Definitions of Beat vs No such thing as a Beat artist Round 2 The Formal Argument Edition Now let s get down to some actual business Formal argument is necessary because this argument has degenerated so far by me mostly just for fun I ll break it down piece by piece so it s easier to digest for people unwilling to read what others are saying Purpose of this argument To fix a very serious problem with structure clarity and reader friendliness inherent in this page and in the topic as a whole The problem is that the term Beat Generation is used in multiple ways to the degree that it becomes confusing for the general reader and leads to arguments about who is and isn t a beat Proposal We should fix the structure of the page Ginsberg Deliberate Prose The phrase beat generation rose out of a specific conversation with Jack Kerouac and John Clellon Holmes around 50 51 when discussing the nature of generations recollecting the glamour of the lost generation Kerouac said Ah this is nothing but a beat generation not meaning to name the generation but to un name it He discusses the origin of the term beat in hip language froom Huncke and then discusses how it became associated with beatific in 1959 and on a side note that reinforces Doom s side of a previous disagreement though Ginsberg says articulated which could mean it was conceived of earlier A fourth meaning accumulated that of the beat generation literary movement This was a group of friends who had worked together on peotry prose and cultural conscience from the mid forties until the term became popular natuionally in the late fifties The group consisting of Kerouac Neal Cassady William Burroughs Herbert Huncke John Clellon Homes Allen Ginsberg myself we met Carl Solomon and Philip Lamantia in 48 encountered Gregory Corso in 1950 and we first saw Peter Orlovsky in 1954 By the mid fifties this smaller circle through natural affinity of modes of thought or literary style or planetary perspective was augmented in friendship and literary endeavor by a number of writers in San Francisco including Michael McClure Gary Snyder Philip Whalen and a number of other powerful but lesser known poets such as Jack Micheline Ray Bremser and LeRoi Jones all of whom accepted the term at one time or another humorously or seriously but sympathetically and were included in a survey of bet general manners morals and literature by Life magazine in a lead article in the late 50s by one Paul O Neill and by the journalist Alfred Aronowitz in a large series on the Beat Generation in the New York Post By the mid fifties a sense of some mutual trust and interest was developed with Frank O Hara and Kenneth Koch as well as with Robert Creeley and other alumni of Black Mountain The fifth meaning of the phrase Beat Generation is the influence of the literary and artistic activities of poets filmmakers painters writers and novelists who were working in concert in anthologies publishing houses independent filmmaking and other media Some effects of the aforementioned groups refreshed the bohemian culture which was already a long tradition in film and still photography Robert Frank and Alfred Leslie in music david Amram in painting Larry Rivers in poetry publishing Don Allen Barney Rosset and Lawrence Ferlinghetti extended to fellow artists such as Susan Sontag and Norman Mailer etc