Beat Scene
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Beat Scene is a UK based magazine dedicated to the work, the history and the cultural influences of the Beat Generation. This has included artists, musicians and film-makers as well its best known and more obscure writers and publishers. The content largely consists of articles, memoirs, interviews and reviews.
Beat Scene was founded in 1988 by editor and publisher Kevin Ring in Coventry, England. His personal fascination for the Beat Generation, in particular Jack Kerouac, was sparked in 1971 but he was frustrated that information about Beat writers and their books was hard to come by in the UK at that time.
The first Beat Scene and subsequent four issues were thin A5 booklets. Initially there were only 200 copies produced and hand assembled on the kitchen table. As well as the principle Beat writers: Kerouac, William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg and Gary Snyder, the magazine has featured Lord Buckley, James Jones, Chet Baker, Richard Brautigan, Lew Welch, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Lenny Bruce, Ken Kesey, Jack Hirschman, Raymond Carver, Robert Frank, Gregory Corso, Diane Di Prima, Jack Micheline and Carolyn Cassady (who was the first of the magazine’s interview subjects). The poet and Kerouac biographer Tom Clark has contributed to the magazine but was also interviewed by Ring.[1]
In later issues more and more attention has been given to the 1960s and post-Beat people and events, often connected to the hippies and Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco.
Charles Bukowski was frequently mentioned in the early issues and when issue 9 was in preparation Ring received an unsolicited letter from the Los Angeles based poet and novelist along with a parcel of previously unpublished poems. These were offered for publication at the magazine’s usual rate, which at the time amounted to a few complimentary copies. Over the years Bukowski continued to contribute poems to the magazine and issue 12 included a flexi-record of him reading. Bukowski was interviewed by Ring for Beat Scene and its sister magazine, Transit. [2] After Bukowski’s death in 1994 Ring compiled a special memorial issue.
Beat Scene's many regular contributors have included, Jim Burns, Charles Plymell[3], Anne Waldman, David Meltzer, Jay Jeff Jones[4], David Amram, Jack Foley, Jed Birmingham and Ron Whitehead.
In December 2006 a special, unnumbered issue was devoted to a new edition of Kodak Mantra Diaries. [5]
Complementing the magazine is Beat Scene Press [6], which specialises in publishing limited, chapbook editions of classic beat interviews or new, longer articles on beat culture.
