Pomes All Sizes

If you read Kerouac's Pomes All Sizes you can find out what lapis lazuli is....

You will not 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 an incredible book, 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 (but far, far, far more readable than "some of the dharma," which I would only recommend you read after reading everything else kerouac has ever written). 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 mind blowing 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, but after all it is selections from his private notebooks -- and what a rare treat to be invited to spy into a great writer's "secret scribbled notebooks and wild typewritten pages." If you do not dig this book then you do not dig Kerouac. Nuff said.

A brillant poetry readerMeant to be read aloud and sung rhythmically.Kerouac is known for on the road but this books is at least as brillant.Also read "The Dharma Bums" which is a tremendous book about his belief in Buddhism on a much different road.

Outstanding. Kerouac's claim to fame is inovative form, but here there is much content, as well.

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.