Scattered Poems (City Lights Pocket Poets Series) [Paperback]

Jack Kerouac (Author)

Book Description

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

Spontaneous poetry by the author of On the Road, gathered from underground and ephemeral publications; including “San Francisco Blues,” the variant texts of “Pull My Daisy,” and American haiku.

HERE DOWN ON DARK EARTH
before we all go to Heaven
VISIONS OF AMERICA
All that hitchhikin
All that railroadin
All that comin back
to America —Jack Kerouac

Product Details

• Paperback: 76 pages
• Publisher: City Lights Publishers (January 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0872860647
• ISBN-13: 978-0872860643
• Product Dimensions: 6.3 x 4.9 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #849,501 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Kerouac at the brink of the world, August 12, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Scattered Poems (City Lights Pocket Poets Series) (Paperback)

There are few times in the history of mankind that we can sit back and allow ourselves to be manipulated by a pure mad man (brilliant writer). Kerouac's poems allow the mind to travel to the brink of truth and reality and come back unharmed and ... enlightened ... Thank God for kerouac ... he makes the world a better place and his poems are subconcious unfiltered visions of real life. "Pull My Daisy" with Ginsberg is a masterpiece as is "Old Angel Midnight". here is one poem : TO EDWARD DAHLBERG

Don't use the telephone. People are never ready to answer it. Use Poetry.

And Jack Kerouac does use poetry ... he uses it to give insight into a world he knew so well.

5.0 out of 5 stars My Introduction to Kerouac, January 6, 2012

By 

Dr. Kush (Dallas TX USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Scattered Poems (City Lights Pocket Poets Series) (Paperback)

This rather that 'on the road' was the first Kerouac book I read and found it liberating as before I only knew poetry in those tired old scholastic tomes, this bit, kicked and moaned without old constraints, it is beautiful sad and brief like Kerouac's life.

4.0 out of 5 stars Scattered Life, Scattered Poems, December 7, 2011

By 

Charles B. Taylor "Chuck Taylor" (College Station, Texas) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Scattered Poems (City Lights Pocket Poets Series) (Paperback)

Kerouac wrote some pretty bad poems, but he also wrote some darn good ones. Any collection of his poetry will contain the good and bad. Every poet has good stuff and bad stuff, and you have to write the bad stuff to get to the good stuff. Kerouac was a highly original poet, influenced by jazz improvisation. He plays with words and rhyme in ways no poet does. Scattered Poems is indeed a scattered collection with some original poems and poems from his collections that weren't published at the time but are now available in print. My favorite in the book is a biographical poem on the great French poet Rimbaud. He hits, in a poetic way, the high points of his life, and then draws an interesting comment on life. If your not a trained reader of poetry, some of his work will go by you, but with Kerouac there's always an effort to reach all readers in some of his work. He was not a literary man.