Our good friend John Suiter’s photo-essay on Jack Kerouac’s Lowell is a must-read. He recently complimented it with this equally-inspiring photo-essay on Jack Kerouac’s Mexico.
Speaking of Kerouac, MA*GA in Gallarate, Italy, presents Kerouac Beat Painting, a show of over eighty original paintings and drawings, running December 3 April 22, more details here.
See two more Kerouac images here. And here for more on Kerouac as painter.
Walt Whitman’s Brooklyn home (99 Ryerson Street), the place where he lived when he first published Leaves of Grass in 1855, is a forgotten and sacred site. Read Rachel Aviv’s engaging account of this neglected Whitman shrine, from way back in 2006. Eleven years on, the site remains, still without landmark status, and still threatened by ever-rapacious private development. Local resident Brad Vogel, “lawyer, poet and preservationist” has been spearheading the campaign to protect the house through an effort to provide it with official designation. For more on this story and his on-going efforts – see here
Kazuko Shirasishi, (“the Allen Ginsberg of Japan” in that memorable phrase from Kenneth Rexroth), has a new book of poems, a Selected Poems (translated by Yamiko Tsumura), out this month from New Directions – “Sea, Land, Shadow”
Too long since we last mentioned Beatdom, that invaluable resource from David S Wills, Check out his recent piece -“Cool Cats – Beat Poets and Their Feline Friends” – here.