Thought Provoking Poets & Writers
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The Main Content
There is a funky building in Alviso, California, barely held together through countless winter
storms, but it has the main content – soul. I stumbled upon this definition of a writing movement
soon caricaturized for the masses while reading an excerpt from Gregory Corso:
When the Beat Generation came into existence, poets, with prophetic insight, were already
insisting upon the overwhelming importance of supplementing their supplies of old iambics by the
use of mixtures containing spontaneity “bop prosody” surreal-real images jumps beats cool
measures long rapidic vowels, long long lines, and, the main content, soul. In 1950 these poets
gave name to the generation, calling it the Beat Generation; they did not know when they
created that stupid name what the vast extent of the future would be.
Alviso, a community that grew from a trading port for Mission Santa Clara, seems out of place in
the midst of Silicon Valley. There are ghosts of marinas, Victorian homes, a thriving port, a
cannery, bars and gambling halls. My favorite building is the Laine Store, which ran for almost
50 years before turning into a Chinese gambling hall.
Interesting people, poetry, the Laine Store, the Bayside Cannery and Alviso – all contain that
same main content, that same “undisturbed flow from the mind.” It is as if each jazz musician
experienced and interpreted the scene and threw it together as “song” as “city” as “poem” as “all
encompassing explanation where every facet is acceptable” - as the main content, soul.
storms, but it has the main content – soul. I stumbled upon this definition of a writing movement
soon caricaturized for the masses while reading an excerpt from Gregory Corso:
When the Beat Generation came into existence, poets, with prophetic insight, were already
insisting upon the overwhelming importance of supplementing their supplies of old iambics by the
use of mixtures containing spontaneity “bop prosody” surreal-real images jumps beats cool
measures long rapidic vowels, long long lines, and, the main content, soul. In 1950 these poets
gave name to the generation, calling it the Beat Generation; they did not know when they
created that stupid name what the vast extent of the future would be.
Alviso, a community that grew from a trading port for Mission Santa Clara, seems out of place in
the midst of Silicon Valley. There are ghosts of marinas, Victorian homes, a thriving port, a
cannery, bars and gambling halls. My favorite building is the Laine Store, which ran for almost
50 years before turning into a Chinese gambling hall.
Interesting people, poetry, the Laine Store, the Bayside Cannery and Alviso – all contain that
same main content, that same “undisturbed flow from the mind.” It is as if each jazz musician
experienced and interpreted the scene and threw it together as “song” as “city” as “poem” as “all
encompassing explanation where every facet is acceptable” - as the main content, soul.