Introduction to Transnational Beat: Global Poetics in a Postmodern World

Abstract

Beat Generation writers and artists are most often unequivocally identified as American, and there exists a strong body of Beat scholarship delineating the literary and political traditions within American cultural history that engendered the many manifestations of Beat writing. However, that same scholarship foregrounds distinct threads that speak to Beat borrowings and blendings of various traditions from other Western and non-Western cultures. Some of these easily come to mind when Beat is mentioned, such as Buddhism, pan-cultural hallucinogenic practices, and European surrealism and romanticism. These borrowings and blendings, accomplished through traditional reading practices, reflect extensive migratory or travel experiences. In fact, travel both within and outside the United States for many Beat writers—including Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Gary Snyder, Joanne Kyger, Philip Whalen, Janine Pommy Vega, and Anne Waldman—characterized a method for fusing life as art and vice versa. However, the migratory character of the Beat movement is much more than the fact that a number of Beat writers traveled extensively outside the United States. Granted, their interactions sometimes fit compatibly with a common understanding of tourism. But some, most notably Burroughs and Ted Joans, lived abroad for extended periods of time, interacting with writers and artists outside the United States and often making concerted efforts to live as members of the local community.