By Joe Kidd, Michigan Beat Poet Laureate
Delivered at Flagler College April 15, 2023
Brothers & Sisters
We are here today because this is where we must be at. We are here because we have heard a voice. A voice that has called us to come together to celebrate the voices of others. Our curiosity has driven us to seek out those who are able to speak without talking, those who can hear the silence, those who communicate through the ether.
It is neither a gift nor a curse, it is not unique, nor is it special. When we write poetry, what are we doing? We are asking others to READ OUR MINDS. We are transferring telepathically the language that we speak to ourselves in our heads when we are thinking.
Poetry originates in a subconscious world. There is no sunlight, no moonlight, no gravity, no oxygen. There is no space in the realm of poetry. There are no limits to where it can go or how long it will last. Poetry does not age with time. Of all the arts, music, painting, sculpture, poetry is the one that requires no instrument, it can exist alone in the air, in the breath of the poet. For centuries it was such. Never written, but rather a spontaneous event in the heart of a person who was thrilled to be alive. The first poem, was a grunt.
And thus it began, no university, no MFA, no instructor explaining technique. Today we are gathered together on the grounds of this beautiful and historic Flager College. For those here who perhaps are not inclined or able to attend college, here is a short list of literary giants that have impacted the world without a degree, it includes George Orwell, Charles Dickens, H G Wells, Truman Capote, Mark Twain, Arthur Rimbaud, Edgar Allan Poe, and Jack Kerouac himself.
When I was a student in the Catholic Seminary there was a great comfort in the halls and the history of the brilliant theologians and doctors of the church that I was studying. More often than not, they too were artists and poets as well as canonized saints.
This weekend it is our turn to experience the sanctuary of the church of poetry.
We will stand and walk in the footprints of those that have come and gone before us while we proclaim our own absolute freedom from any and all limitations of what may disturb us, confuse us, or stand in the way of our expression. There is nothing in the world that can stop us from exercising the creative ability to make poetry. No prison, no hospital, no parent, no employerAs long as we are breathing and thinking, the possibility exists.In my world there are poets and there are great poets.
Poets tend to holler a lot. They rant about current affairs. They complain about personal problems and relationships. They more or less read their diary to us.
They are the ones that you sit through and dream of being somewhere else while they are talking. Their families think they are awesome and that is as far as it is going to go.
The practice of writing poetry is as varied as the poets themselves. Some writers force themselves to write every day regardless of pre-thought, in the belief that something worthwhile will appear in the mix. Others write when the muse enters their head and inspiration flows. Some rely on prompts to initiate a writing session. Certain individuals consider writing as a job, others a hobby, still others as a way of life that is embedded in their cellular structure as well as their soul. There is no right or wrong way of poetic expression.
Writing poetry can be a terrifying event. Often disturbing, sometimes painful.
It can also be exhilarating. Exciting, enlightening, and ecstatic.
The results of writing poetry can be very rewarding, or devastating.
As I said in the beginning, great poetry resides in another realm and that is where the poet must leave their expectations. One must not rely upon response from outside for vindication.
The great poets are the ones that when you hear or read their work, you cant believe what you just witnessed. It haunts you, it enters you, it consumes you. You think “That’s Me” I could have written that, or I wish I had written that. Great poets write to a bigger realm than the one that exists. They write to the future, they write to the ancestors. They write to the spirits that are swirling around us all at this very moment.
Poetry tells the truth. But, it is not bound to the truth. Poetry exists in the free space of imagination and interpretation. What is true for me may not be true for you. The concept of truth is a drifter, especially in beat poetry. That is why we are dangerous, we are a threat to normalcy, to complacency. We are not submissive, we are aggressive. We hold up the mirror to society. Metaphor, allegory, similarity are our language. It requires a courageous talent, an expanded consciousness to write, and also to read and hear. It requires more than desire, but a force that needs the nourishment that poetry provides in order to survive. We leave the details to the brave and necessary journalists and historians of the ages. We blow them up and tell it like it is, like it is not, and like it is supposed to be.
Poets are not always the healthiest individuals we meet. Often they are frail, depressed, detached, drunk, dirty, chaotic. Many do not concern themselves with order, cleanliness, politeness, and other rules and regulations of the status quo. There are two kinds of poets that I have encountered personally, Those that take a real scenario and turn it into a fable, and those who create a fable and make it as real as the ground that we stand on. Both are valid. Either can be beautiful and fantastic.
Beat poets are revolutionaries. They have dropped the garment of conformity. They proclaim their freedom of speech. They have denied the rules and regulations of mendacity. Moses was a beat poet when he shattered the commandments. Bobby Sands was a beat poet when he starved himself to death in the penitentiary until his joints came apart in the cot and his nose caved into his skull. John F Kennedy was a beat poet when he wrote “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” Neal Armstrong was a beat poet when he said “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” With his feet on the Moon! John Lennon was a beat poet when he said “War is over, if you want it.” Why? Because no one else could ever say those words, they belong to these people. The statements are quite simple. No great vocabulary, no funny words that nobody ever speaks. Written in language that everyone can understand and appreciate.
That is what makes them timeless and universal. It makes them historic, it makes them Beat Poetry. You become a Beat Poet when you say something that has never been said before. And anyone can grasp it.
I cannot end without bringing up the beat poets and their work and how it has influenced and fit into the structures and moods of modern popular music. I could say one word and leave it at that: Beatles. They were fans of Buddy Holly and Jack Kerouac. They took the idea from Buddy Holly and the Crickets and merged it with Kerouac’s Beat generation, spelled Beatles with an A and went on to affect everything that came next.
Bob Dylan brought serious poetry into Folk Music. Greatly nourished by the Beats, we see Dylan as a blend of Ginsberg and Guthrie who was eventually honored as the first popular music icon to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Jazz of course was the soundtrack of the Beat Generation. It served as the universal cadence for the language of the poetry and prose. Bebop especially provided the revolutionary, anti establishment backdrop to the free and spontaneous expression of the Beat Poets.
Later in the 1960s artists like the great Jim Morrison literally brought forth Beat poetry and Rock music together into the drug fueled mainstream.
The 11th century Buddhist master Dogen suggested that “one does not view the sky through a bamboo tube.” Buddhism provides the artist with the open space freedom from commonality, complacency, conformity, and consumerism. In the footsteps of Emerson, Thoreau, and Whitman, Jack Kerouac incorporated the teachings of the Buddha into his work The Dharma Bums. Introducing a radical and enduring new way of life into the consciousness of America and western society. Criticized by the established religions, embraced by the youth.
Don’t ever say to yourself or anyone that you can’t think of anything to write.
There is no such thing as “writer’s block.” It is a fabricated ailment. There has always been, and there will always be something wonderful to write about. Stop and listen. Let it find you. Poetry will seek you out. It is your partner. It is your spirit. Poetry is you. Don’t wait for someone else to write it. Don’t let it lie dormant. Don’t let it get away and disappear. Don’t let it go unwritten. That’s All, That’s Enough.
I will end with this:
Poetry is an alien language. It originates in the supernatural and is translated through the 6th sense. It is the voice of the deity. Few speak it. Few understand it. Unlike other forms of art and communication which require a physical effort, the purity of poetry is free and unencumbered. Poetry requires only awareness, observance, thought, and courage. It is a reaction to beauty, sorrow, and injustice. It is an act of love. Poetry is the song of the medicine healer, it is the prayer of the saint. Poetry is a kiss, a caress, an eye aimed at the edge of the universe. Poetry is a weapon, it is timeless rebellion, it is truth. Poetry is the tyrant’s worst enemy and the target of the oppressor wishing to banish it from view. Poetry is not journalism, it cannot be censored. Poetry is at once the creation and the creator. As long as the spirit dwells within the flesh, poetry will exist.
Joe Kidd
April 2023