic Tradition
6. Columbia
7. San Francisco
8. Japanese