Beat Myths in Literature

Rezensionen / Stimmen

"In Beat Myths in Literature, Estibaliz Encarnacion-Pinedo "looks back" in two important senses: she looks back at ancient myths through the optic of women poets who rewrite these stories in contemporary, gendered terms. In like manner she looks back at the positioning of women in ancient myth alongside contemporary myths that continue to define women's position in society. In her remarkable readings of long poems by Anne Waldman, Joanne Kyger, Diane di Prima and personal memoirs by Hettie Jones, Joyce Johnson, and others, Encarnacion-Pinedo enlarges our view of writers loosely associated with the "Beat generation" label. By contesting treatments of myth within a masculinist mythopoetics and revising the role of women writers in a largely male enclave she looks back by looking forward".

--Michael Davidson, author of The San Francisco Renaissance: Poetics and Community at Mid-century and Guys Like Us: Citing Masculinity in Cold War Poetics

"Anyone seeking a cogent introduction to the significance of women Beat writers should turn to Beat Myths in Literature: Revisionist Strategies in Beat Women. It proves a useful starting point and an expansion of extant scholarship through exploration of writers including Diane di Prima, Joanne Kyger, Joyce Johnson, Hettie Jones, and Anne Waldman. With cat-like nimbleness, Encarnacioin-Pinedo elucidates their production of established Beat aesthetics while deftly arguing for the experimental techniques-via?poetry, memoir, film, and archival work-by which the women looked backward into myth to create plausible visions of their then-contemporary realities alongside a more equitable future".

--Nancy M. Grace, author of Jack Kerouac and the Literary Imagination and co-editor of Girls who Wore Black: Women Writing the Beat Generation

"In this masterful work, Estibaliz Encarnacion-Pinedo provides a compelling account of how Beat women writers skillfully deployed myths, both ancient and contemporary, to refashion their lives and poetics, offering nothing less than a re-evaluation of the myth of the Beat Generation itself in the process. Linking insightful close readings with a range of critical approaches, Encarnacion-Pinedo has produced an eminently readable account of a body of texts that deserve more attention. An indispensable book not only for those interested in Beat writing, but for anyone concerned with how mythology continues to create meaning in the present".

--Erik Mortenson, author of Capturing the Beat Moment: Cultural Politics and the Poetics of Presence and Translating the Counterculture: The Reception of the Beats in Turkey

"Beat Myths in Literature: Revisionist Strategies in Beat Women is a fascinating survey of the ways authors including Joanne Kyger, Diane di Prima and Anne Waldman employ mythic narratives to illuminate their own lives as artists and at the same time reimagine a male-centered literary history from the silenced woman's point of view. Filled with insights concerning the intersections of ancient and modern myths and literature, this book marks an important advance in the field of Beat Studies and will remain an important source for both scholars in the field and the general reader."

--David Stephen Calonne, author of Diane di Prima: Visionary Poetics and the Hidden Religions, and The Beats in Mexico