By: Mark Rojales Chelsea Lu JR Lim Rachael Bautista THE BEAT MOVEMENT Beat Movement: Started in the 1940s around New York City and the west coast During the 1950s, 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 Allusion Compare and contrast Guilt power Personification Repetition Imagery Alliteration Assonance Symbolism 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) BIOGRAPHY 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. 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 book- publishing 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 BIOGRAPHY 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 lightshockingSynthesizer Gregory Corso was a key member of the Beat movement; a group of convention- breaking writers who were the ones responsible for many social and political change that transformed the United States in the 1960s. Born on March 26, January 17, 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 BIOGRAPHY: 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! Allen Ginsberg, born in Newark, N.J., June 3, 1926, is an American poet and leading apostle of the beat generation. 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. 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.Beat movement Notable Works: 1)Howl 2)Kaddish 3)Reality Sandwiches 4)Planet News 5)Five A.M. BIOGRAPHY: 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 Ferlinghettis 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 lightshockingSynthesizer 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! 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 #3 In the vast moment of finding ones self lost in a pit of consuming thoughts, Allen Ginsbergs 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 Ginsbergs early morning thoughts. 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 Snyders 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. WRITING PROMPT #4 RESOURCES: QUIZ 1.Name one of Gregory Crosos 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 1940s? 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