Projective Verse: The Spiritual Legacy of the Beat Generation

Abstract

Allen Ginsberg’s poetry, poetics or cultural activism; Jack Kerouac’s prose, poetry and his method of composition; Gary Snyder’s environmental and Buddhist consciousness and bioregional ethos, or the opening made by the Beats for Eastern spirituality in the west are of intrinsic value and will be for generations, this paper seeks to posit that it is Michael McClure’s use of Projective Verse, that future generations of writers and readers will come to appreciate as that movement’s spiritual legacy.

Keywords

• Michael McClure
• Beat Generation
• Charles Olson
• Allen Ginsberg
• Jack Kerouac
• Spontaneous Bop Prosody
• Projective Verse
• Alfred North Whitehead
• Robert Duncan
• Hua-yen Buddhism