Beat writers were a small group of close friends first, and a movement later.
The Beat Generation in literature comprised a relatively small number of writers, of which Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and William S Burroughs are the best known today. All three met in the environs of Columbia University in New York City in the mid-1940's, and they remained close friends.
Although the group began in New York, it wasn't long before they began spreading out across the country.
People who were associated with the Beat Generation at one point or another include:
The Beats borrowed a lot of their revolutionary spirit from the exploding Jazz scene at the same time. They frequented the Jazz clubs in Greenwich Village where they saw Lester Young and Charlie Parker. Among the clubs they went to was Birdland where they once met Artie Shaw. They set a lot of the groundwork for the musical and cultural revolution of the 1960's that was to follow.
Related:
Sources:
Gruen, John, "The New Bohemia", a capella books, Chicago, 1990.
Miles, Barry, "Jack Kerouac, King of the Beats", Henry Holt and Co., New York, 1998
Waldman, Anne (ed.), "The BEAT BOOK: Poems and Fiction from the beat generation", Shambhala, Boston, 1996
Sanders, Ed, "Tales of Beatnik Glory", Citadel Underground, New York, 1975
Last Updated 07.05.03