There Will Be Oil

Levi Asher reviews "Dharma Bums", Jack Kerouac's warm and colorful send-up of American Buddhism.

Imaginary Beat Generation postage stamp images, created for Literary Kicks in the mid 1990s.

An updated Further arrives in Brooklyn, New York to mark the 50th anniversary of Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters' famous bus ride.

A historic new approach between USA and Cuba proves how dynamic our planet's future is, even with all the gloomy discouragement and disgruntlement that dominates our conversation.

A novelist and computer programmer explores the intersection of the two worlds.

A quick report from the Beatnik Shindig and Grateful Dead Fare Thee Well shows in California.

"He would take all of the Parnassian movement by storm. His target soon becoming his victim as there was nothing Rimbaud couldn’t accomplish, even as he was ostracized during his life by the school that kept the gate to Parisian poetry. History does not remember the Parnassians. It remembers Rimbaud."

A panel discussion about meditation, religion and activism at the Left Forum in New York City will feature Marc Eliot Stein, Sander Hicks, Robert "Rafiq" Lewis and Gregg Hill.

You have to be careful writing about Gary Snyder, because he's such a Zen guy you get the feeling anything you write will be vastly inferior to silence.

"Cassidy" is one of the Grateful Dead's most beautiful songs. Lyricist John Perry Barlow tells of the two people, a Beat Generation drifter and a newborn child, who inspired it.

Richard Hell's beautiful new novel, an imaginative spin upon the legend of the French poets Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud.

I have no idea why this happens, but I get letters from kids to famous writers. But they don't send the letters to the writers, or to their publishers (which would probably be the best approach). They send the letters to me.

Let’s fast-forward a little to when 'Armed Love' was reviewed in The New York Times Book Review. I remember sitting at my table and reading the review, which said, in part, that if books of poetry were given ratings, "Ms. Lerman’s book would deserve a double X." I think what riled the reviewer was that ...

Appreciating two elder statesmen of cool, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Pete Seeger.

One thing you have to say for 'Little Brother', Cory Doctorow's recent book for young adults (now nominated for the Hugo Award for best novel): it's ambitious.