John Clellon Holmes (March 12, 1926 – March 30, 1988) 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 * Assault, inflicting physical harm or unwanted physical contact * Battery (crime), a criminal offense involving unlawful physical contact * Battery (tort), a civil wrong in common law of inte ...

" novel, ''Go'' depicted events in his life with his friends

Jack Kerouac Jean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac (; March 12, 1922 – October 21, 1969), known as Jack Kerouac, was an American novelist and poet who, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, was a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Of French-Canadian ...

Neal Cassady Neal Leon Cassady (February 8, 1926 – February 4, 1968) was a major figure of the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the psychedelic and counterculture movements of the 1960s. Cassady published only two short fragments of prose in his lif ...

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 Lucien Carr, William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of th ...

. 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. Its roots are in blues, ragtime, European harmony, African rhythmic rituals, spirituals, h ...

novel of the

Beat Generation The Beat Generation was a literary subculture movement started by a group of authors whose work explored and influenced American culture and politics in the post-World War II era. The bulk of their work was published and popularized by members o ...

, ''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 Be ...

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 and in the 1940s was convicted for manslaughter. He later worked for many years as an editor for United Press Internatio ...

), 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

who told Holmes, "You know, this is really a

beat generation The Beat Generation was a literary subculture movement started by a group of authors whose work explored and influenced American culture and politics in the post-World War II era. The bulk of their work was published and popularized by members o ...

." 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 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. The magazi ...

'' 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 university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Fayetteville, Arkansas, United States. It is the Flagship campus, flagship campus of the University of Arkan ...

, lectured at

Yale Yale University is a private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, and one of the nine colonial colleges ch ...

and gave workshops at

Brown University Brown University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. It is the List of colonial colleges, seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the US, founded in 1764 as the ' ...

. 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