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Beat poetry emerged in the mid-1950s and 1960s in New York and San Francisco, promoting individualism and protesting the loss of faith. The Beat Generation explored mysticism, Zen Buddhism, and drug use. The poetry inspired the anti-war hippie movement, ecological awareness, and women’s and gay rights movements. Some argue that the term “beat” refers to dejection from consumerism, while others say it refers to the musical rhythm of jazz.
Beat poetry represents a mid-1950s and 1960s style of writing popular in Greenwich Village, New York and San Francisco, California. Incorporates free-form writing that promotes individualism and protests the loss of faith. A small group of bohemian authors and poets created Beat poetry and became known leaders of the Beat Generation.
These writers grew up during the Great Depression in the United States and lived through World War II. They were disappointed in their views on the postwar culture of conformity and materialism. Beat poetry laments the loss of personal values and faith and promotes the belief that modern life is spiritually empty.
Some of the better known beat poets include Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs. Some beat poems written during this era were inspired by Zen Buddhism and the use of drugs to raise consciousness. The beat generation explored various forms of mysticism, which is evident in some poems.
Many in the older generation at the time shunned the themes of Beat poetry, believing poets to be immoral and delinquent. Ginsberg’s poem “Howl” and Burrough’s book Naked Lunch both became subjects of obscenity trials, which essentially thrust this style of poetry into the spotlight. The judges ruled that neither poem was obscene.
Beat poetry was often recited orally. Members of the Beat Generation usually gathered at Ferlinghetti’s City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco to read poetry, usually accompanied by jazz. The bookstore became the main meeting place for young people who felt disillusioned and let down by the older generation. Many of the streets around the shop were later named after Beat poets.
Some themes of the poem center on the liberation of blacks, homosexuals, women, and Native Americans. It rails against censorship in any form and promotes sexual freedom. This type of poem represents an early effort to raise awareness about ecology and how humans harm the planet. It influenced the songs of Bob Dylan, the Beatles and other folk singers that became popular in the 1960s.
The Beat Generation is credited with inspiring the anti-war hippie movement in the 1960s and raising awareness of ecological issues. Some of these poems eschew conformity and promote the decriminalization of marijuana, which may have influenced the drugs popularity among hippies. They may also have helped lead to the women’s rights and gay rights movements.
Historians have differing opinions as to why this style of writing has been dubbed beat poetry. Some argue that the writers felt dejected and tired by consumerism and lack of social values. Others say that beat poetry refers to the musical rhythm of jazz used in oral recitation. Still others argue that Kerouac coined the term Beat Generation to describe his circle of friends.
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