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.Born virtuoso that he is, he 1994): 107 123.takes pleasure in defying the laws and conven-tions of literary expression which cripple genuine, Rob Johnson and Kurt Hemmer Tsufficiently rebellious nature, and when lookingTales of Beatnik Glory Edward Sandersfor an apartment, a prime consideration was how(1975)long the door would hold up in a dope raid. Thus,Described as a cluster novel, Tales of Beatnik Gloryfrom the authorities who would not allow poetry inillustrates the lives of those who roamed the Beatstreets of 1960s New York.Taking a hindsight vi- a café without a cabaret license to the weekendbeatniks who would pay a pretty penny for genu-sion of the Beat Generation as it melded slowly intoine flip-out garb, to the microfilmed transcrip-hippiedom, EDWARD SANDERS investigates a timetions of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)when poetry and folk singing were radical acts andPoetry Operations Division, Sanders surrounds theeveryone, from university professors to distraughtera in an aura of the ridiculous.In The Cube ofmothers-in-law, came face to face with the devi-Potato Soaring through Vastness, Sanders evenants of the rucksack revolution. As he writes inchronicles a university conference on The Death The Filmmaker, With a generation readily presentof the Beat Generation, a typical academic farcewho viewed their lives as on a set, there was no needof co-option at which Sanders s book flatly sticksto hunt afar for actors and actresses.What a cast ofits tongue out.characters was roaming the village streets of 1962! Yet, in the midst of the fun, Sanders does notSanders writes in The Poetry Reading, theshy away from the sensitive subjects of the time.novel s opening story, that it was impossible forFor every Beat accomplishment, for every socialthe pulse-grabbers at the throat of culture to denymore that was wounded, there was a victim of op-the beats. They became a palpable force during the1950s and 1960s in cities like New York where rebel- pression and excess, an amphetamine-wasted body,bragging I lose trillions of cells everyday, man,lion against all forms of social control was the normgrooo-VY, or shrieking as does Uncle Thrills, oneof the day.From protests against injustices such asof the novel s many strung out junkies, I ve pukedracism and war to illicit drug use and free love,my life away here, I tell you. Sanders maps the scene in its often bizarre andIn A Book of Verse, the novel comes fullhilarious transformations where the main propul-circle.Sanders autobiographically describes his firstsion, he writes, came from a desperate search forsome indication that the universe was more than a run-in with ALLEN GINSBERG s HOWL, describ-berserk sewer. ing the shock it delivered to his placid, midwesternA master of satire, Sanders pokes fun equally worldview.The novel ends with Sanders leavingat authority figures and at his Beat characters.In for New York to become a poet, pointing the reader The Mother-in-Law the denizens of the beat right back to page one.scene miss no poetry reading, no art show, noconcert in an obscure loft, no lecture, no event of Jennifer Cooper303 304 Tapestry and the Web, TheTapestry and the Web, The Joanne Kyger colloquial, Beat-influenced idiom, are grounded in(1965) personal concerns and a sense of immediacy.In her first poetry collection, JOANNE KYGER revis- Critic and chronicler of the San Franciscoits and revises Homeric epic myth, adding layers of Poetry Renaissance Michael Davidson has arguedpersonal, reflective imagery and references.The that in some ways Kyger is herself analogous to Pe-backdrop to the composition of her poems gives a nelope, citing her position as a singular female insnapshot of the West Coast Beat scene.Arriving at a largely male artistic enclave, surrounded by suit-age 22 in San Francisco in 1957, Kyger was quickly ors/male writers whom she enchants with her po-swept up into the North Beach arts milieu, meet- etry.Certainly there is something both playful anding poets and attending readings at the numerous subversive in Kyger s challenge to Homeric andlively venues that were popularized by members of patriarchal authority.Influences in Kyger s workthe San Francisco Poetry Renaissance.Writers vis- include both the late modernism of Duncan andited from Greenwich Village, and there was an in- the nature-oriented, Zen-inflected work of GARYflux of students who had previously studied at theSNYDER (Kyger s husband from 1960 to 1964 whomexperimental Black Mountain College in Northshe met in 1958).Carolina.Ultimately it is the personal narrative inKyger began to attend the poetry circle thatKyger s work, an impulsive and exhilarating voice,grouped around Jack Spicer and Robert Duncan,that bridges her navigation of these various influ-and it was there, on February 23, 1958, that sheences.Kyger s achievement in The Tapestry andfirst read material that would become part of TheThe Web is the creation of a book-length, cohesiveTapestry and the Web, the work that Kyger has iden- work that is autobiographical, laconic, colloquial,tified as her breakthrough in establishing her owngrounded in classical mythology, and yet personal.poetic voice. Duncan later described the scene:Kyger, in her habitual stance of kneeling and hold- Bibliographying the text before her, intensely focused on herDavidson, Michael
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