“the flesh must turn cloud, the spirit air” and that
we are ultimately fated to become one in unity
with the sun and sky. This metaphysical
revelation serves to raise the consciousness of the
reader while providing unity with a spirit realm.
Although Everson’s conclusion seems rather
pessimistic.
XXV
Jack Kerouac was architect and co-founder of
the beat generation, the primary innovator whose
distinctive poetics, associational composition
techniques and hybrid forms amalgamated
African American culture with European literary
forms. Mexico City blues was his poetic opus and
Ginsberg was obviously indebted to Kerouac in his
completion of "Howl". "Book of Haikus" wasn't
published until 42 years after it was written
(Beckett, 2012). Needless to say, considering all of
Kerouac's work, he, by his own admission never
distinguished between poetry and prose. His
poetry loosens into free association and free verse
(e.g. vers libre) and contains the musician's
"spontaneous phrasing and harmonizing" in
78