Historical Dictionary of the Beat Movement

The Beat Movement was and is a literary and arts movement, the most radical and innovative of the 20^th century, and because it was so open to new ideas of poetics and aesthetics, it has adapted from decade to decade. The history of the Beat Movement is still being written in the early years of the 21^st century. Unlike other kinds of literary and artistic the Beat Movement is self-perpetuating. After the 1950s generation, a new generation arose in the 1960s led by writers such as Diane Wakowski, Anne Waldman, and poets from the East Side Scene. In the 1970s and 1980s writers from the Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church and contributors to World magazine continued the movement. The 1980s and 1990s Language Movement saw itself as an outgrowth and progression of previous Beat aesthetics. Today poets and writers in San Francisco still gather at City Lights Bookstore and in Boulder at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics and continue the movement. It is now a postmodern movement and probably would be unrecognizable to the earliest Beats. It may even be in the process of finally shedding the name Beat. But the Movement continues.

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The Historical Dictionary of the Beat Movement covers the movements history through a chronology, an introductory essay, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 700 cross-referenced entries on significant people, themes, critical issues, and the most significant novels, poems, and volumes of poetry and prose that have formed the Beat canon. This book is a vital reference tool for any researcher interested in learning more about the Beat Movement.

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