Week 10-12

In what ways are beat poetry and rap linked?

In the 1940s, Beat poetry began in New York City and other West Coast states. According to Mark Cantor, “Beat poetry emerged from the disillusionment that followed World War II, a period of unimaginable atrocities including the Holocaust, and the use of nuclear weapons against Japan. Following the end of the war, the United States and the Soviet Union quickly entered a Cold War, a period of geopolitical hostility that created paranoia and cultural and political repression at home.” ("An Introduction to the Beat Poets", 2019) By the 1950s, the beat poetry movement was developed, with its heart in San Francisco. ("A Brief Guide to the Beat Poets | Academy of American Poets", 2019) Beat poets wanted to bring poetry “back to the streets,” and occasionally read their poetry while accompanied by progressive jazz. “The verse was frequently chaotic and liberally sprinkled with obscenities but was sometimes, as in the case of “Allen Ginsberg’s Howl (1956), ruggedly powerful and moving.” ("Beat movement | History, Characteristics, Writers, & Facts", 2019) They also used hallucinogenic drugs to achieve “higher consciousness”, and meditation and Eastern religion were incorporated into a few of the poets’ works. ("A Brief Guide to the Beat Poets | Academy of American Poets", 2019) This paves the way for what is known as rap. Rap borrows from spoken word poetry, “rap can be heard as spoken word, or chanting, over a melodic or rhythmic base,” and it’s also a form of the Black artistic expression. (Price-Styles, 2015)

Price-Styles, A. (2015). MC origins: Rap and spoken word poetry. In J. Williams (Ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Hip-Hop (Cambridge Companions to Music, pp. 11-21). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CCO9781139775298.003

An Introduction to the Beat Poets. (2019). Retrieved from https://www.poetryfoundation.org/collections/147552/an-introduction-to-the-beat-poets

A Brief Guide to the Beat Poets | Academy of American Poets. (2019). Retrieved from https://poets.org/text/brief-guide-beat-poets

Beat movement | History, Characteristics, Writers, & Facts. (2019). Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/art/Beat-movement