The Beats

It is common, healthy, and reasonable for a 16-year-old to obsess over the Beats. When I was 16, I wrote a term paper on Kerouac and Ginsburg, positive that I was teaching my teacher about "real" literature and the shadowy side of the canon. I memorized some of Kerouac's shorter poems, read and re-read Howl and On the Road, and wrote with anguish and imitated drunkenness a poetry that I thought burned in the same, essential flame as the Beats'.

I am not about to tell you that I regret this. Nor am I about to confess that I no longer respect or enjoy this work (though, I am glad I have found my own voice in the years since). What I am writing to tell you is that Bennett Gordon at Utne Reader has found a new Beat in 2008. Read about this maverick maven here.

In other news, there's a short poem of mine called "Your Mother's Mouth" posted today at Getting Something Read.