Naropa Journals: William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg and the Beat Revolution

This book chronicles three years at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa College in Boulder, Colorado. In 1974 Trungpa Rinpoche founded the Naropa Institute as the first Buddhist contemplative university in the West. He asked Allen Ginsberg to be the head of the English Department and Allen enlisted Anne Waldman and they co-founded the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics to be the English Department at Naropa. Each summer Naropa would hold special writers workshops and Allen would come for a month and William Burroughs would attend for at least a week. Allen would invite other writers and poets and over the years nearly everyone associated with the Beat generation was in attendance. The journals include appearances by William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, Herbert Huncke, Harry Smith, Ken Kesey, Anne Waldman, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Philip Whalen, Gary Snyder, Peter Orlovsky, Trungpa Rinpoche, Timothy Leary, Carolyn Cassady, Diane Di Prima, Michael McClure, John Giorno, Antler, and Andy Clausen. The book includes brief biographies and literary criticism of the lives and works of Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Gregory Corso, Herbert Huncke and Harry Smith.