The Portable Beat Reader

By: Various

Book Overview

Beginning in the late 1940's, American literature discovered a four-letter word, and the word was "beat." Beat as in poverty and beatitude, ecstasy and exile. Beat was Jack Kerouac touring the American road in prose as fast and reckless as a V-8 Chevy. It was the junk-sick surrealism of William Burroughs; the wild, Whitmanesque poetry of Allen Ginsberg; and the lumberjack Zen of Gary Snyder.

The Portable Beat Reader collects the most...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0142437530
• ISBN13: 9780142437537
• Release Date: July 2003
• Publisher: Penguin Classics
• Length: 688 Pages
• Weight: 1.08 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.4" x 7.8"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Helpful

Portable Beat Reader was very helpful in my college class. It's not only that, but the different poems, like Frank O'Hara's poem, "The Day Lady Died." Very powerful, I was interested all of a sudden in Frank O'Hara's poetry, like "Having a Coke With You."

Essential for fans of 20th century literature

Simply put, this is what I turn to when I need inspiration for reading, for creating, for anything. It combines wonderful bios of everyone from Kerouac to Bob Dylan, and their poems, book excerpts, and lyrics galore. Absolutely enjoyable, absolutely essential. Thank god for Ann Charters.

Wonderful collection of a variety of beat artists

This reader is a good overall introduction to beat literature. While I could have done with a few more examples of writing from the women in the movement, that probably would not have kept the book as "portable" as its title promises.

it is amazing

de verdad es uno de lo mejores libros que he leido en mi vida y solo tengo 14 anios pero he leido demasiado para mi edad. Es inexplicable como este libro ha cambiado mi vida, como ha sido parte de una revolucion en mi cabeza...espectacularmente bueno. Ahora solo tengo cabeza para William Borroughs o Jack Kerouac en lo que se refiere a libros. Y eso que solo lo compre por que decia Bob Dylan en su indice...ahora me converti en una amante y admiradora y seguidora de la beat generation. Ellos de verdad tenian algo que decir y sabian como decirlo, son tan profundos, sinceros, crudos, sus obras entran hasta lo mas profundo de tu conciencia, te la revuelve toda y se hace tuya, te hace estar en Denver, buscando al padre vagabundo de Dean, Te hace sentir cada palabra, cada accion del Peyote Poem de McClure, o del Naked Luch de mi favorito, William B. Amo este libro por hacerme descubrir un mundo totalmente diferente al que conozco, por habrirme los ojos. Estoy leyendo On the Road...estoy llena de placer con este libro. Es como una adiccion, no lo puedo dejar de leer. Lo mismo me pasaba con The Beat Reader.

Good Start for the "Beat"en Path

Nice sampler... all the writers you should expect are in here.A feature I enjoyed particularly was the intro section... read about the writer before the piece. Since I had not heard of so many of these writers, I found it intriguing to see how many were part of the same group of friends. The Beats largely were connected with each other's lives... and fed off each other's style and work.Buy this book, then go get the full works of these individual writers. For an anthology of Beat writers, you will find no better book.I fully recommend this book.Anthony Trendl

Life Changing

This book is major marker on the road of my personal and intellectual development. I had just finished On The Road and was interested in exploring some more Beat writing - but was completely at a loss as to where I should begin. Charter's anthology was like a literary mindbomb from the minute I began the Forward until I finished the last poem. After I was done, I just couldn't think of writing (or writers) in the same way. It managed to connect so many literary, intellectual, and musical "schools" of the West and East - I was left dazed as I saw smatterings of Rimbaud, Buddah and Bird all through the "Beat" works. Beauty, obscenity, freedom - every aspect of life can be found there. This book is just a beginning - but it's a great beginning.