Bob Kaufman's life as a poet is unique to American literature. He kept no diary or journal, published no literary essays, wrote no reviews, and maintained no correspondences... Yet various schools of American poetry have sung his praises. Recognized early on as a major figure in the Beat Generation of writers and poets, Kaufman is also know as one of America's true surrealist poets, a premier jazz poet, and a major poet of the black consciousness movement.
The first comprehensive study to explore the role of esoteric, occult, alchemical, shamanistic, mystical and magical traditions in the work of major Beat authors.
Situating post-WWII New York literature within the material context of American urban history, this work analyzes how literary movements such as the Beat Generation, the New York poets and Black Arts Moment criticized the spatial restructuring of post-WWII New York City.
The coverage of this book ranges from Jack Kerouac's tales of freedom-seeking Bohemian youth to the frenetic paintings of Jackson Pollock, including 60 years of the Beat Generation and the artists of the Age of Spontaneity. Beat Culture captures in a single volume six decades of cultural and countercultural expression in the arts and society. It goes beyond other works, which are often limited to Beat writers like William Burroughs, Charles Bukowski, and Michael McClure, to cover a wide range of musicians, painters, dramatists, filmmakers, and dancers who found expression in the Bohemian movement known as the Beat Generation. Top scholars from the United States, England, Holland, Italy, and China analyze a vast array of topics including sexism, misogny, alcoholism, and drug abuse within Beat circles; the arrest of poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti on obscenity charges; Beat dress and speech; and the Beat "pad." Through more than 250 entries, which travel from New York to New Orleans, from San Francisco to Mexico City, students, scholars, and those interested in popular culture will taste the era's rampant freedom and experimentation, explore the impact of jazz on Beat writings, and discover how Beat behavior signaled events such as the sexual revolution, the peace movement, and environmental awareness.
"This volume studies the relation between globalization and inequalities in emerging societies by linking Area and Global Studies, aiming at a new theory of inequality beyond the nation state and beyond Eurocentrism"--
Jazz emerged during the political and social upheaval of world war, communist revolution, Red Scares, and the Black Migration. The tumult bred disagreements about the cultural significance of jazz that concerned both its African American roots and its international appeal. The questions about what was new or even radical about the music initiated debates that writers recapitulated for decades. Jazz Internationalism offers a bold reconsideration of jazz's influence in Afro-modernist literature. Ranging from the New Negro Renaissance through the social movements of the 1960s, John Lowney articulates nothing less than a new history of Afro-modernist jazz writing. Jazz added immeasurably to the vocabulary for discussing radical internationalism and black modernism in leftist African American literature. Lowney examines how Claude McKay, Ann Petry, Langston Hughes, and many other writers employed jazz as both a critical social discourse and mode of artistic expression to explore the possibilities—and challenges—of black internationalism. The result is an expansive understanding of jazz writing sure to spur new debates.
Bob Kaufman es poeta, beatnik y también negro. Un día escuchando música de jazz comenzó a escribir poesía. Había leído a los poetas malditos y a los existencialistas franceses, sin embargo; no era en esos momentos un poeta puro, pero la distancia entre lo blanco y lo negro no le impidió serlo. Kaufman tenía sólo una pretensión: escribir poesía. Quizá por eso llegó un poco tarde cuando ya el movimiento beat sacudía las calles de San Francisco y Ginsberg leía en voz alta el Aullido. Bob se detuvo un poco más pero escribió una obra fundamental y original que le valió el reconocimiento de sus contemporáneos Jack Kerouac y Gregory Corso. Bob seguía escuchando jazz, no podía dejar de hacerlo, como adrenalina recorría su palabra encontrando cause en la oralidad y el ritmo hasta desembocar en poemas que como dice Felinghetti: "Pensados especialmente para ser acompañados por música de jazz y en cuanto tales, deben ser considerados como mensajes orales dichos con espontaneidad más que como poemas escritos para la página impresa". Así que ya lo sabes, Bob pertenece a esta pléyade de originales y desasosegados poetas que buscándote nos encuentran, en esa sencilla experiencia del lenguaje de versos que reinventándose en cada momento parecen decirnos: ustedes son nosotros, acérquense, cantemos la liberta. Pero eso no es todo, a Bob Kaufman es la primera vez que lo traducen al español, así llega a México.
Dissonant Voices uncovers the interracial collaboration at the heart of the postwar avant-garde. While previous studies have explored the writings of individual authors and groups, this work is among the first to trace the cross-cultural debate that inspired and energized midcentury literature in America and beyond. By reading a range of poets in the full context of the friendships and romantic relationships that animated their writing, this study offers new perspectives on key textual moments in the foundation and development of postmodern literature in the U.S. Ultimately, these readings aim to integrate our understanding of New American Poetry, the Black Arts Movement, and the various contemporary approaches to poetry and poetics that have been inspired by their examples.
Lorca in English examines the evolution of translations of Federico García Lorca into English as a case of rewriting and manipulation through politically and ideologically motivated translation. As new translations of Federico García Lorca continue to appear in the English-speaking world and his literary reputation continues to be rewritten through these successive re-translations, this book explores the reasons for this constant desire to rewrite Lorca since the time of his murder right into the 21st century. From his representation as the quintessential Spanish Republican martyr, to his adoption through translation by the Beat Generation, to his elevation to iconic status within the Queer Studies movement, this volume analyzes the reasons for this evolution and examines the current direction into which this canonical author is heading in the English-speaking world.
