Jack Kerouac
Born in the town of Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1922, Jack Kerouac was born to
Leo and Gabrielle Kerouac, a French-Canadian couple in which Jack didn t even learn to
speak English until age 6, when he was enrolled in school. Jack Kerouac would aspire to
be one of the most inspirational writers of his time and in American history. Although,
through his younger years, and while he was in school, he took a more athletic approach
to life. Jack played Football in high school and was among the popular crowd, despite his
shy personality. Like many young and disinterested students, he would ditch school at
least once a week, all while managing good grades in his classes. What was unusual
about his behavior was that he didn t ditch with his friends to go see girls or get into
trouble, he went to the town library where he read books by Shakespeare, Victor Hugo,
William Penn and scholarly books on Chess (he was on a chess team in school.)
Jack was born as a third child, but lived as a second when his brother died of
rheumatic fever at age nine. Jack was heartbroken. The real magic began when Jack
started writing. Influenced by those he read about as a child in the Lowell Town Library,
Jack wrote about his own life experiences and visions of his life. One could consider Jack
a philosophical writer, but most classified him as a poet of the beat generation. Jack s
The Essay on Middle School Education Life Don
#1: We talked about in class once about the education in the US compared to other countries actually made me wonder how well we were educated. It was shocking to me that these other places were learning things that here we don't even learn and that they were forced or required. When I read the "America Skips School" article at first I was really confused. When we started talking about it in class ...
poetry opened a new path for him. Jack had been writing novels such as Maggie Cassady
and Vanity in Duluoz and more famous ones such as The Town and The City and On The
Road. Jack wrote poetry which was later compiled into books before he died.
Jack Kerouac took risks and adventures, traveling with friend and writer, Neal
Cassady through the Southern Atlantic Ocean on a boat. Jack wrote about these
adventures and used them in his novels which were published when he returned home.
After Jack had formed his vision of America, which stemmed from both World War I and
World War II, as well as his friends and family, he continued to write his novels about
everyday life in America. He wrote about the wealthy people and the poverty stricken
streets during the stock Market crash. Jack also spent a lot of time in India where he
studied Buddhism, Kerouac took a strong liking to the religion and for a while considered
himself Buddhist. Jack began writing and experimenting with oriental writing styles which
later inspired him to write haiku poems. However, Jack didn t appreciate the laws
involved in haiku poems, so he took it upon himself to develop his own writing style called
literary Prose or beat writing. Jack described it as:
American Haiku (Copyright 1959)
“The American Haiku is not exactly the Japanese
Haiku. The Japanese Haiku is strictly disciplined
to seventeen syllables but since the language
structure is different I don’t think American
Haikus (short three-line poems intended to be
completely packed with Void of Whole) should worry
about syllables because American speech is
something again…bursting to pop.
Above all, a Haiku must be very simple and free
of all poetic trickery and make a little picture
and yet be as airy and graceful as a Vivaldi
Pastorella.”
Jack Kerouac
Here are some wonderful examples of Jack s American Haikus :
The Essay on Kerouac Jack Writing Beatniks
Martin, William 2-14-97 Charters, Ann. Kerouac: A Biography. New York: St. Martin s Press, 1959, 1994. 419 pp. Jack Kerouac Kerouac: A Biography, helps to explain how Jack Kerouac, the founder and most important member of the Beat movement, was influenced by the rapidly changing culture of the 1950 s, as well as, how Kerouac ignited a social and literal revolution in America, from which the ...
All day long
wearing a hat
that wasn’t on my head.
Early morning yellow flowers,
thinking about
the drunkards of Mexico.
Snap your finger
stop the world –
rain falls harder.
The bottoms of my shoes
are clean
from walking in the rain.
Glow worm
sleeping on this flower –
your light’s on.
Jack s ability to create such vivid pictures about such common things was amazing
and at the same time very hard to do. Kerouac didn t like limits on his writing, so he
made up his own style, he didn t realize how popular it would become until it happened.
Music styles such as pop and rock and many others stemmed from beat poetry, and artists
used Kerouac s style to write their lyrics and tunes.
This unusual writing style brought more attention to Jack and helped him realize
what creativity was all about, he knew he could embrace his own opinions and experiences
and shape them into works of art that brought the American Society to listen to him.
Another risk Jack took was stating his opinion about controversial things such as politics
and the flaws in the American government. He voiced his opinions through his work and
was able to gain the support of thousands of readers who shared his same ideas and
opinions on political issues, etc.
There are few people in the world who are talented and willing enough to take
such dangerous risks. Jack is one of the few. He had enough courage in him to stand up
against political correctness and stand up for what he truly believed in. Kerouac often
encouraged others to be daring and artistic, to say what they felt, without violence, using
their own thoughts. Jack always knew where he stood in the hands of literature and
fortunately, he knew how to take advantage of his situation. Here are some of Kerouac s
writing tips on how to use your mind to create Modern Prose:
1. Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for your own joy
2. Submissive to everything, open, listening
3. Try never get drunk outside your own house
4. Be in love with your life
The Essay on Jack Kerouac
Born on March 12, 1922, the youngest of three children in a French-Canadian family that had established itself in Lowell, Massachusetts, Jack Kerouac was by the age of ten already aiming to become a writer. His father ran a print shop and published a local newsletter called the Spotlight. Before long he began writing and producing his own sport sheet, which he sold to friends and acquaintances in ...
5. Something that you feel will find its own form
6. Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind
7. Blow as deep as you want to blow
8. Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind
9. The unspeakable visions of the individual
10. No time for poetry but exactly what is
11. Visionary tics shivering in the chest
12. In tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you
13. Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition
14. Like Proust be an old teahead of time
15. Telling the true story of the world in interior monologue
16. The jewel center of interest is the eye within the eye
17. Write in recollection and amazement for yourself
18. Work from pithy middle eye out, swimming in language sea
19. Accept loss forever
20. Believe in the holy contour of life
21. Struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in mind
22. Don t think of words when you stop but to see picture better
23. Keep track of every day the date emblazoned in your morning
24. No fear or shame in the dignity of your experience, language & knowledge
25. Write for the world to read and see your exact pictures of it
26. Bookmovie is the movie in words, the visual American form
27. In praise of Character in the Bleak inhuman Loneliness
28. Composing wild, undisciplined, pure, coming in from under, crazier the better
29. You’re a Genius all the time
30. Writer-Director of Earthly movies Sponsored & Angeled in Heaven
Decades after Jack Kerouac died on October 21st, 1969 in St. Petersburg Florida,
Allen Ginsberg, another poet of the beat generation, gave a tribute to Jack Kerouac and
described his passion for the writing style Jack created. Ginsberg expressed his support for
Kerouac and all of the memorials made in his honor. This was quite amazing to learn that
such a person could be recognized for there work so long after it had been analyzed and
awarded. There was little room left for praise but somehow, Mr. Ginsburg and other
renowned writers and artists found a way to express their appreciation for Jack Kerouac s
inspirational work.
Jack Kerouac s message to do what you feel inspired writers everywhere and
The Term Paper on Jack Kerouac Clark Writing Road
In the beginning Jack Kerouac lived a wild and exciting life outside the realm of everyday 'normal' American life. Though On the Road and The Dharma Bums were Kerouac's only commercial successes, he was a man who changed American literature and pop-culture. Kerouac virtually created a life-style devoted to life, art, literature, music, and poetry. When his movement grew out of his control, he came ...
today, his words of advice can almost be looked upon as a writers bible. There is no limit
to what you write, how you write or when and where you write. Kerouac has taught me
so much in so little time that I hesitate to say that I have even remotely researched him.
There is always more to discover about the world, and about Jack Kerouac, and writers
everywhere, and it is impossible to see it all in one lifetime, somehow, Jack Kerouac s
writing allows one to open their minds and absorb each and every word spoken, and then
use it towards everyday life. Somehow, Jack was able to write about things that never
change and allow others to realize it decades later. Jack Kerouac can only be described as
a mastermind. Not only a poet, author, or thinker, he used every part of his mind and life
and then went and lived it to the fullest.
