Trip Trap

by Jack Kerouac, Albert Saijo, Lew Welch

On a rainy night in San Francisco, just before Thanksgiving in 1959, Jack Keroauc, Lew Welch, and Albert Saijo piled into Welch's car and set off on a cross-country trip, headed for New York City and then on to Keroauc's mother's home on Long Island.

Trip Trap is a record of that journey, notes from the road by three of the central figures of the Beat Movement as they shared booze and coffee and peanut butter sandwiches, talking and...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0912516046
• ISBN13: 9780912516042
• Release Date: August 1998
• Publisher: Grey Fox Press
• Length: 69 Pages
• Weight: 0.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.2" x 5.5" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

Three voices, one volume

"Trip Trap: Haiku on the Road" represents a collaborative effort by Jack Kerouac, Albert Saijo, and Lew Welch. There is also an editor's note by Donald Allen. The book is divided into 4 main sections. "A Recollection," by Saijo, is an 11 page memoir of the road trip during which the poems in the book were written. "We Started for New York," also about the trip, is the opening of an unfinished novel by Welch. The main text, "Trip Trap," is a body of poetry attributed to all three as a collaborative effort. And finally, "Dear Jack" is a collection of letters (dated 1959-60) from Welch to Kerouac."Trip Trap" is thus, despite its short length (69 + vii pages), a diverse text with a fascinating history behind it. The poems are not haiku in the strictest sense; I would call them "haiku-like." The poems offer some interesting imagery and reflections on the American landscape, as well as a number of literary references. We get many glimpses from the men's journey--radio antennas in Texas, cows in Nebraska, a cross on an Arizona highway, etc. A particularly interesting section involves a Saijo haiku with alternate versions by Welch and Kerouac.The book overall is infused with the sense of discovery one gets in traveling across the USA. Saijo notes that the poetry in the book "has the fathomless art of random speech overheard through the course of a day." I really enjoyed "Trip Trap."

WILLYS JEEP HAIKU

TRIP TRAP IS YET ANOTHER ADDITION TO KEROUAC'S LEGEND, A SWEET LITTLE COLLABORATION. THIS BOOK TIES IN BEAUTIFULLY WITH BIG SUR (YOU'LL SEE) AND SHOULD BE PLACED NEXT TO IT ON THE SHELF. LEARN MORE ABOUT HAIKU; READ THIS BOOK.