Raskin says 'I'm Beat'!

Critic dons poetry hat in verse retort

Jun 13, 2025

AFTER A recent debate in these very columns about what is Beat and who is Beat prompted by Chief Book Reviewer Jonah Raskin’s commentary on Steven Belletto’s new Ted Joans biography Black Surrealist, the critic himself nattily snaps back with an impromptu Beat manifesto in verse…

‘I’m Beat’ by Jonah Raskin

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You’re Beat

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They’re Beat

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We’re Beat

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Everyone’s Beat

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Sappho was definitely Beat

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Dante was also Beat and

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Shakespeare was sometimes Beat

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The Beat poets belonged to the Beat Scene

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Beat is everywhere you look

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Beat is eternal

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‘The Waste Land’ is a Beat poem and

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Citizen Kane is a Beat film and

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Charlie Parker was Beat and

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Bob Dylan is Beat and

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Naomi Ginsberg was Beat

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and so was Jack Kerouac’s mother

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The Triple Goddess is Beat and the

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Beatles are Beat and paradise is

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Beat and weed is Beat and the

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beat is beyond Beat.

JR

June 13th, 2025

Discussion about this post

very cute. and i agree the word "Beat" or "beat" is more appropriate as a loose, enabling descriptor than as a boundary-drawing category. that's why it annoys me when people fetishize the term. like "poetry." i'm for whatever provides a wider latitude.

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SHAKESPEARE:AFOOL THINKS HE IS A WISE MAN. A WISE MAN KNOWS HE IS A FOOL Raskin is tres Beat and the road goes on forever twisting and turning through the jungle and the desert sands as the Lost City of Opar shimmers and shines in the distance and the moon rises over the Sphinx Best wishes and much love from the last frontier. Frisco Tony

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