John Clellon Holmes (March 12, 1926, Holyoke, Massachusetts – March 30, 1988, Middletown, Connecticut) was an American author, poet and professor, best known for his 1952 novel '' Go''. Considered the first "

Beat Beat, beats or beating may refer to: Common uses * Patrol, or beat, a group of personnel assigned to monitor a specific area ** Beat (police), the territory that a police officer patrols ** Gay beat, an area frequented by gay men * Battery (c ...

" novel, ''Go'' depicted events in his life with his friends Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassady and

Allen Ginsberg Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Gener ...

. He was often referred to as the "quiet Beat" and was one of Kerouac's closest friends. Holmes also wrote what is considered the definitive

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...

novel of the Beat Generation, ''The Horn''.

Life and career

Holmes was more an observer and documenter of beat characters like Ginsberg, Cassady and Kerouac than one of them. He asked Ginsberg for "any and all information on your poetry and your visions," (shortly before Ginsberg's admission into the hospital) saying that "I am interested in knowing also anything you may wish to tell... about Neal, Huncke, Lucien in relation to you..." (referring to

Herbert Huncke Herbert Edwin Huncke (January 9, 1915 – August 8, 1996) was an American writer and poet, and an active participant in a number of emerging cultural, social and aesthetic movements of the 20th century in America. He was a member of the Beat ...

and

Lucien Carr Lucien Carr (March 1, 1925 – January 28, 2005) was a key member of the original New York City circle of the Beat Generation in the 1940s; later he worked for many years as an editor for United Press International. Early life Carr was born in Ne ...

), to which Ginsberg replied with an 11-page letter detailing, as completely as he could, the nature of his "divine vision". The origin of the term ''beat'' being applied to a generation was conceived by Jack Kerouac who told Holmes, "You know, this is really a beat generation." The term later became part of common parlance when Holmes published an article in ''

The New York Times Magazine ''The New York Times Magazine'' is an American Sunday magazine supplement included with the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times''. It features articles longer than those typically in the newspaper and has attracted many notable contributors. ...

'' entitled "This Is the Beat Generation" on November 16, 1952 (pg.10). In the article, Holmes attributes the term to Kerouac, who had acquired the idea from

. Holmes came to the conclusion that the values and ambitions of the Beat Generation were symbolic of something bigger, which was the inspiration for ''Go''. Later in life, Holmes taught at the

University of Arkansas The University of Arkansas (U of A, UArk, or UA) is a public land-grant research university in Fayetteville, Arkansas. It is the flagship campus of the University of Arkansas System and the largest university in the state. Founded as Arkansas ...

, lectured at

Yale Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wor ...

and gave workshops at Brown University. He died of cancer in 1988.

Bibliography

* '' Go'' (1952) * ''The Horn'' (1958) * ''The Philosophy of the Beat Generation'' (1958) * ''Get Home Free'' (1964) * ''Nothing More to Declare'' (1967) * ''The Bowling Green Poems'' (1977) * ''Death Drag: Selected Poems 1948–1979'' (1979) * ''Visitor: Jack Kerouac in Old Saybrook'' (1981) * ''Gone in October: Last Reflections on Jack Kerouac'' (1985) * ''Displaced Person: The Travel Essays'' (1987) * ''Representative Men: The Biographical Essays'' (1988) * ''Passionate Opinions: The Cultural Essays'' (1988) * ''Dire Coasts: Poems'' (1988) * ''Night Music: Selected Poems'' (1989)

Notes

References

*Charters, Ann (ed.). ''The Portable Beat Reader''. Penguin Books. New York. 1992. (hc); (pbk) * Collins, Ronald & Skover, David. ''Mania: The Story of the Outraged & Outrageous Lives that Launched a Cultural Revolution'' (Top-Five Books, March 2013)

External links

John Clellon Holmes: Gallery of book covers
{{DEFAULTSORT:Holmes, John Clellon 1926 births 1988 deaths 20th-century American novelists American male novelists Beat Generation writers Writers from Holyoke, Massachusetts 20th-century American male writers Novelists from Massachusetts