‘Searching for Jack Kerouac’ by Ron Whitehead
One of the most active poets, writers and music-makers operating in the US pays his own centenary tribute, evoking the Beat author’s soulful spirit along the way
Ron Whitehead is a legend of American poetics, presently the holder of the title US National Beat Poet Laureate 2021-22, as named by the National Beat Poetry Foundation. He has some 30 collections of verse and prose to his name alongside 40 released CDs and is also an editor, academic and activist.
His most significant titles include I Will Not Bow Down, Mama: A Poet’s Heart in a Kentucky Girl and Quest for Self in an Ocean of Consciousness. Further, in 2018, he was the focus of an exhibition Poets, Rock Stars, and Holy Men, presented in Louisville, Kentucky, and, in 2020, the subject of a documentary, filmed over a decade, entitled Outlaw Poet: The Legend of Ron Whitehead.
He has collaborated with an extraordinary gallery of musical talents, from veteran jazzman David Amram to Jim Jones of My Morning Jacket, Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth to the remarkable Icelandic band Sigur Rós and American psychedelic rock act Blaak.
When Whitehead approached me to share a new and extended poem he had written in recognition of the forthcoming Kerouac centenary, he graciously agreed to my request that we might publish the work at Rock and the Beat Generation.
I asked the prolific poet what the roots of this lyrical statement were and whether this was indeed a freshly-minted tribute to Kerouac.
Ron Whitehead explains: ‘I wrote an earlier version several years ago but completely edited/overhauled/revised for the recording/filming which we did a week ago.
‘For this new version I wanted to add a sad, forlorn, down and out song. I listened to Mississippi John Hurt's version of "You Got To Walk That Lonesome Valley" and decided to incorporate that into the poem, but with female voices.
‘I recently added three female singers to my Storm Generation Band. Two of them were able to make it for the recording session. This new updated version of the poem has not yet been published.’
Below, we have a full transcript of this near-epic piece – a potent interweaving of spoken word and musical accompaniment – and also a link to an 11-minute performance of the poem on video.
Performance credits: Ron Whitehead, vocals; Lacy Jean, violin & vocals; Katrina Harper, vocals. Recorded, mixed, & mastered by Bill Hardesty at Logan Street Music Studio, Louisville, Kentucky. Produced by Ron Whitehead, Bill Hardesty, Matt Thomasson. Photography & dilm production by Yunier Ramirez.
‘Searching for Jack Kerouac: You Got To Walk That Lonesome Valley, On the Occasion of Jack's 100th Birthday’
By Ron Whitehead
‘You Got To Walk That Lonesome Valley’, Appalachian folk song, African American spiritual, lonesome lost brokedown blues.
‘You got to walk, that lonesome valley
Well, you got to walk, it for yourself
Ain't nobody else, can walk it for you
You got to walk, that valley for yourself
My mother had to walk, that lonesome valley
Well, she had to walk, it for herself
There's nobody else, can walk it for you
Yes, she had to walk, a'that valley for herself
Oh yes, you got to walk, that lonesome valley
Well, you got to walk, it for yourself
There's nobody else, can walk it for you
You got to walk…’
visited
San Francisco
flew to Chicago
on to Oakland California
rental Mustang GT
fast weaving thru heavy traffic
over Bay Bridge
wandered North Beach San Francisco
weighed down with heavy words
On the Road
where is Jack Kerouac
in Canada Lowell New York City North Carolina
Denver San Francisco Mexico City St. Petersburg
bones white light white heat bones
Jack Kerouac's bones in
Lowell, Massachusetts
where the road begins and ends
and I'm searching
for Jack Kerouac
out west as west as west can be west
and still be in the olding USA
there's the Pacific Ocean
out past the Golden Gate
Asian immigrants on boats
pleading waiting to get in
open spirit
the dream
of freedom of joy
‘It's okay to be happy’
His Holiness The Dalai Lama
looks deep into my eyes my soul
and says ‘It's okay to be happy’
what release I felt
years and years layer upon layer of
mountainous guilt
for failure after failure
for not being enough for anyone
fell away fell away
‘It's okay to be happy’
especially out far out west
on the left coast
Jack Kerouac
The Dalai Lama
Thomas Merton
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Jan Kerouac
determined to start a new life
out west far out west
San Francisco Oakland Berkeley Mill Valley Sausalito
non-stop performances visits travels
Berkeley Berkeley Berkeley
1968 still 1969 in Berkeley
pow wow with Einstein of the sacred herb
peace pipe opens magic realms
then cross campus to Moe's bookstore
where I'm told that Chris Felver will be signing
his new BEAT book
Chris Felver
the best photographer on the planet
I wrote his phone number down
in the flying Mustang GT
crossing Bay Bridge synchronicity good signs abound
BEAT BEAT BEAT
‘the most beautiful book ever produced
and published on The Beat Generation’
‘In 2001, Ron Whitehead and
I made a pilgrimage to Thomas Merton's
grave to meet Father Patrick Hart. He
had with him two poems
that Jack Kerouac had contributed to Merton's journal,
Monks Pond, summer 1968...’
and on the next page Jack Kerouac
Thomas Merton
the poems the journals the grave
Brother Pat and me at Merton's grave
where I also stood with Lawrence Ferlinghetti 1993
and I'm searching
for Jack Kerouac
Moe's bookstore Berkeley
and yes in walks Chris Felver
and a Felver entourage including nubile neo-Beats
three young women walking their own Beat road
a joyous reunion
at Moe's bookstore
in Berkeley, California
determined to start a new life
new beginning
days and nights visiting Felver
bridges cross bays endless miles of blue water
turquoise sky islands boats birds fish prisons
San Quentin Alcatraz trust fund yuppies
homeless
the middle class is dead
Reagan Bush Clinton Bush Jr killed the middle class
democracy is dying
even on the left coast
if we fail
to reach our democratic potential
freedom and equality for all
if we fail and we're failing miserably failing
democracy will move west
continually west
go west young woman young man
the time of the grandmothers
the time of the nurturing healing feminine energy has come
patriarchy has sewn destruction long enough
we must all
female and male become healers
peace love and understanding are not dirty weak words
peace love and understanding are essential to our survival
rather than viruses let us be healer gardeners
dwelling harmoniously with Mother Earth
and I'm searching for Jack Kerouac
‘the one who'll shake the ones unshaken
the fearless one the one without bullshit’
and the Sunday morning church bells chime cross the distance
I cast off the anxiety of authority of influence
and make myself new
breathing in salty sea breezes
my lungs and heart are healed
writing the heart
I have escaped my mental sanctum
where for too long I contemplated
longing loss grief my complicated navel
I have finally pulled my head outta my ass
I am born again
my new church is my body
in which my soul dwells now
wherever I am I am in church
my soul my spirit my heart sing
songs of praise I give thanks
for each and every moment event person being
I give thanks for the pain suffering joy happiness
all and everything have brought
me to this moment
this fleeting moment
and before this line is written it
will be gone gone gone into the past
even right now lasts less than a moment
life flies by
no sense holding on to what is gone
last breath will arrive soon enough
I am free
searching for Jack Kerouac
Jan's lost father
their bones
white bones buried
coast to coast
ghost to ghost
I see them now holding hands
far seeing
staring at me from the other side
Jack and Jan Kerouac
staring at me writing this poem
I hear Jack say
‘The World really does not matter, but God has made it so,
and so it matters in God, and He Hath Aims for it,
which we cannot know without the understanding of obedience.
There is nothing to do but give praise.
This is my ethic of “art”...’
and searching for Jack Kerouac
I realize that I don't know anything nobody knows anything
but I embrace this beautiful
terrible mystery this mysterium tremendum called life
and I declare that henceforth and forevermore
I will do nothing but surrender my will to God
and sing songs of praise of thanks of joy of happiness
even if I die in a gutter
with a bullet in my head
I'll die singing songs of praise
and I'm searching for Jack Kerouac
Moe's bookstore Berkeley Bird and Beckett Books City Lights
Cafe Trieste Cafe Greco North Beach San Francisco
Sausalito Mill Valley Oakland
non-stop performances visits travels
I bid farewell to ye oh holy
far out left coast
and searching for Jack Kerouac
on the plane I read
‘...the only people that interest me are the mad ones,
the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk,
desirous of everything at the same time, the
ones that never yawn or say a commonplace thing...but
burn, burn, burn like roman candles’
and on the plane by the window
peering through the clouds
I see Jack's smiling face
and he whispers from the distance
‘One night in America when the sun had gone down
beginning at four of the winter afternoon in New York
by shedding a beautiful burnished gold in the air
that made dirty old buildings look like the walls
of the temple of the world...then outflying its own
shades as it raced three thousand 200 miles over raw
bulging land to the West Coast before sloping down
the Pacific, leaving the great rearguard
shroud of night to creep upon our earth,
to darken rivers, to cup the peaks
and fold the final shore in...’
I'm searching yes after all these years
still searching for myself
folding the final shore in
still searching for the
ever elusive Jack that's right
I said Jack Jack Kerouac
I’m searching
for Jack Kerouac
‘Oh, Jesus had to walk that lonesome valley
He had to walk, it for His'self
There's nobody else, could walk it for Him
He had to walk, that valley for His'self
Oh yes, you got to walk, that lonesome valley
Well, you got to walk, it for yourself
There's nobody else, can walk it for you
You got to walk, that valley for yourself’