Jack Kerouac, Mexico City Blues

R. J. Ellis (University of Birmingham)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.4: American (US) Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary, 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Christopher Hugh Gair (University of Glasgow), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Kerry Myler (Newman University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1959

Places

United States (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Poem collection

Resources

Mexico City Blues consists of 242 single-page improvisational poetry, each of which stands as a more-or-less separate “Chorus”, shaped, in terms of length and line-arrangement, to fit into small pocket-sized notebooks. These choruses sketch out Kerouac’s observations, feelings and memories in an improvisational, loose jazz form, consisting of fragmented visions. The poems blend together Kerouac’s interest in jazz, Buddhism and American culture with his memories of his Lowell past in a complex fusion. The “11^th Chorus” is in many ways typical of the complex effects this apparently loose fusion can generate. The “11^th Chorus” opens:

Brown wrote a book
The White and the …

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524 words

Citation: Ellis, R. J.. "Mexico City Blues". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 23 April 2007 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=3597, accessed 23 November 2024.]

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