Pomes All Sizes

by Jack Kerouac

The original manuscript of this book, written between 1954 and 1965, has been in the safekeeping of City Lights all the years since Kerouac’s death in 1969. Reaching beyond the scope of his Mexico City Blues, here are pomes about Mexico and Tangier, Berkeley and the Bowery. Mid-fifties road poems, hymns and songs of God, drug poems, wine poems, dharma poems and Buddhist meditations. Poems to Beat friends, goofball poems, quirky haiku, and a fine, long elegy in “Canuckian Child Patoi Probably Medieval . . . an English blues.” But more than a quarter of a century after it was written, Pomes All Sizes today would seem to be more than a sum of it parts, revealing a questing Kerouac grown beyond the popular image of himself as a Beat on the Road.

Genres: Poetry, Classics, Fiction, American, Collections, Literature

191 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Jean-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.

Reviews

[Jon Nakapalau · Rating 5 out of 5]

Before it all fades away
there are times when Dharma horizon
can be
glimpsed in reflection against
last darkness
and which even now is far following us
all the shadow that we all must fall into even as we tell
ourselves that the next day
is ours by proxy of
existential lying.

[Dylan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Miles Davis' "Kind of Blue" has been consistently voted one of the greatest records ever made. Recently, when compiling another pointless list, several music critics admitted that, despite lauding this work as a masterpiece for year on year, they had never actually listened to it. Kerouac is probably the literary equivalent - more talked about than read, towering reputation but little known, massively misunderstood. On The Road, written about the 40s, published in the 50s, impacted in the 60s, sums up this man out of time. He hated the misguided, simple minded 60s ideals, and regretted that he had become some kind of symbol for a generation he loathed. So he drank, and drank some more, whilst living with his mother, increasingly prickly, conservative, withdrawn and died a slow middle aged Bukowski style death - I'm sure he would have found 47 such a nothing number.
He did produce some masterpieces - Big Sur is darkly moving, Lonesome Traveller is an existential classic - but he also wrote tons of junk desperately in need of a sympathetic editor. Pomes All Sizes contains much of this junk - nonsense without the fun, experiments in sound that fail to deliver anything new or exciting, self indulgent nightmares captured in 4am fever which would be discarded by anyone else when the sun rises, Jackson Pollock style word toss...but there is greatness lurking in the shadows. When he knew what he was aiming for he connected and hit true. Songs of himself, Buddha, Mexico and a new kind of blues still resonate with all our inner poets. His influence and legacy may be overrated and little understood, but he was without doubt a huge talent. He was a little like a 1950s cine-camera; capturing everything but badly in need of focus.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Slim little volume (despite the 190 pages, it's one of City Lights'"Pocket Poets" titles, which are little books designed to literally fit inside a man's jacket- or breast-pocket, so a normal sized version of the collection would probably be about 95 pages) of Kerouac that serves as like a potpourri of his various poetic modes; in addition to the multitude of forms we also have a huge range of subject matter, ranging from his twin fascinations/obsessions with Catholic mysticism and Buddhism to snippets of barroom chatter to shout-outs to his fellow Beats to life on the road to scenes in Mexico City to spontaneous rhymes and gibberish. It's very easy to pick up and enjoy regardless of how much familarity with poetry one has and, given how it works as a sampler of Kerouac's styles and ideas, as well as its shorter length, I might say it's a better introduction to his poetry than Mexico City Blues or Book of Blues, both of which I would say are better overall (particularly the former, which IMO is very much an essential piece of Kerouac's body of work).

[J.C. · Rating 4 out of 5]

3 and a half stars.

I’ve been told that Kerouac’s prose works are stronger and fair better than his poetry. I think this one is a case in point. There’s plenty of language sing-song playtime riffing typical of his work, but here it comes off far more either vague or simplistic. i think he hated rhyme but he worked extremely well with it, those poems to me seemed more collected and sharper, more coherent. And more musical, which is integral to Kerouac’s philosophy.

[Molly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I do love Jack Kerouac, and while his poetry is hit or miss, it's worth looking at. He always inspires me with his freedom and joy.

[Sean A. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty uneven, but when he's on, he's on. Very playful.

[Brendan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoy Kerouac's poetry. On the surface, it resembles the "typing" of Capote's famous criticism, but there is a wealth of treasures buried that a close reading reveals.

[Bluequiltedviolet · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fantastic assortment of Keouac's poetry, in tiny book form.

Haiku: : Came down from my
Ivory Tower
And found no world

Thank god for Kerouac. If written now, his poem "I am god" might simply be described as "Kanye-esque," although Kanye would probably have capitalized the A.*

*Oh, and I'm kidding, people. Please don't bombard me with "How dare you even name Kerouac and Kanye in the same sentence!" etc etc. I don't care how you feel about Kanye.

[Silver · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite collections of Poems!

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

He's a good poet, but a better storyteller.

[Beluosus · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the right book read when you're coming home drunk on the train.

[Carson Gallant · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Heaven has everything to do with healing

and healing has nothing to do with heaven”
(My Views on Religion)

[Gabby Grinaway · Rating 5 out of 5]

My first time really reading Kerouac and I’ve been missing out. They don’t always make sense but that’s the magic of it. An intense focus on sound in his work is what is really interesting to me. He makes up words but they always work and his stylistic depiction of images and spelling of words, his lack of apostrophe and accent marks is interesting.

[julianna lindo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read out loud to myself 🧎‍♀️

[Marcos · Rating 3 out of 5]

Flies, Skid Row Wine, Poems of the Buddhas of Old, the thrashed doves, goofball blues, Long Island Chinese Poem Rain

[Carol · Rating 2 out of 5]

So, it turns out 40 years after I first read Kerouac, I still don’t like him. I wanted to, but I don’t.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty ok.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Pomes All Sizes" is a collection of random works written between 1954 and 1965. The poems treat such typically Kerouacian topics as travel and Buddhism. Quite a few appear to have been written while Kerouac was under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

Some are nonsense poems, or at least veer into nonsense, and reminded me of the happy gurglings and babblings of a baby just getting acquainted with using his mouth to make sounds. I mean that not as an attack but rather to show the level of playfulness at which Kerouac was working.

I am reminded of his "Rules for Spontaneous Prose" where he said "Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition" and "Composing wild, undisciplined, pure, coming in from under, crazier the better."

And in “Essentials of Spontaneous Prose” he wrote, "PROCEDURE Time being of the essence in the purity of speech, sketching language is undisturbed flow from the mind of personal secret idea-words, blowing (as per jazz musician) on subject of image," and "SCOPING Not “selectivity” of expression but following free deviation (association) of mind into limitless blow-on-subject seas of thought, swimming in sea of English with no discipline other than rhythms of rhetorical exhalation and expostulated statement, like a fist coming down on a table with each complete utterance, bang! (the space dash) Blow as deep as you want, write as deeply, fish as far down as you want, satisfy yourself first, then reader cannot fail to receive telepathic shock and meaning-excitement by same laws operating in his own human mind."

That is definitely what is going on here. These aren't the gibberings of a drunk, but the experiments of a genius playing with and liberating the forms of a language he didn't learn to speak until he was six.

Some of the poems are quite fun. Who but Kerouac could get away with modernizing and Americanizing a dharma tale to the point of calling Buddha "Buddy"?

And anyone with even a passing familiarity with the works of Allen Ginsberg will be able to see the debt Ginsberg's poetry owed to that of Kerouac, as Ginsberg was the first to point out.

[Mat · Rating 4 out of 5]

A motley bag of both good and bad apples. (Sorry no pomme-pome pun intended).

Some of the pomes in here, for examples 'Skid Row Blues' are absolute gems but at the same time there are a few 'head-shakers' which leave you thinking...."Jack, Jack..."

All things told though, there are enough great poems in this collection to warrant the price of admission. This collection was kept under the stern eye and hold of Stella Sampas until the early 90s. Thank God it has now been finally released to the world.

I divide this collection of pomes into three categories:
1) Very average to borderline rubbish pomes
2) Cryptic / opaque / half-gibberish pomes
3) Fantastic knock-out pomes

The good news is close to half of the pomes herein I would classify under category #3. The second half of the book in particular is really good. Being a student of French, I was also fascinated by Kerouac's Canuck French orthography. Kerouac definitely had a great ear because he writes just how you hear words on the street.

Highly recommended.

[Noora · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting and eclectic mixture of Jack Kerouac's poetry written between 1954 and 1965. Some of it reminded me of the time when I read On the Road, some made me laugh out loud, and some I had no clue about. I guess with a better understanding of the Beat generation and Buddhist teachings, I could have got more out of this collection, but there were slight instances of recognition and understanding in the midst of a sea of ... I-dont-know-what. Based on his poetry, I'd say Kerouac had personality, but I wasn't completely drunk on his brilliance.

Allen Ginsberg's introduction to this collection gave some guidelines as to how Kerouac's poems related to and reflected his own life, but he also praises Kerouac as the shining star that has shamelessly been left out of the canon of American poetry. Is it worth it? If you're a fan of Kerouac, yes. If you find him hard to get, then maybe give it a miss. I also wouldn't recommend it as your first Kerouac – go for either On the Road or for poems, his other collection, Mexico City Blues.

[Willow Redd · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting collection of poems from Kerouac covering a ten year period that shows the various periods of his life through travel and differing inspirations. Kerouac was also a traveler, so this collection comes from various places throughout those years, wherever he happened to be at the time.

The topics covered include God, Buddha, the blues, wine, drugs, Beat friends, and thoughts of the moment. Kerouac's style is very in the moment, often not even letting spelling and punctuation get in the way of the thought trying to reach the page.

He remains such a powerful influence, and this book is an excellent collection of his work.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kerouac' poetry gets you into that blissed out world of beat poetry with references to Ginsberg, Burroughs, Cassidy, and other key figures of the movement. There are also some sublime moments of Buddhist meditation and references to the great Chinese masters like Li Po, one the three great T'ang Dynasty poets, along with Du Fu and Wang Wei. Kerouac, like Thomas Merton, has a genuine embrace of Chinese Buddhism and poetry which substantially pre-dates commercialized "mindfulness" and serves to uplift the art.

[Joe Cheverie · Rating 4 out of 5]

overall this collection of Kerouac's poetry is read at a steady staccato beat and the reader can sense the musical lilt behind the poems. For me, Poems of the Buddhas of Old is the standout here. a lot of the late poems are fueled by alcohol and deteriorate into rambling, but are saved by Pome on Doctor Sax and A Curse at the Devil provides a strong finish to this solid collection.

[Rich · Rating 4 out of 5]

The poems in here are phenomenal. Not as good as Mexico City Blues, but it's not fair to compare the two

[Erik Dabel · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are some gems in here, some real classic good stuffs. Poems that make you think in the spur of the moment. And some that don't. I'm a fan of both.

[Kyle De valk · Rating 3 out of 5]

Poems ranging from Kerouac's Buddhist period to his more doomed reality, all which are filled with honesty, pain, delight and candor.

[Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good stuff. Intriguing words, canter and candor.

[Mike Hammer · Rating 3 out of 5]

a good collection of all the different types of poems and occasional brilliance from Kerouac

[Richard Downey · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is Jack being jack. These poems are drawn from different sources but are interesting in themselves. I like Kerouac's poetry, but don't find it as compelling as his prose.

[Greg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Best haiku ever, Kerouac's #27:
"First we buy the meat
and then we buy
the pot"
Truer words were never written. But one wonders what he has to say about food.