Joanne Kyger

“The Beat Generation is one of the most formidable literary movements of the mid-to late-twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Its innovative connections to emerging postmodernisms—collapsing boundaries among genres such as fiction, verse, and memoir; between private and public life; between fact and invention; between and among sexual identities and desires—coincided with social justice movements in the United States and abroad. Its radical experimental poetics challenged forms and rhetorics of conventional as well as speculative literary arts languages. The Beat Studies Book Series attempts to deepen understandings of the Beat Generation… highlighting previously under-recognized Beat artists and under-studied dimensions of the Beat movement…”

These words open the book Joanne Kyger: Poet in Place and Time, a new book of essays examining the work of the longtime Bolinas, California resident poet whose work has been described by one critic this way: “handling her poetry is like handling a porcupine traveling at the speed of light.” Jane Falk and Mary Paniccia Carden are the co-editors and were your humble narrator’s guests Oct 5, 2024, via Zoom, to discuss the book and the poet.