i sit here writing, not daring to stop,
for fear of seeing what's outside my head. -a. robert lee

when i visit the library, i always check out the 'central express' area, where they put newly released books. i like looking there because i often stumble upon books on subjects that i would not have normally looked for. maybe it's as if these books are finding me. it's a curious thing, which books i decide to remove from the shelves and examine further. the area isn't that large, about ten 10 foot-long shelves. an interesting title, a unique spine - maybe with bright colors, maybe in stark black and white, or maybe just where my hand happens to fall on the shelf at that moment. i have gathered books about psychology, relationships, fiction by new and exciting authors, travel guides to places i dream about visiting.

on my last visit, a thick, bright orange spine caught my eye. and a word in a different font - blocky, heavy in all capital letters - BEAT. pulling it off the shelf, i read the full title 'beat down your soul - what was the beat generation? poems, essays, memoirs, notes, protests, attacks and apologies-from the beat explosion that rocked the world' by ann charters. i have touched on learning about the beat generation, and my english prof reading ginsberg's 'howl' still has an echo in my head. i checked out the book, and found it a delicious exploration of a 'lost' generation. kerouac had described them as a group of men 'intent on joy' and possessing 'wild selfbelieving individuality'. what follows are pieces of poems and passages i enjoyed...

i am calm at last.

multitudes of natural life
busy all around me
assure me like a good memory
of time's benevolence
- john clellon holmes

afoot and light-hearted i take to the open road
healthy, free, the world before me,
the long brown path before me leading wherever i choose.
-walt whitman

and it's been too long to make it all right again
i can't defend them anymore
or, more painful, fan not disengage from this time or place or have no
desire
for any other time or place but my own
a stubborn determination born somewhere in the struggle
-joanna mcclure

what was the international significance of all this? the beat generation cam be seen as an aspect of the worldwide trend for intellectuals to reconsider the nature of the human individual, existence, personal wisdom, the qualities of love and hatred, and the means of achieving wisdom.....is not an intellectual movement, but a creative one: people who have cut their ties with respectable society in order to live in an independent way if life writing poems and painting pictures, making mistakes and taking chances-but finding no reason for apathy or discouragement. they are going somewhere. -gary snyder

where the hell is our generation going? do we even care?