Introduction to the main subject area
II
The beat generation were a group of post-world
war two era poets and writers, defined by a period
of productivity 1955-1960 (Thaisz, 2010)
comprising of lyric poets such as neo-
Whitmanesque Allen Ginsberg, craftsman
Lawrence Ferlinghetti, environmentalist Gary
Snyder and romantic symbolist Gregory Corso
whose goal was defying the conventional writing
and changing the cultural consciousness of the day
with their own brand of anti-intellectual nihilism
and idiomatic unity of expression. To this day the
beat generation continues to be an influential
movement in our society. The driven desire of the
beat movement was to write for the underclasses
of society, to focus on performance in poetry and
build community through small magazines and
press houses (e.g. Evergreen Review, Pocket Poets
Series, Beatitudes,Neurotica,Measure,Yugen, Big
Table etc (Shelly, 2011) and, according to
Carmona “at the same time pushing the
boundaries of gender roles, queer relationships and
interracially”. (Carmona, 2012) Their goal still
resonates. I shall now give some further
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