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Collected Poems
Poetry was at the center of Jack Kerouac’s sense of mission as a writer. “I’d better be a poet / Or lay down dead,” he wrote in “San Francisco Blues.” The celebrated “spontaneous bop prosody” of his prose was a direct outgrowth of the poetry that filled his notebooks throughout his writing life. This landmark edition gathers for the first time all of Kerouac’s major poetic works—Mexico City Blues, The Scripture of the Golden Eternity, Book of Blues, Pomes All Sizes, Old Angel Midnight, Desolation Pops, Book of Haikus—along with a rich assortment of his uncollected poems, six published here for the first time.
Kerouac wrote poetry in forms as diverse as the classical Japanese haiku (and his own American variants of it, which he sometimes called “Pops”), the Buddhist sutra, the prose poetry of Old Angel Midnight (which he described as “the haddal-da-babra of babbling world tongues coming in thru my window at midnight”), doggerel ballads and free-form songs, the psalms preserved in early notebooks, and the poetic “blues” he developed in Mexico City Blues and other serial works, seeing himself as “a jazz poet blowing a long blues in an afternoon jam session on Sunday.”
But his sense of form was closely allied to a commitment to spontaneous utterance—to a poetry awake to “All the endless conception of living beings / Gnashing everywhere in Consciousness / Throughout the ten directions of space”—and a longing for transcendent experience that marked his work from the beginning. “My only ambition,” he wrote in 1943, “is to be free in art.” That freedom came at a high personal price. Kerouac’s collected poems immerse us in what editor Marilène Phipps-Kettlewell describes as “the impenetrable complexities, engulfing vulnerabilities, and insoluble demands that life made on his heart and mind.”
Many poets have found Kerouac a liberating influence on their work. Robert Creeley called him “a genius at the register of the speaking voice, a human voice talking”; Michael McClure saw him as using “the whole of his life . . . as an instrument of perception”; for Allen Ginsberg he was “a poetic influence over the entire planet”; and Bob Dylan singled out Mexico City Blues as crucial to his own artistic development.
Kerouac wrote poetry in forms as diverse as the classical Japanese haiku (and his own American variants of it, which he sometimes called “Pops”), the Buddhist sutra, the prose poetry of Old Angel Midnight (which he described as “the haddal-da-babra of babbling world tongues coming in thru my window at midnight”), doggerel ballads and free-form songs, the psalms preserved in early notebooks, and the poetic “blues” he developed in Mexico City Blues and other serial works, seeing himself as “a jazz poet blowing a long blues in an afternoon jam session on Sunday.”
But his sense of form was closely allied to a commitment to spontaneous utterance—to a poetry awake to “All the endless conception of living beings / Gnashing everywhere in Consciousness / Throughout the ten directions of space”—and a longing for transcendent experience that marked his work from the beginning. “My only ambition,” he wrote in 1943, “is to be free in art.” That freedom came at a high personal price. Kerouac’s collected poems immerse us in what editor Marilène Phipps-Kettlewell describes as “the impenetrable complexities, engulfing vulnerabilities, and insoluble demands that life made on his heart and mind.”
Many poets have found Kerouac a liberating influence on their work. Robert Creeley called him “a genius at the register of the speaking voice, a human voice talking”; Michael McClure saw him as using “the whole of his life . . . as an instrument of perception”; for Allen Ginsberg he was “a poetic influence over the entire planet”; and Bob Dylan singled out Mexico City Blues as crucial to his own artistic development.
816 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1971
22 people are currently reading
245 people want to read
About the author
Jack Kerouac
361 books11.6k followersJean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac, known as Jack Kerouac, was an American novelist and poet who, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, was a pioneer of the Beat Generation.
Of French-Canadian ancestry, Kerouac was raised in a French-speaking home in Lowell, Massachusetts. He "learned English at age six and spoke with a marked accent into his late teens." During World War II, he served in the United States Merchant Marine; he completed his first novel at the time, which was published more than 40 years after his death. His first published book was The Town and the City (1950), and he achieved widespread fame and notoriety with his second, On the Road, in 1957. It made him a beat icon, and he went on to publish 12 more novels and numerous poetry volumes.
Kerouac is recognized for his style of stream of consciousness spontaneous prose. Thematically, his work covers topics such as his Catholic spirituality, jazz, travel, promiscuity, life in New York City, Buddhism, drugs, and poverty. He became an underground celebrity and, with other Beats, a progenitor of the hippie movement, although he remained antagonistic toward some of its politically radical elements. He has a lasting legacy, greatly influencing many of the cultural icons of the 1960s, including Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Jerry Garcia and The Doors.
In 1969, at the age of 47, Kerouac died from an abdominal hemorrhage caused by a lifetime of heavy drinking. Since then, his literary prestige has grown, and several previously unseen works have been published.
Of French-Canadian ancestry, Kerouac was raised in a French-speaking home in Lowell, Massachusetts. He "learned English at age six and spoke with a marked accent into his late teens." During World War II, he served in the United States Merchant Marine; he completed his first novel at the time, which was published more than 40 years after his death. His first published book was The Town and the City (1950), and he achieved widespread fame and notoriety with his second, On the Road, in 1957. It made him a beat icon, and he went on to publish 12 more novels and numerous poetry volumes.
Kerouac is recognized for his style of stream of consciousness spontaneous prose. Thematically, his work covers topics such as his Catholic spirituality, jazz, travel, promiscuity, life in New York City, Buddhism, drugs, and poverty. He became an underground celebrity and, with other Beats, a progenitor of the hippie movement, although he remained antagonistic toward some of its politically radical elements. He has a lasting legacy, greatly influencing many of the cultural icons of the 1960s, including Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Jerry Garcia and The Doors.
In 1969, at the age of 47, Kerouac died from an abdominal hemorrhage caused by a lifetime of heavy drinking. Since then, his literary prestige has grown, and several previously unseen works have been published.
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March 13, 2022
Kerouac's Collected Poems In The Library Of America
To coincide with the 50th anniversary of the first publication of "On the Road" In September, 1957, the Library of America published in September, 2007 a volume of Jack Kerouac's (1922 -- 1969) "Road Novels". The Library of America has now, five years later, published a second large volume of Kerouac: the first collected edition of the poetry of the legendary "Beat" writer.
Douglas Brinkley of Tulane University edited the volume of Road Novels while Marilene Phipps-Kettlewell has edited this new collection of Kerouac's poetry. Phipps-Kettlewell is a painter, poet, and writer educated in Haiti and France. She has become an American citizen and lives in Massachusetts. She shares with Kerouac a French heritage, a Catholic background, and an immersion when young in Buddhism and Eastern philosophy. In connection with the publication of this volume Phipps-Kettlewell offered the following comments on the importance of Kerouac's poetry.
"Kerouac's poems still speak to us because he did undress for us, in order to reach this element of Soul that we all share, this universal experience of being alive, the human abandonment, the rage, the fear, the pain: the desire to partake of the goodness that we encounter all too rarely, and which we could distribute more selflessly if it weren't for the rage, the fear, the pain - we recognize it all in Kerouac's poems, we empathize with him while being moved."
Most LOA volumes are sparingly edited. In this volume of Kerouac, however, Phipps-Kettlewell plays an important creative role. The volume begins with her extensive introduction : "Jack Kerouac, in his Own Words" It consists of short, well-chosen quotations from Kerouac's writings, most of which are derived from this volume, together with Phipps-Kettlewell's ongoing commentary. Each section is introduced by an appropriate heading as the reader learns about Kerouac's life, his understanding of his mission as a writer, his religious searchings, writing style, struggles with alcoholism, influence, and more. This introduction is a moving introduction to Kerouac and the poetry which follows.
The volume includes 700 pages of Kerouac's published seven books of poetry: "Mexico City Blues", "The Scripture of Golden Eternity", the "Book of Blues", "Pomes all Sizes", "Old Angel Midnight", "Desolation Pops", and the "Book of Haikus" together with a large collection of Uncollected Poems. With small exceptions, the poems included have been previously published, but they are gathered together in one volume for the first time.
Kerouac wrote prolifically, and the style of his poetry resists easy summarization. He is best remembered for his spontaneous, free-flowing poems, but some of his poetry is carefully thought through and controlled. In much of his poetry, with "Blues" in the volume title, Kerouac set out to capture the swing and drive of the bop music he loved so well. He also wrote prose poems, religious poems, songs, works in what appear to be traditional stanzas, and, importantly, works drawing on Japanese haiku.
Kerouac was a notoriously erratic and inconsistent writer. Within each book of poems, the reader will frequently find expressive, thoughtful poetry commingled side-by-side with works which appear ranting, slapdash, or unreadable. Kerouac wrote much, was not afraid to experiment, and fought against his demons of substance use and alcohol. The reader of this volume will wade through an amount of poor writing among much that is worthwhile. There is excellent writing in each book, with the possible exception of Kerouac's long free-flow poem "Old Angel Midnight." Kerouac reportedly realized the unsuccessful character of this lengthy improvisatory work with which I struggled in vain.
The strongest work in this collection is the short prose-poem "The Scripture of the Golden Eternity" written in 1956. This work is Kerouac's highly personal expression of his eclectic religious mysticism derived from both Buddhism and Catholicism that informs all his writing. The work is divided into 66 paragraphs. Here is paragraph 36 which captures the content and style of this religious-philosophical poem:
"Give a gift to your brother, but there's no gift to compare with the giving of assurance that he is the golden eternity. The true understanding of this would bring tears to your eyes. The other shore is right here, forgive and forget, protect and reassure. Your tormentors will be purified. Raise thy diamond hand. Have faith and wait. The course of your days is a river rumbling over your rocky back. You're sitting at the bottom of the world with a head of iron. Religion is thy sad heart. You're the golden eternity and it must be done by you. And means only one thing: Nothing -Ever-Happened. This is the golden eternity."
There is also a religiously-themed collection of prose poems titled "Psalms" in the Uncollected Works of the volume.
The collections of haiku influenced poems in "Desolation Pops" and the "Book of Haiku" are simple and eloquent. They advanced the use of this deceptively simple form in the United States and will reward reading. The selection of uncollected haikus at the end of the volume is less uniformly good. Kerouac did not publish them for a reason.
The several selections of "Blues" poems and the works included in "Pomes all Sizes" are mixed. "Mexico City Blues" survived a rocky publication history and a scathing initial review to become an almost iconic collection of Beat poetry. The volume reflects Kerouac's understanding of Buddhism, his reflections on his family history, his struggle with drugs and much else. The poems in the "Book of Blues" are also mixed and varied. The best of them give a sense of the street life in the places where they were written, including San Francisco, the Bowery, and Greenwich Village.
Literary works might be included in a series such as the Library of America either for their own literary merit or for illustrating an important historical movement in American letters. Kerouac's poems deserve inclusion on both grounds. His poetry is uneven but lasting. The Library of America and Phipps-Kettlewell deserve thanks for this excellent volume.
Robin Friedman
To coincide with the 50th anniversary of the first publication of "On the Road" In September, 1957, the Library of America published in September, 2007 a volume of Jack Kerouac's (1922 -- 1969) "Road Novels". The Library of America has now, five years later, published a second large volume of Kerouac: the first collected edition of the poetry of the legendary "Beat" writer.
Douglas Brinkley of Tulane University edited the volume of Road Novels while Marilene Phipps-Kettlewell has edited this new collection of Kerouac's poetry. Phipps-Kettlewell is a painter, poet, and writer educated in Haiti and France. She has become an American citizen and lives in Massachusetts. She shares with Kerouac a French heritage, a Catholic background, and an immersion when young in Buddhism and Eastern philosophy. In connection with the publication of this volume Phipps-Kettlewell offered the following comments on the importance of Kerouac's poetry.
"Kerouac's poems still speak to us because he did undress for us, in order to reach this element of Soul that we all share, this universal experience of being alive, the human abandonment, the rage, the fear, the pain: the desire to partake of the goodness that we encounter all too rarely, and which we could distribute more selflessly if it weren't for the rage, the fear, the pain - we recognize it all in Kerouac's poems, we empathize with him while being moved."
Most LOA volumes are sparingly edited. In this volume of Kerouac, however, Phipps-Kettlewell plays an important creative role. The volume begins with her extensive introduction : "Jack Kerouac, in his Own Words" It consists of short, well-chosen quotations from Kerouac's writings, most of which are derived from this volume, together with Phipps-Kettlewell's ongoing commentary. Each section is introduced by an appropriate heading as the reader learns about Kerouac's life, his understanding of his mission as a writer, his religious searchings, writing style, struggles with alcoholism, influence, and more. This introduction is a moving introduction to Kerouac and the poetry which follows.
The volume includes 700 pages of Kerouac's published seven books of poetry: "Mexico City Blues", "The Scripture of Golden Eternity", the "Book of Blues", "Pomes all Sizes", "Old Angel Midnight", "Desolation Pops", and the "Book of Haikus" together with a large collection of Uncollected Poems. With small exceptions, the poems included have been previously published, but they are gathered together in one volume for the first time.
Kerouac wrote prolifically, and the style of his poetry resists easy summarization. He is best remembered for his spontaneous, free-flowing poems, but some of his poetry is carefully thought through and controlled. In much of his poetry, with "Blues" in the volume title, Kerouac set out to capture the swing and drive of the bop music he loved so well. He also wrote prose poems, religious poems, songs, works in what appear to be traditional stanzas, and, importantly, works drawing on Japanese haiku.
Kerouac was a notoriously erratic and inconsistent writer. Within each book of poems, the reader will frequently find expressive, thoughtful poetry commingled side-by-side with works which appear ranting, slapdash, or unreadable. Kerouac wrote much, was not afraid to experiment, and fought against his demons of substance use and alcohol. The reader of this volume will wade through an amount of poor writing among much that is worthwhile. There is excellent writing in each book, with the possible exception of Kerouac's long free-flow poem "Old Angel Midnight." Kerouac reportedly realized the unsuccessful character of this lengthy improvisatory work with which I struggled in vain.
The strongest work in this collection is the short prose-poem "The Scripture of the Golden Eternity" written in 1956. This work is Kerouac's highly personal expression of his eclectic religious mysticism derived from both Buddhism and Catholicism that informs all his writing. The work is divided into 66 paragraphs. Here is paragraph 36 which captures the content and style of this religious-philosophical poem:
"Give a gift to your brother, but there's no gift to compare with the giving of assurance that he is the golden eternity. The true understanding of this would bring tears to your eyes. The other shore is right here, forgive and forget, protect and reassure. Your tormentors will be purified. Raise thy diamond hand. Have faith and wait. The course of your days is a river rumbling over your rocky back. You're sitting at the bottom of the world with a head of iron. Religion is thy sad heart. You're the golden eternity and it must be done by you. And means only one thing: Nothing -Ever-Happened. This is the golden eternity."
There is also a religiously-themed collection of prose poems titled "Psalms" in the Uncollected Works of the volume.
The collections of haiku influenced poems in "Desolation Pops" and the "Book of Haiku" are simple and eloquent. They advanced the use of this deceptively simple form in the United States and will reward reading. The selection of uncollected haikus at the end of the volume is less uniformly good. Kerouac did not publish them for a reason.
The several selections of "Blues" poems and the works included in "Pomes all Sizes" are mixed. "Mexico City Blues" survived a rocky publication history and a scathing initial review to become an almost iconic collection of Beat poetry. The volume reflects Kerouac's understanding of Buddhism, his reflections on his family history, his struggle with drugs and much else. The poems in the "Book of Blues" are also mixed and varied. The best of them give a sense of the street life in the places where they were written, including San Francisco, the Bowery, and Greenwich Village.
Literary works might be included in a series such as the Library of America either for their own literary merit or for illustrating an important historical movement in American letters. Kerouac's poems deserve inclusion on both grounds. His poetry is uneven but lasting. The Library of America and Phipps-Kettlewell deserve thanks for this excellent volume.
Robin Friedman
January 25, 2016
Ce qu'on y retrouve de plus beau est à mon avis cet haïkaÏ de Basho (1644–1694):
N'empêche que tout Kerouac me fait vibrer. Et si l'image du road trip avec un vieux chum pis d'la bonne musique est devenu un lieu commun pour dépeindre son oeuvre, c'est tout de même l'image la plus juste qui soit pour résumer mon expérience avec ce recueil de poèmes.
Jour de joie tranquille
Le mont Fuji est voilé
D'un brouillard de pluie
N'empêche que tout Kerouac me fait vibrer. Et si l'image du road trip avec un vieux chum pis d'la bonne musique est devenu un lieu commun pour dépeindre son oeuvre, c'est tout de même l'image la plus juste qui soit pour résumer mon expérience avec ce recueil de poèmes.
March 25, 2018
There were a few that were better than ok but this collection of poems was a lot like why I didn't like On the Road. I recognize the significance of the Beat Generation but their stuff just doesn't resonate with me.
November 16, 2017
"¡Mi gatito ronroneando feliz odia las puertas!
Y a veces está triste y silencioso
nariz caliente, sollozos,
y un leve maullido doliente.
Allí van las aves volando un momento hacia el oeste.
¿Quién llegará a conocer el mundo antes de que se vaya?
- Pax -
Exijo que la raza humana
deje de multiplicar su especie
y se humille
lo advierto
Y como castigo & recompensa
por hacer este alegato sé
que renaceré
el último ser humano
Todos los demás muertos y yo
una anciana errando por la tierra
gimiendo en cuevas
durmiendo sobre harapos
Y a veces charlo, a veces
rezo, a veces lloro, como & guiso
en mi pequeña cocina
del rincón
"En cierto modo siempre lo supe"
digo
Y una mañana no me levanto de los harapos"
Y a veces está triste y silencioso
nariz caliente, sollozos,
y un leve maullido doliente.
Allí van las aves volando un momento hacia el oeste.
¿Quién llegará a conocer el mundo antes de que se vaya?
- Pax -
Exijo que la raza humana
deje de multiplicar su especie
y se humille
lo advierto
Y como castigo & recompensa
por hacer este alegato sé
que renaceré
el último ser humano
Todos los demás muertos y yo
una anciana errando por la tierra
gimiendo en cuevas
durmiendo sobre harapos
Y a veces charlo, a veces
rezo, a veces lloro, como & guiso
en mi pequeña cocina
del rincón
"En cierto modo siempre lo supe"
digo
Y una mañana no me levanto de los harapos"
June 20, 2020
"Kindness and sympathy, understanding and encouragement, these give: they are better just presents and gifts: no reason in the world why not. Anyhow, be nice. Remember the golden eternity is yourself. "If someone will simply practice kindness," said Gotama to Subhuti, "he will soon attain highest perfect wisdom." Then he added: "Kindness after all is only a word and it should be done on the spot without thought of kindness."
- The Scripture of the Golden Eternity
- The Scripture of the Golden Eternity
June 2, 2021
Around the same time I began to consider adding poetry to the early band projects I was in I found Mexico City Blues by Jack Kerouac. The poems were transcendent and beautiful, spontaneous and inspired by jazz improvisational sessions of the era. I found that the Beat Poets were trying to revive lyric poetry really and Jack Kerouac helped to bring it back to the people again. This Collected Poems is the best hardback edition of Kerouac's visionary work that I have found.
November 22, 2019
A great collection of very different styles. If I’m feeling energized and having a drink or more, some jazz on, Old Angel Midnight is a great read out loud. If it’s a quiet morning, cup of coffee. I liked the haikus, including Desolation Pops. Any Kerouac fan should tackle his poetry and get to know the man at his most personal
August 19, 2025
There is some really fantastic stuff in here, but there is also a LOT of stuff...and a lot the author didn't publish in his lifetime, but some of that is the fantastic bit.
Currently reading
December 4, 2012I've read most of these poems before but in individual collections. At this point, I value Kerouac's poetry more than his novels. His freedom, honesty, and play with words are appealing. If and when I finish this volume, I'll post more of a review, and a rating as well. Kerouac's haiku are very effective and worth reading in themselves.
January 8, 2013
not much new here!
Read
May 16, 2015edition bilingue c'est un grand écrivain , est ce pour autant un grand poète je m'interroge encore et ne suis pas convaincu ...
April 7, 2017
a nice collection, kerouac always turns a musical beautiful phrase, his collection of book of blues poems is sprawling jazz-like rambling with beauty in there - altho its too much rambling for me sometimes, i prefer his shorter, singular poems
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews