Kerouac coined the term "the Beat Generation" in 1948, it began as group of friends who were all very interested in writing and extremely tired of society. These writers included Allen Ginsberg, Neal Cassidy, William S. Burroughs, Gary Snyder, Gregory Corso, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Michael McClure, Phillip Whalen, and Lew Welch. In the beginning all these artists struggled to get their work published, but after a poetry reading held at the Six Gallery in San Francisco, their writing and tenacity for life proved that their creative energy and fame would be unstoppable. At this legendary reding in 1955, Allen Ginsberg first read his draft of "Howl" and even Kerouac recounts this event of wild cheering and rushing creative insight towards the end of Dharma Bums. McClure who also read his poetry described this gathering saying:

"In all of our memories no one had been so outspoken in poetry before -- we had gone beyond a point of no return. None of us wanted to go back to the gray, chill, militaristic silence, to the intellective void -- to the land without poetry -- to the spiritual drabness. We wanted to make it new and we wanted to invent it and the process of it as we went into it. We wanted voice and we wanted vision."

After the Six Gallery reading the first wave of beat writers, "beatniks" were beginning to reach fame. And each of these authors continued to publish outstanding works. Their works all focused on non-conformity, spontaneity, and a unique creative method that in turn would change modern prose. Their aim was to describe their real life experience with vivid imagery, to delve as deeply as they could into spiritual life, and to write with an emotion that had no limits even if it resulted in syntactic chaos. Much of the language they used and the topics they wrote about showed their pursuit to stray as far away from conformity and to push every boundary of society. They did this not only to criticize the American mentality, but to ask the major question what life is really all about. Many of their experiences became their novels and it wasn't unhead of for them to give great detail of their excessive drug use, sexual curiosity, and crazy behavior. However, as the counter culture, their writing was seen as far too obsene and much of these authors works were banned.

Still this group of writer’s persisted living life only to write about it and love every minute of it. Making their way from New York and arriving in San Francisco, they sparked a counter-culture and proved to American society that they were more than willing to tell the truth with their words and make sue that that truth would be heard. Maybe these writers didn't live the purest and most restrained life, but through their words, their experiences, and pictures of life- they awakened people to art of living, to beauty, experience, and to various spiritual paths that would lead to enlightenment.

(*click the picture to see a Photo Gallery of the Beatniks*)

Chanting at the Six Gallery San Francisco

Images borrowed from Google Images