Tag: The Beats

Poets have often figured as the liaison between mystic items and the vast audience to whom the inner meaning of such items was mysterious or unknown. In this sense, poets act as prophets, translators of symbols or, more metaphorically, bridges. It is precisely the idea of the poet as a bridge which David Stephen emphasises in Diane di Prima: Visionary Poetics and the Hidden Religions. In this 2019 volume, the legendary figure of the late di Prima is portrayed in turn as a bridge between cultures, key literary and intellectual movements, and ethnicities. Continue reading

Steven Belletto’s impeccably well-researched literary history, The Beats, traces the Beat Generation’s interrelationship between creativity, a writer’s life and literary connections, and literary production. The synergies, networks, and affiliations Belletto highlights are invaluable, and prove his point that the ‘richest way to appreciate individual Beat texts is in relation to one another.’ (xi) Continue reading