American Corner Yerevan

The Literature and Poetry of the Beats in 1950s America

1:00pm 17.04.2010

To mark National Poetry Month and National Library Week in the United States and Armenia, on April 17 American Corner Yerevan organized an "Americans at the American Corner" public lecture. The guest speaker, U.S. Embassy Political/Economic Officer Charles Lobdell, presented a lecture entitled “The literature and poetry of the Beats in 1950s America.”

Describing the meaning of the word “beat,” a generation of crazy, illuminated hipsters, our speaker talked about the characteristics of Beat writing: dedication to spontaneity, open-form composition, spiritual yearning, challenging limits of free expression, etc.

Lodbell presented the outstanding representatives of the beat literature and poetry, Jack Kerouac and his work “On the Road”, published in 1957, Allen Ginsberg’s ”Howl” and William S. Burroughs’s “Naked Lunch.” The lecturer also read several lines from the works of the authors.

Around 35 students, different professionals, and alumni were present at the auditorium to become acquainted with the beat generation and learn this new kind of literature and poetry genre. More information about the Beat Generation is available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beat_Generation