Scattered Poems by Jack Kerouac
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Publisher Site – Open Road Media

Kerouac is best known as a novelist, particularly as the author of the groundbreaking Beat work, On the Road, but he did publish one poetry collection during his lifetime, Mexico City Blues. This book, Scattered Poems, was the first of a glut of posthumously released poetry collections. With posthumously released editions, one usually has to wonder how close the book is to the poet’s ideal, given the author’s lack of input into the final product but — given Kerouac’s penchant for spontaneous composition and airing pieces as they fell from the mind — it’s probable these poems wouldn’t have been highly edited. (Note: A number of the pieces were previously published, but many were obtained from private correspondence — notably letters to Allen Ginsberg.)

The poems are mostly free verse, and the rhyming verse (e.g. “Pull My Daisy”) is usually short line or doggerel lines falling into longer poems. The poems deal in both Kerouac’s birth religion, Christianity, and Buddhism, a philosophy which had a major influence on his thinking throughout his adult life. Some have a Zen quality that makes it hard to determine whether they are nonsense or a conduit from satori (or both.) To enjoy these poems, one must have a love of spontaneity. Readers expecting a polished collection may be displeased but will certainly have missed Kerouac’s philosophy of writing which strove to emulate the improvisation of Jazz.

I enjoyed this collection, and I think the publisher did a good job of showing the arrangement of the poems as written. I’d highly recommend this work for poetry readers who enjoy stream of consciousness experimental poetry or anyone interested in the work of the Beats.

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