Kerouac on Poetics

My only possible statement on poetics and poetry is this: Add alluvials to the end of your line when all is exhausted but something has to be said for some specified irrational reason, since reason can never win out, because poetry is NOT a science. The rhythm of how you decide to "rush" yr statement determines the rhythm of the poem, whether it is a poem in verse-separated lines, or an endless one-line poem called prose (with its paragraphs).

So let there be no equivocation about statement, and if you think this is not hard to do, try it. You'll find that your lines are heavier than your intentions. And your confessions lighter than Heaven..

Otherwise, who wants to read?

~letter to Don Allen, fall 1959  (Heaven & Other Poems, City Lights Books 1977)

vivid as an eel, banana moon gleaming

i daydream d.a.levy

is in the room next door

looking out over a city balcony

in summer smoking quietly

musing on the fine curve

of a woman’s legs

sliding among taxicabs

and hot dog sellers

trees shimmering in air

[editors note: who wrote this?]