LAST month, in the UK, we staged the premiere of a celebratory live event called Kerouac Lives! to recognise the writer’s imminent centenary.
It was an occasion which brought together conversation and readings, a film premiere and new songs, all commemorating this literary anniversary.
I also produced two short poetic tributes to open and close the evening, a prologue and an epilogue. In the end, there was neither the time nor space to include them.
But here now, as we arrive at the actual day of the author’s 100th birthday, are the introductory lines I wrote for that performance…
‘Hello Jack: Fast Flows the Merrimack’
By Simon Warner
And so begins
Out of the dawn
Comes spectral light
Of black and white
As birds take wing
A youthful writer bolder born
A brother older for a while
First life then death arrives
A shaft of breath
To fuel the music of the verse
Fast flowing in
And flowing on
The Merrimack by Lowell town
Around the family Kerouac