jack in the pocket

"Scattered Poems", Jack Kerouac, 1970/1

After you become accustomed to the wide-eyed humanity of Kerouac's best prose, his poetry surprises you. Not that his playfulness, his off-the-cuff style is shocking, but the lack of linearity in most of it, the quick visions, word sketches, this thing he calls "spontaneous prose"; it comes to remind one of a mix of the detailed visions and scattered mind-noise combined from "Visions of Cody", his most non-linear work of literature. I'll be honest: I never thought it'd happen, but I just about wrote-off "Scattered Poems".

See, it's dumb to have expectations of a great artist. They are great because expectations can be mightily fleeced, and holy man, I was turned-around upon first discovery of this collection, my first exposure to Kerouac poetry. A collection of poems from a variety of publishing sources brought into a (very large) pocket size, "Scattered Poems" is a nice sampling of his verse, or anti-verse as I'm sure he'd have it. Or a-verse. So after reading about his escapades with Dean Moriarty across America, and his meditations of love and drug abuse in the heart-breaking "Tristessa", I get a poem, I shit you not, from page two of this collection called "Fie My Fum", which goes "Pull my daisy; Tip my cup; Cut my thoughts; For coconuts". Look, I understand Kerouac's intro, that the new "SF Renaissance" in poetry is made of "CHILDREN" and that "they SING, they SWING", but it was surprising to see something quite at this level of naivete so early in a collection from a very famous and influential man.

I've opened to it, though. Not necessarily "Fie My Fum", mind you; it's silliness and I appreciate it as such, but as art it doesn't strike me. But the pictures from "The Trashing Doves" in the back of the Chinese store in the midst of skid row do strike me with the ease of a master painter; every little detail culls this gloriously real image from the mundane until it zooms outward showing the neighborhood, the world around. And it is heart-breaking little pictures that make these poems interesting, timeless, their look at the small detail plainly spoken, but aptly spoken, what Kerouac means when he talks of "what is". Of course his emotion penetrates the image subtly, lovingly, yet at the same time, he manages to battle off sentimentality with meditations, again, on what is. Here's the first half of "POEM"...

I demand that the human race
ceases multiplying its kind
and bow out
I advise it

And as punishment & reward
for making this plea I know
I'll be reborn
the last human
Everybody else dead and I'm
an old woman roaming the earth
groaning in caves
sleeping on mats

Imaginative as it is, he still chronicles what is, the core of the vision. They all aren't bleak as this, however, still to the point of his mind pictures expressed in few words, appropriately chosen, to make his bid to your heart and mind.

You won't confuse this with the complex poets of the ages who have worked in complex rhyme schemes, timely wordplay, etc., but Kerouac's imprint on poetry was playful, child-like, and at the same time, philosophical toward the world and the life he so loved with the highest anxieties and wonder. If anything, it's shown me how to release my own pretensions as I create my verse. Whilst "Mexico City Blues" is oft pointed to as Kerouac's best verse (and it does bridge "Scattered Poems" high-level spontaneity with the more meaty themes of his best lit), "Scattered Poems" isn't to be completely shoved off, for it gives great insight into his frequently cited "spontaneous" methods, as well as his pure, unabridged mind.

kerouac being kerouac

"Mexico City Blues", Jack Kerouac, 1959.

This is strictly Jack as Jack; his Bhuddochristian beliefs, his love for bop, his retrospectives on his brother Gerard and father, and of course, the automatism taking over for the scattered and lovely imagery he delivers here. Of the poems I've read, this book encompasses what Kerouac was as a poet, the nonsense, the automatic, the golden heart.

You could say the nonsensical gives contrast to the (even sometimes solid) imagery Kerouac delivers. I'll go with that. The topics ebb and flow, choruses follow each other up or drift happily into new territory without warning, and that spontaneity is exciting and interesting. The transition from college to hospital to pondering severe drug addiction in the vain of William Burroughs is a dangerous ride, and you keep your eyes open at all times as Kerouac delivers, "Doctor gave me a mainline shot / Of H grain - Jesus I / thought the whole building / was falling on me / went on my knees, awake, / lines come under my eye / I looked like a madman." These are, on the surface, simple lines, but they paint bleak and real pictures.

We all know from reading his take on writing (especially if you have The Portable Jack Kerouac) that he hated the bullshit. Hated it! The idea of "blowing" like a jazz poet was the ideal behind this book, and if that meant some nonsense, it'd be soul nonsense, mind-chatter. But genuine. So do I crucify him for his naivete, lines like, "Moll the mingling, mixup / All your mixupery, / And mail it one envelopey: / Propey, Slopey, Kree. / Motey, slottey, notty, / ..." and so on, you get it. So do I? Well, no, probably not, but I have to say it makes for a cumbersome read at times. I understand what he's doing but my attention is pulled away, and only in retrospect can I appreciate the let-looseness. But I must admit, it pulls me away from my sometimes-dependence on linearity. It's hard to go back and forth, from Kerouac and even what I've read of Joyce and their values versus those of, say, Norman Mailer or Charles Bukowski, who were by no means conventional, but also not of the mind to placate the nonsensical regions of the mind nor spirit. They are all great, though.

So before I go, I wish to put out there, in the air, that it is a pleasure to be able to read all these works. To come closer to humanity before I perish. This is the portal, the gateway, to the heart. All I do in this blog is ramble, ramble, 30 minutes of free-flowing thought, starting points to contemplation on great literature. Not reviews nor opinions, really, just starting points of thought that will branch out on every work until the day I die, and hopefully intermingle with other people's thoughts, if I knew anyone who gave a damn. I don't know if I'll keep this things going, I am very self-conscious about it. Not because people can stumble upon it (no one reads this thing, nor do I care if they do or don't), but because I don't think it brings out the best of my analysis. We'll see.