Jack Kerouac Introduces Phrase Beat Generation

Event, Invention

Original article headed This Is the Beat Generation, with two columns of text and a large black-and-white painting of a bowed figure against a wall. — John Clellon Holmes, “This Is the Beat Generation,” The New York Times Magazine, 16 November 1952, opening page. A later public account of the phrase attributed to Jack Kerouac. John Clellon Holmes; painting by Reilly Nail, as credited on the page. © The New York Times. Scan preserved by D. D. Teoli Jr. Archival Collection, Internet Archive; digitization photographer not identified. Image source.

Writing in response to the atrocities of WWII, the Beat Poets (including Allen Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti) rebel against convention and seek to expand consciousness via experiments in automated writing, including hallucinogenics, spiritual rituals, and aleatory techniques meant to empower spontaneity and unfetter truth from the constraints of human reason.

Text by Peter Bauman. Generative Art Timeline, Le Random, fact-checked September 2026.

Sources

Holmes, John Clellon. "This Is the Beat Generation." New York Times Magazine, November 16, 1952. https://archive.org/details/thisisthebeatgenerationclellonholmes1952

People

Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Movements

Computer Text, Generative Poetry

Filed under

Ideas: Beat Generation, chance, Computer Text, Generative Poetry, Generative Writing, poetry, World War II
People: Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Lawrence Ferlinghetti

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