Hippy Poets!

Hey Guys......... As a poet I'm looking for some inspiration and was wondering if anyone knew of any "hippy" poets? I know there where tons of song writers and poets from the beatnick generation but what about true hippy poets of past or present?

 

Damn slim pickin's. The hippie generation wasn't known for its intellectual power.

 

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Yeah I thought so but thanks anyways! The music does help alot though.......... Music makes everything better! *LOVE*

 

Allen Ginsberg, John Lennon, Alicia Bay Laurel, more than I can count.

 

Beat Poets...

Allen Ginsburg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs, Bob Kaufman, Emiri Baraka, Ken Kesey....

 

All the so-called "poets", every damned one you named, was a "beatnik".


There are-- NO "Hippy Poets".

I defy you to name one.

 

A guy I knew who went by the name of Ugly Stan. His poetry I'll have to dig up but damn it doesn't make any sense anymore. Back then we could understand it now it's like "huh???". San Francisco in the Summer of Love... What a wacky place.

 

The "beatniks" talked about politics and repression. They were the ones that started the "hippie movement". If someone tells me Allen Ginsberg wasn't a hippie, they're full of shit!

 

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Well, Dancer Annie, 23 years old, I saw Ginsburg reciting his notorious "poem"-- "America, I put my queer shoulder to the wheel"-- in Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village back in 1967. I was not impressed.

And, I'm not "full of shit", he was already in his late 40's and the only reason he hung around the hippie scene (besides his colossal ego and need to stay in the spotlight) was to pick up young boys. You knew he was a pedophile, didn't you?

Put it this way-- he'll never have a bridge named after him as did his hero, Walt Whitman.

 

I might only be 23 and sorry, ma'am, why don't you NOT knock me for being younger than you...it is certainly not something I can control.

You might have not been impressed with his poem, but that doesn't mean he wasn't a hippy poet. *shrugs* say what you will...she asked a question and I answered. Why don't you get that bee out of your bonnet?

And just because he was gay doesn't mean he was a pedophile. And even if he wasn't doesn't mean he wasn't a good poet.

 

Since THUDLY didn't like the suggestions I made...how about I try again. Maybe they will be more satisfactory to her...Although I will always argue that Ginsberg was a hippie poet...after all...he was an Anti-Vietnam activist and hung out with the kinds of people like Abbie Hoffman who actively protested against government actions.

Denise Levertov - She brought her own distinctive voice to poems concerned with multiple aspects of the human experience: love, motherhood, nature, war, the nuclear arms race, and the environment.

Robert Duncan - He wrote about politics and the horrific sense of war.

Lawrence Ferlighetti - He was very political minded and was a pacifist. He is also a big proprieter of Freedom of Speech.

Kenneth Rextroth - his influence was that of anti-establishment literature, which paved the way for others to write poems of social consciousness and passionate political enlightenment.

Bob Kaufman - John F. Kennedy's assassination in 1963 prompted him to take a Buddhist vow of silence. He withdrew from society and did not speak again until 1975, on the day the Vietnam War ended.

I could go on if you'd like...

 

Right there with ya sister!!! It's funny how someones age can make them think they no it all!?!?!? Anyway I like to write about self image,politics,
spirituality,nature and human interaction. In my thoughts that is what the hippies analyised and raped about so I just thought there might be more out there i'm not familer with..................

 

richard brautigan --Trout fishing in America

read A Confederate General in Big Sur.

 

GODDAMN IT! EVERY name, EVERY SINGLE ONE is considered a "Beat" poet by the literary establishment! And, that goes for Brautigan, too.


Just because they were alive during the "hippie years" does not make them hippie poets.

Just who the fuck is the literary expert on these boards, the ex-newspaper writer, the nationally published short-story writer, the goddamn novelist, the only son-of-a-bitch that corresponded with Henry Miller, visited with John Updike and actually heard Ginsburg recite? I got a clue-- it sure as hell isn't Dancer Annie, Curious Jane or Gate68.

Christ! You all got my blood pressure up 20 notches! I take this shit serious because I take literature seriously.

I'm surprised you didn't throw in Charles Bukowski. He wasn't even a Beat poet. He was a skid-row wino poet who retired from the postal service.

 

BTW, Dancer Annie-- I'm not a "ma'am". I use that Avatar so my nosy trio of daughters can't spy on my posts--they don't know my screen name, as well.

 

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Freakylady--- these ignorant arse-holes REALLY piss me off! I've read anywhere from 1 book to 3 books a week from the age of 4 to my current age, 58. I own, probably 2000 books. These stupid dorks most likely have read 10 or 20-- shit! maybe they've been lucky, 100-- I read that many in one year.FUCK THEM!


The only person in my whole goddamn life who was better read than me, was John Updike-- and, he gets paid for doing it-- I do it for love.

Thudly signs out.

 

Poetry was a big thing with the Beatniks, of the Beat generation. Be Bop Cool cat. Like skin me, daddio? Remember the old TV series: THE MANY LOVES OF DOBIE GILLIS (09/29/1959-09/18/1963/CBS)? Probably not (as most young hippies weren't born yet), but Thudly might remember. Bob Denver (who also played "Gilligan" on "Gilligan's Island", later on) played Maynard G. Krebs, who was a Beatnik (wearing a "goatee" and carryng a set of "bongos"). Dwayne Hickman played DOBIE GILLIS.

I was too young to be a Beatniik, but I watched many black & white tv show series, and some movies, involving Beatniks, as a young child. Hippies didn't exist yet!

I only have a "media" view of Beatniks, which was: They liked to dress in all black, wear French beret hats, wear "goatees" (males), smoke cigarettes in long holders, hang out in "tea" (the kind you drink) houses, attend poetry readings frequently, smoke "tea" (the kind you "smoke", i.e. reefer), listened to and/or performed JAZZ music, played "bongos" alot and would be classified as "intellectuals". These may be "stereotypes", however. Maybe Thudly can enlighten us on the "real-life" Beatnik scene. The Beatnik scene was very Bohemian. I could've got into into it. Like that would've been one crazy scene, daddio! Skin me Moon Doggy!

Anyway, poetry was a big thing with the Beatniks and not so much with later Hippies. At poetry readings, if Beatniks liked what they heard, they would "click" or "snap" their fingers, instead of applaud, and maybe bang on some bongos. It was a 50's thing. "Greasers" did something similar, with finger snapping.

It's hard to come up with 60's/70's hippy poets. I was a hippy poet, and published! Actually I took a high school class in CREATIVE WRITING (1971-1972) and we had to put together a high school publication, which we called AQUILLA. I submitted a few poems and a very short play. I had to draw the cover design, which was a scuptural rendition of an old feather "quill" pen, inserted into its "ink well". I still have one of these publications. No, I wasn't famous.

One of my poems was inspired by the moonlight being reflected off of the water, called: NO MOON (and began: "No moon shone upon the darkness of the night, once ... ") Another one was about the transition period between Spring and Summer, entitled: NOT SPRING, NOT SUMMER ("Not Spring, Not Summer has but the smell of grass, fresh cut . Not cold, not hot are the days and nights ... ) Nature inspires the poet, within!

Years later, I wrote a few "psychedelic" poems. I was either high on "grass", or influenced by it, in these later poems. My favorite one was about Thanksgiving day at Grandma's house, with a turkey that was, "all butter-balled up in Granny's goodness." This is a psychedelic-poetic way to say that Grandma baked the bird with her love put into it, and you can "feel" the warmth and "hominess" that she radiates.

Psychedelic poems are related to the psychedelic experience and may contain a passage such as: " ... with crystalline cranberries crackling with cascading crimson colors." There's a "tongue twister" for you! Some psychedelic visions contain "glass-like" visions ("crystalline"), feelings of being electric ("crackling") , visions of things melting ("cascading" or "dripping") and "I can taste the colors". See the psychedelic connections, to my given poetic passage?

TIMOTHY LEARY wrote a psychedelic poetry book entitled "Psychedelic Prayers after the tao te ching" (UNIVERSITY BOOKS, New Hyde Park, NY,c 1966 By Timothy Leary). The FOWARD section states how Tim produced these psychedelic poems (prayers):

"These translations from English to psychedelease were made while sitting under a bamboo tree on a grassy slope of the Kumaon Hills overlooking the snow peaks of the Himilayas."
"The work went like this. I had nine English translations of the TAO. I would select a TAO chapter and read and reread all nine English versions of it. Each translator, of course, made his own interpretation of the flowing calligraphy. Nine western minds. But after hours of rereading and meditation the essense of the poem would bubble up. The aim was to relate this essence theme to psychedelic sessions. Slowly a psychedelic version of the chapter would emerge."
"This draft version would then be put under the psychedelic miicroscope. For several years I have pursued the yoga of one LSD session every seven days. The neurological amplification of CANNABIS was also available."

One of Tim's 56 "trippy" poems (TAO-derived) is as follows:

VI-6
The Utility of Nothing

The Nothing at the center of the
thirty spoke wheel . . . . .
The Nothing of the clay vase . . . . .
The Nothing within the four walls . . . . .
The goal of the game is to go beyond the game
You lose your mind
To use your head
You lose your mind
To use your head

Tim's approach to poetry was a bit complex and involving, plus being "trippy" and, of course, psychedelic.

Yoko Ono (Lennon) wrote a poetry book entitled: GRAPEFRUIT. I don't think it was very popular, but I remember it. John Lennon was poetic, but used his poetry in his song writing.

JOHN SINCLAIR was a famous 60's ICON (from Flint, MI), who was heavily into poetry and jazz, however, he's usually described as a "Beatnik Warrior Poet". He did have many 60's/hippy-themed poems, though.

John Sinclair usually recites his poetry at the annual Ann Arbor HASH BASH (see: www.hashbash.com), at 4:20PM (-5:30PM), in front of CASA DOMINICK'S resturant (812 Monroe Street), which is south of the U of M "diag" (see: www.monroestreetfair.com). He's living in Amsterdam, now, but he should show up at this year's "35th Annual ANN ARBOR HASH BASH", on APRIL 1st/SATURDAY/2006 (starts at 11am at the Federal Building, then 12:00-1:00PM on the U of M "diag", for listening to the featured speakers). After 1:00PM is the "partying" and free bands, on Monroe Street. John Sinclair's arrest for two joints, is why the HASH BASH started in the first place! John Lennon, later, wrote a song about John Sinclair.

I listened to John Sinclair's poetry at last year's "34th Annual Ann Arbor HASH BASH", which is accompanied by the band "Glowb". One poem was sort of "anti-war", while the last poem I heard was about: "Sandoz, Dr. Albert Hofmann, a bicycle ride and so forth." I wonder what that could be about? Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds? Sounded 60-ish to me! John Sinclair may be classified as a "Beatnik Warrior Poet", but he had strong 60-ish themes, very hippy, later on!

Hippy poets seem few and far between. Most hippy poets had psychedelic/Eastern religious themes. It was the Beatniks who were really heavy into poetry.

"Light me up a "tea", daddio!"

Peace out. Trip out. Poem out.