Pomes All Sizes [Paperback]

Jack Kerouac (Author)

Book Description

Series: City Lights Pocket Poets Series | Publication Date: January 1, 2001

The original manuscript of this book, written between 1954 and 1965, has been in the safekeeping of City Lights all the years since Kerouac’s death in 1969. Reaching beyond the scope of his Mexico City Blues, here are pomes about Mexico and Tangier, Berkeley and the Bowery. Mid-fifties road poems, hymns and songs of God, drug poems, wine poems, dharma poems and Buddhist meditations. Poems to Beat friends, goofball poems, quirky haiku, and a fine, long elegy in “Canuckian Child Patoi Probably Medieval . . . an English blues.” But more than a quarter of a century after it was written, Pomes of All Sizes today would seem to be more than a sum of it parts, revealing a questing Kerouac grown beyond the popular image of himself as a Beat on the Road.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

" 'Develop a pure / lucid mind' " instructs Kerouac in "Gatha," a poem in this miscellany of what Ginsberg ( Howl ) calls "notebook jottings and little magazine items" spanning 1954-1965. The poem's lines and title, referring to Zoroastrianism, signal the influence of Eastern philosophies on Kerouac's ( On the Road ) work. Stylistically, this influence displays itself in his uses of the verb "to be." Lines like "Enlightenment is: do what / you want / eat what there is" have a calm, decisive tone and play a defining role, as if uttered after long, disciplined meditation. Another aspect of Kerouac's style directly clashes with this emphasis on clarity, however. He free-associates into a kind of linguistic clutter: "ole Hotsatots dont footsie / down here bring my gruel, I'll / be cruel." Underlying this volume's hodgepodge, then, is the drama of Kerouac the mystic, with his urge toward control, at odds with Kerouac the freewheeling Beat and, on a personal level, Kerouac the alcoholic. Yet as Ginsberg observes in his introduction, division--the sense of life as "both real and dream"--is the pervasive "spiritual intelligence" of the Beats. Given that, this is a perhaps ironically representative volume.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

This book, which Kerouac prepared for publication before his death in 1969, collects poems written between 1954 and 1965. Most are playful--comments about friends, variations on the sounds of words. Yet a few extremely sensitive longer pieces appear, including "Caritas," in which the poet runs after a barefoot beggar boy to give him money for shoes and then begins to doubt the boy's veracity. Other intriguing poems reflect the poet's religious concerns of the moment, running the gamut of Eastern and Western religions. Allen Ginsberg's introduction is a disappointment; he rehashes views on Kerouac's Mexico City Blues , laments that his old friend's poems are not anthologized, but barely discusses the poems collected here (many of which contain confusing allusions that could have used some clarification). In general, this book will be appreciated mainly for the light it sheds on Beat literature and on Kerouac's other works. In the next two years, three more of Kerouac's unpublished manuscripts, long held up by the estate, will be published.--Ed.
- Rochelle Ratner, formerly Poetry Editor, "Soho Weekly News," New York
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 175 pages
• Publisher: City Lights Publishers (January 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0872862690
• ISBN-13: 978-0872862692
• Product Dimensions: 6.3 x 5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #358,807 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jack Kerouac (1922-1969), the central figure of the Beat Generation, was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1922 and died in St. Petersburg, Florida, in 1969. Among his many novels are On the Road, The Dharma Bums, Big Sur, and Visions of Cody.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars How can something be good yet bad at the same time?, November 12, 1998

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Midwest([e-mail]) (Fremont, NE) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Pomes All Sizes (Paperback)

That is the central question to this collection of poems. All of them seem to be intoned with a sense of intentionally attacking the sacred tradition of being serious about poetry. And yet, some end up with beautiful moments and insights. And even if not that, there is still the vibration of enjoying life in an almost chaotic fusion of urge and meditation. Poems range from containing only one line ("I am God"), to pages of what seems to alternately be wandering drivel and intentional questioning of something that Jack seems to see but the reader quite doesn't. Overall, this is a MUST READ for those who like Kerouac. Specifically, at least two poems seem to be inherent to the creation of at least two books (On the Road and Dharma Bums). The Gary Snyder Haikus are downright hilarious in my mind, and capture perfectly that Zen Beatist sense of overindulged mentality in an underindulged world.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Greatest book of pomery of all time, March 2, 2003

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taogoat (the mothership) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Pomes All Sizes (Paperback)

You won't understand Kerouac's writing style by reading On the Road or Dharma Bums. To really dig what he was getting at you have to read his "Belief & Technique in Modern Prose" then read some stuff like Pomes All Sizes, Old Angel Midnight, Visions of Cody, Mexico City Blues, etc.

Pomes All Sizes is full of astonishing pomes by one of the most important literary innovators of the 20th century, & along with Some of the Dharma it's Kerouac's most personal book. Yes, there's lots of silly fragments and intoxicated sketches (where else do you find a Kerouac pome written while on morphine or goofballs), but you gotta see Kerouac's style values spontaneity over crafted work, so it is these unpretentious, unselfconscious pomes that are among his greatest accomplishments.

This slim volume is jam-packed with mindblowing pomes: "Mexican Loneliness," "How to Meditate," "The Moon," "Skid Row Wine," "Long Island Chinese Poem Rain," "Silly Goofball Pomes," "God," "Bowery Blues," and dozens of haikus...

Yes, the book is inconsistent at times, after all it is selections from his private notebooks, but the great poems more than make up for the mediocre.

If you do not dig this book then you do not dig Kerouac. Nuff said.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars GEMS!, December 25, 2009

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T. Bellows "soul9" - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Pomes All Sizes (Paperback)

Many quirky, beautiful moments here. Check out his mastery of the short lines, goofiness and mysticism.