1.Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for yr own joy
2 Submissive to everything, open, listening
3.Try never get drunk outside yr own house
4.Be in love with your life
5.Something that you feel will find its own form
(Top five from a list of thirty essentials for living by Jack Kerouac)
A real haiku's gotta be as simple as porridge and yet make you see the real thing, like the greatest haiku of them all probably is the one that goes 'The sparrow hops along the veranda, with wet feet.' By Shiki. You see the wet footprints like a vision in your mind and yet in those few words you also see all the rain that's been falling that day and almost smell the wet pine needles. (JK)
Catfish fighting for his life,
and winning,
Splashing us all.
(JK)
A Little Bio:
Jean-Louis Lebris de Kerouac was born into a French speaking household on March 12, 1922 in Lowell, Massachusetts. His parents had come to New England from Quebec to find work in the mills. Jean-Louis began to learn English in 1928 and spent a great deal of his childhood at the Lowell Library. Later he would attend Columbia University in NYC, and join the Navy. He often lived with his parents in Ozone Park, Queens. In and around NYC he met the rest of a group who would later become known as The Beat Poets, and began to travel and publish novels based on his adventures. He spent a great deal of time in California and lived for awhile in Mexico. He seemed most comfortable living among the down and out. His books, which were not well received at the time by critics, tell the story of his life. He died at the age of 47, in St. Petersburg, Florida. His works had an astonishing effect on American culture.
"Great things are not accomplished by those who yield to trends and fads and popular opinion.
Be."
(JK)
