NYPL Kerouac Exhibit and Beat Generation Lecture (Extra Blog 1)

As I walked around the Kerouac exhibition I noticed that the majority of the materials were Kerouac’s personal journals. As I read bits and pieces of them, I realized how incredible they were. Each journal was almost like reading one of his books. Even early on, they were all written in the infamous Kerouac prose, free flowing yet following a consistent rhythm. He wrote in his journals as if he knew one-day people would read them. He would explain why he liked things or didn’t like them, like when he listed the reasons why Joyce’s “Ulysses” was the best book ever written.
I found myself so captivated by the journals that the scroll seemed almost minute compared to them. Originally I thought the scroll would be the most fantastic thing there, and while it was cool to see, the journals were what grabbed me the most. It felt like I was in his head while reading his journal. I was hearing things I necessarily shouldn’t have, and I really liked that. The amount of written documentation he kept on his own life was just incredible and overwhelming.
The Beat Generation Lecture we heard was not quite what I expected, but interesting. I was expecting a lecture more specific to the Kerouac exhibit, yet I liked hearing about two lesser-known beat poets/writers. I really enjoyed learning more about Diane Di Prima as a woman writer in a male dominant movement. The fact that she was a single mom with 5 kids at that time was pretty unbelievable. I really enjoyed her poem “The Window” and would definitely be interested to read more of her work.