Album Notes

In the 21st century, the Beat Generation continues to haunt the American mind because in the 1950s the Beats carried poetry out of universities and into the streets and jazz of America where they showed how to elude the monstrosity of materialism and achieve a greater awareness of individual freedom.

"Poetry and the 1950's is the first of a 3-part audio-literature series in which Robert Briggs traces the roots of the Beat Generation, and creates an atmosphere in which the power of change is echoed in footsteps beyond the door.

Quotes:

"An insightful personal monologue that is part memoir, part scholarly appreciation ... a wonderful rumination on the power of poetry." Publishers Weekly

"A kind of knowledgeable essay. Mixing in his own reality and memories of a lifetime absorbing the Beats and those who came before them, Briggs recalls and celebrates the history of an alternative poetics." Pauline Reeves, Beat Scene No. 33

Bio:

Robert Briggs attended Auburn and Columbia Universities and served in the army during the Korean War. A bookseller in Greenwich Village and North Beach, he was in the jazz and poetry scene in the 1950s. Now a member the Zen Community of Oregon, he's the author of The American Emergency: A Search for Spiritual Renewal in an Age of Materialism published in 1989.