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Title: Capturing the Beat Moment

Subtitle: Cultural Politics and the Poetics of Presence

Author: Erik Ronald Mortenson

Narrator: Brian Kralowetz

Format: Unabridged

Length: 8 hrs and 13 mins

Language: English

Release date: 03-07-14

Publisher: University Press Audiobooks

Genres: History, American

Publisher's Summary:

Examining the moment as one of the primary motifs of Beat writing, Erik Mortenson offers the first book to investigate immediacy and its presence and importance in Beat writing. Capturing the Beat Moment: Cultural Politics and the Poetics of Presence places an expanded canon of Beat writers in an early postmodern context that highlights their importance in American poetics and provides an account of Beat practices that reveal how gender and race affect Beat politics of the moment.

Mortenson argues that Beat writers focused on action, desire, and spontaneity to establish an authentic connection to the world around them and believed that living in the moment was the only way in which they might establish the kind of life that led to good writing. With this in mind, he explores the possibility that, far from being the antithesis of their times, the Beats actually were a product of them. Mortenson outlines the effects of gender and race on Beat writing in the postwar years, as well as the Beats attempts to break free of the constrictive notions of time and space prevalent during the 1950s.

Mortenson discusses such topics as the importance of personal visionary experiences; the embodiment of sexuality and the moment of ecstasy in Beat writing; how the Beats used photographs to evoke the past; and the ways that Beat culture was designed to offer alternatives to existing political and social structures. Throughout the volume, Mortenson moves beyond the Kerouac-Ginsberg-Burroughs triumvirate commonly associated with Beat literature, discussing women - such as Diane di Prima, Janine Pommy Vega, and Joyce Johnson - and African American writers, including Bob Kaufman and Amiri Baraka. With the inclusion of these authors comes a richer understanding of the Beat writers value and influence in American literary history.

Critic Reviews:

Mortenson's revisionist study keeps a steady eye on the historical and cultural milieu of Beat writers, drawing on critical theory, feminism, and race/ethnicity studies... This is a brilliant contribution to cultural poetics. (Michael Davidson, author of Guys Like Us: Citing Masculinity in Cold War Poetics)

Members Reviews:

A Perfect Resource For Writing A Paper On The Beat Poets

Throughout the years I've read countless works by and about the Beats. I thought I understood their motivations. The beauty of this book is it helps both the casual reader and the academic re-examine the movement's focus on immediacy. Mortenson clearly knows his stuff, and while reading it I was often surprised at how much I misunderstood these writers and thinkers. Mortenson includes all the heavy-hitters as well as the more underground players. The book also helped me see the movement from a different angle I didn't expect. It's invaluable to anyone studying this important time in American history, and it's an important resource for those focusing on the cultural significance of these writers. I highly recommend it.