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Big Sky Mind: Buddhism and the Beat Generation

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This anthology makes a statement which has been needed for 50 years: the Beat Movement was at its core a spiritual quest. Beat poets and novelists of the 1950s hungered for something more satisfying than the mainstream Judeo-Christianity of Eisenhower's America. For many writers of the Beat era, this search for enlightenment brought them to Buddhism. Editor Carole Tonkinson has gathered together a terrific complilation of Beat writings on Buddhism, including major figures in the Beat canon such as Jack Kerouac, Gary Snyder, Michael McClure, and Philip Whalen. But more interestingly, she has also included texts by less well known Beats such as Lenore Kandel, Lew Welch, Albert Saijo, and Harold Norse. The introductory essay, by Stephen Prothero, does an excellent job of providing literary and historical background for the Beat movement's embrace of Eastern thought. Several excellent anthologies of Beat writing have been released in the last decade, but this one is the best for readers who want to understand the profoundly spiritual roots of this group of cultural rebels.

Carole Tonkinson's "Big Sky Mind: Buddhism and The Beat Generation" is a collection of writings from various poets associated with the "Beat" era. In the introduction, Tonkinson makes clear that her point is to show the undeniable connection between the Beat poets and Buddhism. She wants to show that despite the historical depictions of the Beats as "nihilists", they were in fact spiritual people whose religious practices heavily influenced their writing. She claims that the most influential of these religious practices originated in the East and focused on Buddhist ethics and practice. Many of these people, she says, not only practiced Buddhism but practiced other faiths as well, including Catholicism, Judaism, and many more. Her most important claim is that despite most people's conception of the Beats as nihilists, they were actually spiritual writers trying desperately to convey their experiences to others. She says, "The Beats, like the Transcendentalists, were committed to sharing these insights with other through their words" (Tonkinson 20).

Tonkinson proves her claim about the Beat poets by organizing her book into chapters, with each chapter containing several or many works by a particular writer. For each writer she begins by giving a short biography and, where applicable, an overview of the writer's major connections to other Beat poets of the generation. She starts with a section titled "The Beats", which contains chapters for each of several major East Coast Beat poets. The next section, "The San Francisco Poets", has chapters pertaining to poets based in San Francisco and the West Coast. The third section is called "Echoes" and is similar poetry written a few years after the Beat era. The last section is called "Like Minds" and has writings from people who expressed similar interests and ideas, but were not directly associated with the other Beat poets.

For a reader to new to this subject, this book is an excellent introduction to Beat writers and the generation as a whole. The introductions both at the beginning for the entire book and at the beginning of each chapter are very informative and help to secure the basis for the book. It is easy to see the connections between the writers throughout the book and see how they fit together as not only writers of the same era, but as a community. These introductions also do a wonderful job of pointing out where each of these people found their Buddhist ideas and made it clear that they were writing for the purpose of spreading political and religious messages. The organization of keeping all of the works by each author together was also very clear and helped make it easy to keep up with where the ideas in the poems were coming from. The only thing that was not very strong with this book was that Tonkinson places the works of writers who were less connected to the movement at the end of the book. This makes the reader become less interested at the end of the book and more likely to skip these last authors who had less to do with the generation as a whole. She counters this by placing a "Coda" at the end called "Jack Kerouac's Dream". This ensures that the book's final pages relate directly to the important pieces of text, and makes the book cohesive by beginning and ending with the same author.

Poets, buddhists and a lively history of how they mixed together. . . this is a great read for anyone who likes the beat poets OR the buddhist view of the world. There are details and connections and insights in this book that you won't find anywhere else

Well, I growing more and more interested in Buddhism and had learned about the Beat poets, so I ordered this book. I actually, waited until I'd gotten a decent grasp on Buddhism (few courses and independent study) to really explore this book. I must admit I did read some of my favorite poets upon receiving it just to get a taste of what was in store.

But I was recommended this book by a creative writing teacher as an undergrad who said my work reminded him of the works included in this book. He read a few poems in class and that piqued my interest. Anyway, great book...Four stars only because it is an overview in my opinion and these cannot fully succeed by nature...

I have had this book for years and it goes everywhere with me. It's got some great poems in it, some that are humorous and some that are inspiring.

it guided me, moved me, changed me like nothing you can imagin. the beat generation (esp. kerouac) have helped me find my place in world that isnt tailored tword individuals. anyone who liked the work of any of the beat poets should read this.