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As legend has it, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, Neal Cassady and Lawrence Ferlinghetti were struggling, young writers who spent their days pumping out poems and novels that they couldn’t get published, and their nights commiserating in Greenwich Village, listening to jazz. Finally, one night, after a particularly rousing set by Charlie “Bird” Parker, someone in the group–some say it was Kerouac, and others Cassady–had an epiphany, and posed the question to his chums: "What if we try to write the way that Bird sounds?” The young writers found their voice that night, and of course went on to become the Beat Poets, who were as iconic as any literary figures in 20th century American literature. Content [...]
