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This long neglected journal, shall begin to receive a bit more of the attention that it is due. I'm reaching an equilibrium state at my new job, after putting in a bit too much time last week. On top of the additional time, I spent a good many evenings out with Kate, Steve, or otherwise on the road. I just stopped making time for documenting self reflection -and maybe even time away from healthy introspection. No longer, my weekend reading at the lake has inspired me to continue this activity.

This past weekend I had the joy of reading Poets on the Peaks, a study of the influence of experiences in the North Cascades on the writings of Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen, and Jack Kerouac. Taken from journals, published poetry, and first hand accounts this book provides an interesting outline for a course on Beat nature writings. Unfortunately, I didn't take a course with it. I pretended it was a course, and muddled through as best I could with the selections in The New American Poetry 1945-1960. That didn't work well, but I did get an appreciation for the solitary wilderness experience, and the way the poets used their journals to capture revelations, contemplations, and to record their developing thoughts of the world.

While I can’t promise to capture a mountain tap satori, again I am moved by the concept of recording my thoughts and opinions. I wrote an interesting, but illegible piece in the camp journal about my thoughts of the books retelling of the Gallery 6 poetry reading (the debut of Howl, and the meeting of the minds between east and west coast Beat poets). Most of what I know of the event is drawn from Kerouac's fictionalized account in The Dharma Bums. While Jack's account of his own drunkenness is lively, and captures some the evenings intensity. John Suiter's more factual account some how paints the event as an evening of singular importance, which rippled through time and space as any great meeting of history. It was if it was a poetic Yalta. The most interesting thing, was the way it seemed that Kerouac's drunken chants of "go" and other jazz ejaculations to punctuate Howl’s every line pushed Ginsberg and the crowd to an emotional peak. Would the evening have been as memorable if Kerouac was not in attendance? He didn't read, so that wouldn't have changed the weight of the poetic content. how is it that one man can so quickly electrify a room? What does it mean for the trip masters, event planners and the like. How can I work to make events, road trips to Philadelphia, etc transcendental and spiritually moving expeditions? Is the secret in large jugs of cheap wine? While intoxicants may help, I don't believe taht they provide the answer to the questions I ponder.
posted by Ben at 7:30 PM