When I said I’d do a talk about the beats tonight, I thought I’d be reviewing years of lecture notes, but I found myself remembering how I grew up with the beats.  How I wore black in high school, and sunglasses whenever I could, how I read Ginsberg out loud, and clicked my fingers at good poems in coffee houses, and listened to folk music.

And then I remembered how Yair Lapid appeared at a poetry reading in honor of Rony Sommek a few years ago – wearing a leather jacket and sunglasses and playing the beat poet.  

What crazy stories I remember, and how irrelevant they are to the real experience of the Beat poets.