"Where would we be without it? Literature helps us to understand the world, to see and feel and empathise with other cultural values, other points of view. It stimulates our thinking and, on a very basic level, entertains us."

Leon Horton: Under the Counterculture

Leon Horton is a countercultural writer, interviewer, and editor. A regular…

"The Beats loved jazz, Kerouac wanted to be a jazz writer, but they also appreciated classical music and other forms of music. Notice the shout-out to Ray Charles at the beginning of Ginsberg’s “Kaddish.” What really helped keep the Beats alive was their influence on rock music: Bob Dylan, The Grateful Dead, The Doors, Janis Joplin, David Bowie, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, Patti Smith, The Clash, Nirvana. Rock lyricists are the true heirs of the Beat…

"You’ve got to understand a culture quickly to get what you want or need. The earth is in a terrible fix. Water to drink is a Huge issue. There are saints and assholes everywhere."

Andy Clausen:

The Blues Stories of the Beat President

Andy Clausen was born Andre Laloux in a Belgian bomb…

"Music was the best ambassador of equality out there and probably still is, if you want it to be, that is..."

Nicholas Tremulis: Windy City Poet

Nicholas Tremulis born in 1960 to a jazz piano-playing father and a blues-singing mother, Tremulis grew up in the city's Greektown and in suburban Northbrook. The household was full of music and…

"I’ve learned that all perspectives are definitely not equal, that culture is the quality of life. Love and respect are most important, the sin of pride is the most dangerous, common courtesy is a given. To love and be loved is all. I’ve never personally had anything to complain about besides social conditions. I’ve learned it’s too easy to be weak and decisiveness is key. Class struggle and solidarity show the way to a better world. I’ve learned that…

"Destroy all egos and attain emptiness."

Tate Swindell: The Sūtra of The Beats

Archivist, Poet and Photographer, Tate Swindell is the founder of Unrequited Records, which specializes in poetry records released on the vinyl format. The latest release was an album of rare Gregory Corso readings from the late 1970s that included previously…

"Music brings people together, crosses all barriers, even if they are just tapping their toes to the beat. If they listen to to words and emotion of many of my songs, it goes much deeper. We all have a voice."

Laura Rain & The Caesars:…

"This not only proves that the Blues spread from the Mississippi Delta to grow into a vital world music, but that a musical formula can work for everyone. Every person who is free, or who wants to be, identifies with the Blues."…

"Enlightenment, if it comes at all, comes after hundreds, thousands of incarnations. I wait for instructions from The Universe. When I feel it speaks, I try to listen. When it doesn't, I wait."

Leo Racicot: B(Eat) A Soutra…

"I think the whole concept of the outlaw or the counterculture is the concept of the outsider and the outsider is very real, that’s their connection, just people that don’t fit in who want to change things, that’s where they meet and are one and the same to a certain extent."

John Dorsey:  Off The…

"Jazz had a liberating momentum for the Beat writers, with its long-winded improvisation."

Steven Gray: The Barrio of Pagan Socialist

Steven Gray has been living in San…

"Writing is one way of documenting my actual experience—the content and sensations of my life, including my mental life, my emotional life, my physical surroundings, everything I become aware of."

Randy Roark: True sounds from a poet…

"I miss most about the Beat family was their willingness to open their houses and lives to us, the next generation’s poets. It was an inspiration to meet people who were artists and that was enough and every conversation was between poets."

Randy Roark: The Lotus of the…

"The Blues and Jazz touch deep emotionally resonant chords in anyone who is open to heart soul spirit sex. The Blues and Jazz are real vibrant life force energies."

Ron Whitehead: …

"The art world is independent from the larger world. Art is autonomous. It flows forward in unexpected ways. It should surprise its beholders."

Michael Andre: Years Skip By Like a Stone Across a Pond…

"Corso loved jazz music. He grew up in a milieu where a parallel search for individual freedom was going on in the jazz world."

Kirby Olson: The Beat of Silence

Kirby Olson studied poetry at Naropa Institute…

"The blues is very close to Beat writing because it does come from the depths of human feelings and experience and all of the things poor people have gone through." 

Gerald Nicosia: …

"The wandering muse, the irrepressible spirit of the human to resist oppression, suppression, & repression on so many levels of our spiritual existence."

Bart Plantenga: Literary Booze 'n' Roll

Bart…

"An absolute freedom of expression, as I had learned from my great mentors, Allen and Ira Cohen that to be “beat” was really to be free (also Dylan and Joplin)"

Nina Zivancevic: Balkan Dakini

Nina Zivancevic, a prominent Serbian poet, novelist,…

“Standing on a street corner waiting for no one is power” - Gregory Corso

Gregory Corso: A Traveler Who Trusted The Bend In The Road…