Rebels, Beats and Poets

By Jim Burns

Rebels come in various shapes and sizes, and in some ways it’s possible to see most of the people dealt with in these essays and reviews as rebels of one sort or another. Some, like the Wobblies, were political and/or economic dissenters from the status quo, as was B. Traven. Others, such as certain of the poets discussed, might be viewed as challenging established ideas about how to write poems. William Burroughs is an interesting example of someone who, in his life and writing, stood outside conventional values. As for jazz musicians, they’ve often been outsiders. But I don’t want to make an issue of whether or not specific individuals can be truly identified as rebels. It’s possible for someone to be a rebel in some ways, but not in others. And rebels can mellow and come to terms with the wider society, even to the point where they become successful in its eyes.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Apr 18, 2018
• ISBN: 9780244981877

Jim Burns

Jim Burns, PhD, is president of HomeWord and executive director of the HomeWord Center for Youth and Family at Azusa Pacific University. Host of the nationwide HomeWord radio broadcasts, he also speaks around the world at seminars and conferences. His many books include Confident Parenting, Pass It On, Teaching Your Children Healthy Sexuality, and 10 Building Blocks for a Solid Family. He and his wife, Cathy, live Southern California and have three grown daughters.

Book preview

Rebels, Beats and Poets

REBELS, BEATS AND POETS

JIM BURNS

Published by

Penniless Press Publications 2015

© Jim Burns

The author asserts his moral right to be identified as the author of the work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

ISBN 978-0-244-98187-7

Cover: Ile de la Cité Paris 1992 – photo Ken Clay

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Who Were the Wobblies?  Beat Scene 52, Coventry, Spring, 2007

The Road to Spain, Palantir 19, Preston, 1982

Traven Before Mexico, Palantir 20, Preston, 1982

Henry Miller, Northern Review of Books (on-line), April, 2012

A Communist Odyssey, Northern Review of Books (on-line), November, 2012. The Crazy Oik 16, Warrington, Winter, 2013

Surrealist Prague, Northern Review of Books (on-line), June, 2013

The Garden of Eros, Northern Review of Books (on-line), August, 2013. The Crazy Oik 19, Warrington, Autumn, 2013

International Bohemia, Northern Review of Books (on-line), August, 2013. The Crazy Oik 20, Warrington, Winter, 2014

Grove Press, Northern Review of Books (on-line), September, 2013

Paris-Amsterdam Underground, Northern Review of Books (on-line), December, 2013. The Crazy Oik 21, Summer, 2014

Making Modernism Soviet, Northern Review of Books (on-line), January, 2014

J. Edgar Hoover at the Movies, Northern Review of Books (on-line), August, 2012

John Clellon Holmes, Northern Review of Books (on-line), February, 2011

Seymour Krim, Northern Review of Books (on-line), March, 2011

The Blowtop, Beat Scene 73, Coventry, Summer, 2014

R.V. Cassill, Beat Scene 58, Coventry, Spring, 2009

Fred McDarrah, Beat Scene 55, Coventry, Spring, 2008

George Mandel, Beat Scene 56, Coventry, Summer, 2008

Alan Harrington, Beat Scene 54, Coventry, Autumn, 2007

William Burroughs, Ambit 86, London, 1981

Jabberwock/Sidewalk, Prop 9, Bolton, Spring, 2001. Beat Scene 74, Coventry, Summer, 2014

David Gascoyne, Northern Review of Books (on-line), April, 2012. The Crazy Oik 22, Warrington, Summer, 2014

Poetry in Los Angeles, Northern Review of Books (on-line), May, 2012

Edward Dorn/Leroi Jones, Northern Review of Books, (on-line), May, 2014. Beat Scene 74, Coventry, Summer, 2014

Kenneth Rexroth, Poetry in the Blood, edited by Tony Roberts, Shoestring Press, Nottingham, 2014

What Will You Read Tomorrow? Penniless Press 13, Preston, January, 2001

Jazz on the Road, Beat Scene 54, Coventry, Autumn, 2007

Yes, but is it Art? Penniless Press 17, Preston, Spring, 2003

Eddie Finckel, Jazz Journal, Ashford, September, 2011

George Handy, Jazz Journal, Loughton, August, 2004

Lester Young, Jazz & Blues, London, July/August, 1971

Modern Jazz in Manchester, Northern Review of Books (on-line), March, 2011

Charlie Parker, Northern Review of Books (on-line), December, 2013

The Five Senses, Incline Press, Oldham, 1999

The Night of the Poet, The Guardian, London, 21st December, 1968

McCarthy, Continuum 6, Lancaster, 1970, The Crazy Oik 17, Warrington, Spring, 2013

Interview, Beat Scene 72, Coventry, Spring, 2014

My thanks to all the editors concerned and to Ken Clay and Joan Mottram

INTRODUCTION

Rebels come in various shapes and sizes, and in some ways it’s possible to see most of the people dealt with in these essays and reviews as rebels of one sort or another. Some, like the Wobblies, were political and/or economic dissenters from the status quo, as was B. Traven. Others, such as certain of the poets discussed, might be viewed as challenging established ideas about how to write poems. William Burroughs is an interesting example of someone who, in his life and writing, stood outside conventional values. As for jazz musicians, they’ve often been outsiders. But I don’t want to make an issue of whether or not specific individuals can be truly identified as rebels. It’s possible for someone to be a rebel in some ways, but not in others. And rebels can mellow and come to terms with the wider society, even to the point where they become successful in its eyes. It’s always best to have a sense of humour present when dealing with aspects of human nature. There is, too, a sense of proportion required. It’s easier to be a rebel in some places than in others. The Wobblies suffered for their rebellion. But it was possible to be outrageous and provocative as a bohemian rebel in Montparnasse or Greenwich Village without incurring too much hostile attention.  Artists in Russia shortly after the Revolution had to think carefully before they stepped out of line. Even their simplest actions could have serious consequences.  

The Beats play a part in this collection, as they did in the previous ones, and I’ve tried to focus some attention on a few figures who were on the fringes of the movement. And who didn’t necessarily see themselves as part of it. Academic studies of the Beats mostly concentrate on a few well-known writers, with the result (to my mind, at least) that little of the excitement that was evident in the late-1950s and early-1960s comes through in the analytical books that continue to roll off the presses. Worthy they may be, but they’re not very exciting. Little magazines, small presses, the ephemera of bohemia; much of it gets lost as the scholars grind out their theories about what happened and why. I prefer to look at what always seemed to me to be a floating world of writers and others who made up the backcloth against which the handful of better-known novelists and poets functioned. Someone like R.V. Cassill, for example, could hardly be called Beat, but one of his short stories was included in an early anthology of Beat writers and was said to offer a foretaste of what was to come. Or there was George Mandel, whose Flee the Angry Strangers is often cited as a kind of pre-Beat novel, but who could see the funny side of the Beat life-style in his work as a cartoonist. Fred McDarrah was a photographer who provided the best visual record of the Greenwich Village Beat scene.  

Like the Beats, jazz is a constant in my writing. There are pieces about Charlie Parker and Lester Young, two of the major musicians in the jazz firmament, but I’ve also written about a couple of now-obscure arrangers. It has always struck me that arrangers are paid too little attention when anyone writes about jazz, but their contributions to the development of the big-bands were of key importance. As for the article, Yes, but is it Art? it did upset one or two people when it first appeared in print. I still haven’t ever had a response that has convinced me that a lot of jazz is art. I don’t need to think of a lot of the music I listen to as art to like it. Words like art and creative and genius are thrown around like confetti these days, but they ought to be applied sparingly to what we see and read and hear. It ought to be enough to admire the skill with which many painters and musicians and writers produce their work and leave the big words to describe what a few major figures do.

Finally, I’ve chosen to include three short items (stories?) which perhaps offer some light-relief. Bohemia was never any the worse for having a little humour directed at it. I can’t claim that they’re of any literary importance. They’re not art, but I hope they’re easy to read and fun.

WHO WERE THE WOBBLIES?

Scattered throughout the 1950s writings of Jack Kerouac, Gary Snyder, and Allen Ginsberg are refer­ences to the Wobblies. Kerouac's Desolation Angels mentions them and throws in an aside about the Everett Massacre. Snyder has a poem in Myths And Texts which also refers to the events at Everett and lists the names of the Wobblies killed there. And Ginsberg, in a lightly ironic way, said, I feel sentimental about the Wobblies in his poem America. I'm not trying to list all the references that crop up in Beat literature, but they raise the question -who were the Wobblies?

Wobblies were members of the I.W.W., the Industrial Workers of the World. And note, it is Industrial and not International as so many people, includ­ing historians, write it. The organisation was founded in 1905 in Chicago with the plan to combine the American working class, and eventually wage earners all over the world, into one big trade union with an industrial basis, a syndicalist philosophy and a revolutionary aim. Ambitious stuff and almost from the start the radical intentions of the Wobblies and the militancy of their actions brought them into conflict with state and federal authori­ties. And, of course, with bosses every­where.

There were labour disputes and free-speech fights during the early years, but what brought the Wobblies really into the public arena was a textile strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts, in 1912. This was a town not too far from Lowell, Kerouac's birthplace, and memories of I.W.W. activity in the area may well have still been alive when he was growing up. It's almost certain that his friend, the politically-minded Sebastian Sampas, would have known about the Wobblies. Kerouac tended to write about the Wobblies as he encountered the legend on the West Coast, but could have heard about them before that. And Ginsberg certainly knew enough about Ameri­can radical traditions to be familiar with Wobbly history. One of the people active in the Lawrence strike was Arturo Giovannitti, a labour militant and poet. Ginsberg knew Giovannitti's poems, and some of them, such as The Walker, and The Senate Of The Dead, are similar in style to Howl.

The Wobblies were always interested in poetry and song, though usually with the emphasis on strong social and political content. The Lawrence dispute became known as The Bread and Roses Strike, from a banner carried by some of the mill girls which said, We want bread and roses too. The phrase was later worked into a poem by James Oppenheim and put to music. Wobbly magazines and newspapers abounded and most of them used cartoons, as well as poems and prose that revolved around current events. It's true that a lot of the work wasn't the kind likely to get into literary magazines, though Giovannitti's poems were an exception, as were some by Ralph Chaplin and Charles Ashleigh who, some years later, wrote a novel, Rambling Kid, based on his experi­ences. But the Wobblies wanted to make an immediate impact with their poems and songs and Joe Hill's work was probably more typical and likely to appeal to a crowd of striking workers. He used well-known tunes (hymns, popular songs, etc.) and added new words which satirised bosses and authority generally.

This is not a potted history of the I.W.W., but it's useful to point to differences between Wobblies on the East Coast and those in the Mid and Far-West. The East Coast had large immigrant communities, with people working in mills and factories and often having families to support. But in the Mid-West and along the West Coast there were large groups of migrant workers who followed the harvests and drifted from job to job. That was where Wobblies bummed their way across the country, where hobo camps could be found, and where the myth of the free-wheeling wanderer with a Wobbly card in his pocket was born. Like all myths it had an element of truth in it. And it's this romantic idea that has survived, whereas the more mundane activities of Wobblies who tried to establish I.W.W. branches in towns and cities in the East tend to be forgotten by all but labour historians.

When America entered the First World War in 1917 it gave the Govern­ment and state authorities an excuse to clamp down on the Wobblies because of their alleged subversive activities. Sections of the press ran hate cam­paigns against them. If you want to get an idea of what the atmosphere was like read Zane Grey's novel, Desert Of Wheat, which is almost a hymn of hate against the Wobblies and has a gloating description of the lynching of an I.W.W. organiser. This was based on the real-life lynching of Frank Little in Butte, Montana, in 1917. Around 100 leading Wobblies were rounded up and put on trial in Chicago, and many of them were given long prison sentences. The organisation never recovered and a split in the membership in 1924 further weakened it. The I.W.W. carried on (and still exists in a small way) but without any great influence in the labour movement. Its brief but dynamic history did, how­ever, set an example for later activists.

So, Kerouac, Snyder, and Ginsberg were writing about things they didn't directly experience, though Snyder had a closer involvement due to his grandfather having been a Wobbly. And the older poet, Kenneth Rexroth, would have had some direct contact with Wobblies. And it may have been that the I.W.W. looked attractive when compared to the bureaucratic or corrupt unions of the 1950s (sullen unions, as Kerouac called them) and particularly so in the atmosphere of America at that time. It's of interest to note that in 1956, when the Beats were coming to the fore in San Francisco, there was still alive in the city a man named Harry McClintock. He had a long association with the Wobblies and was credited as composer of Hallelujah, On The Bum, one of the best-known songs identified with the I.W.W. He also claimed to have written The Big Rock Candy Mountain. McClintock had led an eventful life, working around America at various jobs, and travelling to China, Australia, Britain, and other countries. He seems to have been active in the I.W.W. from around 1906 until the early 1920s. In 1925 he got a job singing hillbilly and similar songs on a San Fran­cisco radio station, and he also worked in Hollywood for a time and wrote stories and articles for pulp magazines. He continued to appear on radio in San Francisco (the Breakfast Gang show) until 1955, when he retired at the age of 72. He died in 1957.

And the Everett Massacre that Kerouac and Snyder mentioned? In November, 1916, several hun­dred Wobblies boarded two steamers in Seattle with the intention of sailing to Everett, a lumber town where they had been denied the right to hold meetings. As some of them attempted to land from one of the steamers, the Verona, they were fired on by armed vigilan­tes and policemen. Five Wobblies were killed (the ones Snyder named in his poem) and dozens injured. A couple of vigilantes were also killed and the Wobblies were accused of carrying guns, but it's more than likely that they were accidentally shot by their own side.

I've tried to draw attention to a minor but fascinating aspect of Beat literature. If anyone wants to know more about the Wobblies, and especially their use of poetry and songs, Rebel Voices: An I.W.W. Anthology, edited by Joyce L. Kornbluh (University of Michigan Press, 1964, with later reprints) is highly recommended.

THE ROAD TO SPAIN

The Spanish Civil War has been extensively written about from almost every point of view. There have been numerous general histories (Hugh Thomas's The Spanish Civil War is probably one of the best known examples published in this country), specialised surveys of particular aspects of the events of 1936-39 (Burnett Bolloten's The Spanish Revolution concentrates on the rise to power of the Communist Party at the expense of others on the Republican side - liberals, anarchists, socialists, etc.), and many personal memoirs, such as Jason Gurney's Crusade in Spain. There are also literary studies and anthologies. The recent Penguin Book of Spanish Civil War Verse fits into this latter category. I stress that I've merely selected a few titles at random to illustrate the extent of the literature about Spain, and dozens of others could easily be substituted for them.

One of the more-fascinating aspects of the War was the formation of the International Brigades. There have been a number of broad surveys of this subject, Vincent Brome's The International Brigades being one of the easiest available, if not the most accurate. And, in English-language publications, Edwin Rolfe's The Lincoln Battalion, Arthur Landis's The Abraham Lincoln Brigade, and Cecil Eby's Between the Bullet and the Lie have dealt thoroughly with the experiences of American volunteers in Spain. The British contingent has been less fortunate and, until recently, only William Rust's Britons in Spain (published in 1939) had attempted a history in book form. However, Judith Cook's excellent Apprentices of Freedom helped bring the story to the attention of today's readers, and now The Road to Spain extends our awareness of what it was like to actually make the decision to go to Spain, and to take part in the fighting.

As was made clear in Apprentices of Freedom the great majority of those who comprised the British contingent came from the working class. Over the years the presence of certain well-known writers and personalities in Spain, together with the activities of intellectuals and others involved in work in the United Kingdom on behalf of the Republic, has tended to persuade some people that involvement in the War was largely a middle-class affair. It is true, of course, that much of the literature of the War (poems, stories, novels, memoirs) was produced by those who would generally be thought of as middle-class. That is the way of literature. But I don't think it's in any way derogatory of the efforts and sacrifices of the middle-class participants to point out that, insofar as the Brigades were concerned, at least 85% of the British volunteers were working class. For a variety of socio-cultural reasons they tended not to write down their experiences in a systematic manner. Also, it should never be forgotten that the Brigades were front-line troops, and that casualty rates were high by any standards of warfare. Of the 2,000 or so volunteers from the British Isles, approximately 500 were killed in action, and a large proportion of the rest wounded, some more than once. Those who returned home soon found themselves tied up in their previous activities, - work, union matters, local politics - and many of them also served in the forces or civilian defence during the Second World War. They had little time or inclination for reminiscing, especially in print, and in any case the world was caught up in a major struggle against Fascism, and Spain tended to be forgotten, or looked on as a comparatively minor affair. And when the involvement of British citizens was remembered by the authorities it sometimes worked to the detriment of those who wanted to continue their activities by joining the armed forces to fight against Hitler. More than one of the people interviewed in The Road to Spain recalls how, in 1939, he was labelled a premature anti-fascist because of his Spanish Civil War record.

So, it's only in recent years that some historians have decided to search out the handful of survivors from the British element of the Brigades. The Second World War, and the natural ravages of time took their toll, and when Judith Cook's book came out in 1979 she reported that less than 200 of the original 2,000 volunteers were still alive. It can, I suppose, be argued that they are typical of the kind of people who chose to fight in Spain, and that those interviewed in the book under review are also a typical selection, insofar as it was possible to get one. I will return to this theme later as there is a small point that I wish to develop.

Once individuals had made up their minds to volunteer the actual trip to Spain wasn't always easy to arrange. With a handful of exceptions most went through Communist Party channels, the Party being the organiser of the Brigades. Which isn't to suggest that all the British contingent were Communists. The introduction to The Road to Spain points out, The general consensus among historians is that roughly fifty per cent belonged to the CP or affiliated organisations, but the figure may be distorted somewhat by the practice in some areas of persuading those anxious to go to Spain to join the Party prior to departure. But the role of the Party in facilitating the journey, and in running the Brigades, should not be underestimated.

As mentioned earlier, military histories of the War are available, and it would have been over-ambitious of this book to have attempted to cover that ground again. Instead, what we are offered is, essentially, a series of reminiscences about the background to the individual decisions to volunteer. Those, and the descriptions of the actual journeys to Spain, make up the bulk of The Road to Spain. There are, naturally, references to the fighting and to experiences in prisoner-of-war camps, but it is the personal histories which, perhaps, provide the most valuable information. Other accounts have mistakenly given the impression that many volunteers were adventurers or misfits of one kind or another, but what comes across here is the high degree of political motivation. It would be foolish to deny that, as with any army, some adventurers and misfits were present, though even they could hardly have been said to have joined up for financial gain or glory. Pay was poor, conditions worse, and the chance of becoming a casualty high. None of these facts need necessarily deter an adventurer, but they're hardly likely to attract too many of them either.

The interviews in The Road to Spain concentrate on those men and women (two who were nurses for the Republican Army are interviewed) who were to varying degrees politically committed or aware before their Spanish experience. Maurice Levine talks about Manchester in the Thirties, and the anti-fascist activities, meetings, discussion groups, and the like, that were almost a way of life for people like him. Jack Jones was heavily involved in Trade Union and local Labour Party politics before volunteering. Bob Cooney had been through a range of left organisations in Scotland during the Twenties and early Thirties. And most of the other interviewees had much the same stories to tell.

It's at this point that I want to spend a little time discussing an aspect of the kind of people who volunteered. I've already indicated that they were more often than not politically committed or aware. Talking of the British troops, Judith Cook suggested that few had ever been abroad before. Now, it is only proper to mention that with only one tenth of the volunteers still around today, and allowing for the fact that some of them might not care to talk about their time in Spain, the sample offered in The Road to Spain may not be a typical one. Those interviewed are, perhaps, the types who have, on the whole, remained active, involved, and consequently noticeable. The question is, of course, were they typical of the mass of the British in Spain? If they were, then it's interesting to note that a reasonable number of them had been abroad, and not just for short holidays (which were, in any case, less usual than now).

But let me list those who do mention having been outside the United Kingdom prior to taking the road to Spain:

1. Maurice Levine had spent several years in Australia.

2. Sam Wild had been in the Navy for eleven years, and had travelled extensively.

3. Leslie Preger had hitch-hiked around Germany, and had also made a trip to Russia out of curiosity.

4. Peter Kerrigan had been in Egypt with the army, and had made several trips to Russia.

5.  George Leeson had been to China, the Mediterranean, and elsewhere whilst in the Royal Navy.

6.  John Peet had wandered around Europe, teaching English, and visiting Prague, Vienna, and various places in Germany.

7.  Bob Cooney had spent over a year in Russia in the early Thirties.

Seven out of seventeen interviewees is a reasonable number, and it may be that some of the others didn't think it worth mentioning their trips abroad, if any, especially if they were brief holidays. So, whilst not forgetting the point made earlier (that they may not be 'typical), I suspect that many of those in the Brigades were, in some ways, a bit different. Their political interests alone would surely ensure that. And their other involvements. As one Brigader is quoted as saying, I was unemployed, but in many ways actively employed politically and not concerned about being unemployed. I wasn't propping up lampposts on street corners." And being unemployed put him in a minority amongst the volunteers, only one in eight of whom were out of a job at the time they joined up.

Of course, I'm not suggesting that times weren't hard, or that some of those interviewed don't have stories to tell about dole queues, the means-test, and other matters of that nature. Nor do I want to detract from the dedication and sacrifices of those volunteers (and there were some, no doubt) who hadn't travelled, weren't socially or politically sophisticated, but who thought that going to Spain was the right thing to do. But, as the book says, the common element that emerges from the profiles of those interviewed is a militant anti-fascism generated by a fusion of events in Europe and the experience of street politics in Britain. These factors, added to the general initiative and intelligence of the volunteers, ensured that it was usually the most militant and adventurous who went to Spain.

But these are things which, though necessary to resolve from the point of view of the historical record, should not be allowed to obscure the broad story of the mass of men who fought and died in the International Brigades. The Road to Spain is a stimulating and useful addition to the small body of literature which deals specifically with the experiences of the men of the British battalion, and to the larger body which is about the Spanish Civil War generally. The fact that the interviewees are able to tell their own stories in their own words, and by doing so display their varying personalities, adds a human element to the book which is sometimes lacking in more-formal histories. It is not just the experience of Spain that comes across, but also the mood of the Thirties as it was felt by some of those trying to react to its events with courage, imagination, and determination.

THE ROAD TO SPAIN: ANTI-FASCISTS AT WAR 1936-1939 edited by D. Corkill and S. Rawnsley. Borderline Press, 96 Halbeath Road, Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland.

TRAVEN BEFORE MEXICO

Writing in Palantir 14 about B. Traven, author of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The Death Ship, and other novels, I pointed out that the identity of the mysterious writer had seemingly been discovered by BBC researcher, Will Wyatt. The results of Wyatt's efforts to establish his real name were published as The Man Who Was B. Traven (Cape, 1980), and the book fully documents the string of aliases that he used throughout his life to mislead people, conceal his background, and perhaps just amuse himself at the expense of others.

However, even though the original name has been discovered, it is still as B. Traven that he is best known, and most of the other labels are merely a matter of interest to literary historians. As he himself often said, it is the books that count. And yet one of the pre-Traven names does have a kind of magic attached to it. Ret Marut was Traven's identity from 1907 until his arrival in Mexico in the early 1920s. I must admit, too, that insofar as the life of Marut, Traven, or whatever one wants to call him, is concerned it is the Marut part that fascinates me most of all.  (I stress that I'm referring to the life as opposed to the books).

Ret Marut was linked with Traven long before Will Wyatt went on the trail, of course, and several people had suggested that there were similarities in their writings when the first Traven books were published in Germany in the Twenties. Marut had been a small-time actor between 1907 and 1915, performing minor roles in nondescript plays, following a bohemian life-style, and taking an interest in the affairs of the actors' union. He