Revisiting An Old Favorite, "The Subterraneans" by Jack Kerouac

 

 

I was first introduced to the work of Jack Kerouac about 1974 or so by my friend, mentor, and professor Bob Snyder.  At about the same time, he introduced me to Kerouac, Mildred Haun, and Francois Villon.  You can't ask for a much better threesome of authors to come to know.  Since then, I have read every word I can find by all three.  I devoured Kerouac's work much like a famished person just rescued from a long stranding in a wilderness would have devoured a good breakfast of sausage, eggs, biscuits, gravy, and fried apples.  I have returned more than once to one or another of Kerouac's books over the years and every time I am deeply impressed by the skill with which he wrote, and the obvious rapidity of his working style.  "The Subterraneans" has always been one of my four or five favorite Kerouac novels.  Some people refer to it as a novella since it is only about 150 pages.  But for me, it is much a novel as any of his other novels.  It is also one of only two novels in his oeuvre which come across as totally loving, sweet, beautiful, without any level of animosity, anger, fear, or any other negative emotion.  

The novel is about a love affair between the narrator, Leo Percepied, an alter ego of Kerouac himself, and a beautiful young African American woman named Mardou Fox.  The affair is brief, meteoric, heart warming, trusting, and everything an unforgettable love affair should be despite coming to an end which is described in the most simple terms: "And I go home, having lost our love.  And write this book."

When it's over, it's over, and yet it leaves an impression on the reader just as deep and meaningful as it has left on the character Kerouac created due to whatever previous events in his life that served as the impetus for this wonderful, loving little novel might have been.  I suspect this won't be last time I ever pick this sweet little book up to read once again.  And every time I do that, I always find myself thanking God for both Jack Kerouac and Bob Snyder.

"Field of Vision" by Kirk Judd--Reflections On Reading His Early Poetry

It is not uncommon for me to either stumble into or deliberately locate great books from earlier times which I should have read when they were new.  "Field of Vision" by Kirk Judd has now joined that ever growing list of such books.  This was published in 1986 by Judd which was considerably after he had published poetry in numerous magazines especially in the Appalachian arena.  The book contains about forty poems and about half of  them had been previously published in a variety of magazines.  I have previously written about Kirk Judd's most recent book of poetery "My People Was Music" which contains much of his later works and some of his earlier.  I liked that book a great deal and I have to say I like "Field of Vision" even more.  It is a widely varied collection of poems covering a plethora of areas of human existence.  In some ways, it is a book of poetry by a young, vibrant, man who still has been able to avoid quite of a few of life's disappointments.  But it also contains the poems "DOA (Sparky's Song)" and "The Death of Her Son" which are about some of those great disappointments even if the latter poem discusses the experience of another, a grieving mother.  "The Death of Her Son" contains the powerful lines: 

"She felt him rise to leave

and through her tears

she saw him

and loved him

and finally

let him go."

In an entirely different vein, "Visitin' Charleston" tells the story in well written lines about taking a trip to the city to throw a drunk and eat breakfast in the bus station "...with steam comin' off your shoulders and nobody wantin' to get within ten feet".  Only  young man who has thrown such a drunk can accurately and poetically describe one.  And, of course, as I have learned from reading two of Kirk Judd's books, he must write about the great outdoors and his love for it in poems such as "Morning High Meadow" which contains the beautiful lines "hanging dropping dew to webs and silver threads and grasses green and golden".  This is a complex book of great poetry which leaves no doubt that Kirk Judd is a complex man and was complex even in those formative years in which parts of this little jewel were written.  But if you feel that you need a further recommendation for the book, simply read the back cover blurb from Pulitzer Prize Winner Gwendolyn Brooks in which she describes Kirk Judd's poetry as "...delightfully amazing and rash and impudent..." What further recommendation could you need, if you can still find a copy of this 1986 publication as I did?