San Francisco Public Library

The best minds of my generation, a literary history of the Beats, Allen Ginsberg ; with a foreword by Anne Waldman ; edited by Bill Morgan

eng

Includes bibliographical references

no index present

non fiction

The best minds of my generation

bibliography

960838463

Allen Ginsberg ; with a foreword by Anne Waldman ; edited by Bill Morgan

a literary history of the Beats

"In the summer of 1977, Allen Ginsberg decided it was time to teach a course on the literary history of the Beat Generation. This was twenty years after the publication of his landmark poem "Howl," and Jack Kerouac's seminal book On the Road. Through the creation of this course, which he ended up teaching five times, first at the Naropa Institute and later at Brooklyn College, Ginsberg saw an opportunity to make a record of the history of Beat Literature. Compiled and edited by renowned Beat scholar Bill Morgan, and with an introduction by Anne Waldman, The Best Minds of My Generation presents the lectures in edited form, complete with notes, and paints a portrait of the Beats as Ginsberg knew them: friends, confidantes, literary mentors, and fellow revolutionaries. Ginsberg was seminal to the creation of a public perception of Beat writers and knew all of the major figures personally, making him uniquely qualified to be the historian of the movement. In The Best Minds of My Generation, Ginsberg shares anecdotes of meeting Kerouac, Burroughs, and other writers for the first time, explains his own poetics, elucidates the importance of music to Beat writing, discusses visual influences and the cut-up method, and paints a portrait of a group who were leading a literary revolution. For academics and Beat neophytes alike, The Best Minds of My Generation is a personal and yet critical look at one of the most important literary movements of the twentieth century"--, Provided by publisher

Foreword / by Anne Waldman -- Editor's preface -- A definition of the Beat Generation / by Allen Ginsberg -- 1. Course overview -- 2. Kerouac's "Origins of the Beat Generation" -- 3. Reading list -- 4. Visions -- 5. Jazz, bebop, and music -- 6. Music, Kerouac, Wyse, and Newman -- 7. Times Square and the 1940s -- 8. Carr, Ginsberg, and Kerouac at Columbia -- 9. Kerouac, Columbia, and Vanity of Duluoz -- 10. Lucian Carr's influence on Kerouac -- 11. Kerouac and Vanity of Duluoz, part 2 -- 12. Meeting Burroughs and Ginsberg's suspension from Columbia -- 13. Kerouac and The Town and the City -- 14. Kerouac and Visions of Cody, part 1 -- 15. Kerouac, Cassady, and Visions of Cody, part 2 -- 16. Kerouac in old age -- 17. Burroughs's first writings and "Twilight's Last Gleamings" -- 18. Burroughs, Kerouac, and And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks -- 19. Burroughs, Joan Burroughs, and Junkie -- 20. Burroughs and Korzybski -- 21. Burroughs and the visual -- 22. Burroughs and The Yage Letters -- 23. Burroughs and Queer -- 24. Burroughs and Naked Lunch -- 25. Burroughs and the cut-up method -- 26. Burroughs and The Ticket That Exploded -- 27. Neal Cassady and As Ever -- 28. Kerouac and the "Essentials of Spontaneous Prose" -- 29. Kerouac and On the Road -- 30. Kerouac and The Subterraneans -- 31. Jack Kerouac and fame -- 32. Kerouac, sketching, and method -- 33. Corso and The Vestal Lady on Brattle -- 34. Corso and Gasoline and Other Poems -- 35. Corso and The Birthday of Death -- 36. Corso and "Bomb" -- 37. Corso and "Power" -- 38. Corso and Herald of the Autochthonic Spirit -- 39. Ginsberg's early writings -- 40. Ginsberg and William Carlos Williams -- 41. Ginsberg and the "The Green Automobile" -- 42. Ginsberg and "Howl" -- 43. Ginsberg, "Howl," and Christopher Smart -- 44. Ginsberg and Cézanne -- 45. Ginsberg and the San Francisco renaissance -- 46. John Clellon Holmes -- 47. Peter Orlovsky -- 48. Carl Solomon -- 49. Kerouac's "Belief and Technique For Modern Prose" -- Works cited within the text -- Allen Ginsberg's reading list for "A Literary History of the Beat Generation"