Jack Kerouac's poem for J. Edgar Hoover?

[Will Dockery]

Ace Backwards wrote:

"...According to this book "Bobby And J. Edgar", J. Edgar Hoover had a
carefully typed poem by Jack Kerouac scotch taped to 'the slide-out board
next to the kneeehole in Hoover's battered interior desk.' Like a secret
little poem between him and Jack.


http://www.amazon.com/Bobby-J-Edgar-Historic-Transformed/dp/B0018ZOAHU

This was the poem:

"There was a man who believed that the highest you/ could get on this
planet, straight or stoned/ was to rock your loins in the loins of a
beautiful woman who adored you, whoul could share your/ madness and even
your (unreadabled), call your bluff, chase your blues, undo you. With that
you could play table-stakes poker with Alexander the Great." -- Jack Kerouac

Anyone know where this is from, or is it really an unpublished poem by Jack
Kerouac?

[Dave Moore]

It does not seem like a Kerouac poem to me.

Can anyone prove me wrong?

Dave Moore



"Will Dockery" <will.d...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:kh0r3m$rg7$1...@dont-email.me...

[Will Dockery]

"Dave Moore" <da...@djmoorenospam.fsnet.co.uk> wrote in message
news:kh2h9s$als$1...@speranza.aioe.org...

> It does not seem like a Kerouac poem to me.
>
> Can anyone prove me wrong?
>
> Dave Moore

Dave, I'm sure not finding this poem online by /amybody/ and in fact nowhere
else where Kerouac even mentions Alexander the Great besides the actual
Hoover biography, which seems to claim it comes from "On The Road":

http://books.google.com/books?id=RW9xER26nBcC&lpg=PA85&ots=vRWItTL8Xo&dq=%22rock%20your%20loins%22%20%22straight%20or%20stoned%22&pg=PA85#v=onepage&q=%22rock%20your%20loins%22%20%22straight%20or%20stoned%22&f=false

Or:

http://tinyurl.com/Kerouac-and-Hoover

From Bobby and J. Edgar:

"There is some suggestion that the scizoid Director was attempting to
conceal his overriding impulses even from himself. Affixed with yellowing
Scotch tape to the slide-out board next to the kneehole in Hoover's battered
interior desk was a carefully typed quotation ostensibly from - yes! the
Beat novelist Jack Kerouac..."

Interesting mystery.

> "Will Dockery" wrote in message news:kh0r3m$rg7$1...@dont-email.me...

[Dan Fox]

"Dave Moore" <da...@djmoorenospam.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:
> It does not seem like a Kerouac poem to me.
>
> Can anyone prove me wrong?
>
> Dave Moore

I agree, Dave. The first think I thought when I read it.

Dan

[Will Dockery]

<qwerty...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:e4c564f4-3611-402a...@googlegroups.com...
> On Monday, March 4, 2013 6:20:23 PM UTC-5, Hieronymous House wrote:
>> Dave Moore

>>
>> It does not seem like a Kerouac poem to me.
>>
>> Can anyone prove me wrong?
>>

>> Anyone can prove you wrong.
>>
>> No one straightens seems for you.
>>
>> The poem's provenance is provided.
>>
>> Kerouac's writing style speaks for itself.
>>
>> You must decide some things on your own.
>
> You have to prove that it doesn't seem like a Kerouac poem /to him/.
>
> It can be done. But we are going to need some sodium pentathol and a
> hypnotist.
> And maybe some Rohypnol.
> For the fuck of it.

All this keeps reminding me of when Elvis had his photograph taken with
Nixon.

Kerouac near the end was so wildly "out of character" that a correspondence
with the Director of the FBI wouldn't be that surprising, but as long time
readers of Kerouac (including me) notice, the tone and language doesn't
really seem like Kerouac, more like a phony, like someone's /idea/ of what
Kerouac wrote like.

--
Music & poetry from Will Dockery & Friends:
http://www.reverbnation.com/willdockery

[Dave Moore]

"Will Dockery" <will.d...@gmail.com> wrote in message

news:kh9o6s$f9t$2...@dont-email.me...

>
> Kerouac near the end was so wildly "out of character" that a
> correspondence with the Director of the FBI wouldn't be that surprising,
> but as long time readers of Kerouac (including me) notice, the tone and
> language doesn't really seem like Kerouac, more like a phony, like
> someone's /idea/ of what Kerouac wrote like.

Exactly!

A poor pastiche of Kerouac.

Dave

[Halo]

In article <kh0r3m$rg7$1...@dont-email.me>,

unsure but it sure kicks ass
let us know what you dig
up please

[Steve Hayes]

Agreed, but it still makes one wonder who wrote it and what it was doing
there.


--
Steve Hayes
Web: http://hayesfam.bravehost.com/LITMAIN.HTM
http://www.goodreads.com/hayesstw
http://www.bookcrossing.com/mybookshelf/Methodius

[Will Dockery]

"Hieronymous House" <hierony...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:c97c8183-47ea-4906...@googlegroups.com...
> Mar 7Steve Hayes
>>On Thu, 7 Mar 2013 23:04:19 -0000, "Dave Moore" wrote:
>>>"Will Dockery" wrote in message

>news:kh9o6s$f9t$2...@dont-email.me...
>>
>> Kerouac near the end was so wildly "out of character" that a
>> correspondence with the Director of the FBI wouldn't be that surprising,
>> but as long time readers of Kerouac (including me) notice, the tone and
>> language doesn't really seem like Kerouac, more like a phony, like
>> someone's /idea/ of what Kerouac wrote like.
>
>Exactly!
>
>>A poor pastiche of Kerouac.
>
>> Agreed, but it still makes one wonder who wrote it and what it was doing
there.
>

> The poem's placement, structure and sentiment suggests, to me, that the
> Director may have written the pastiche
> himself to himself, in homage to and in honor of a favorite writer; a self
> reminder of something. If it were an original > Kerouac poem, it would
> likely have been signed, framed, and displayed. The book title typed
> under the name
> suggests, to me, the source material of the pastiche. Were it an original
> Kerouac poem, it's not likely Kerouac
> would have typed the name of his previous book beneath his name.

J. Edgar Hoover as Beat poet.

That's the best possible answer I've seen.

[Will Dockery]

On Friday, March 8, 2013 8:07:36 AM UTC-5, Hieronymous House wrote:
>
> It's the best explanation I could come up with given the immediately
> available data.
>
> Considering Hoover's secretive nature and the speculation that he
> maintained a closeted sex life, the poem may also have been authored by
> some unnamed love interest.

It wouldn't be so far fetched that Kerouac wrote the poem (possibly even for
Hoover, and, *gasp* for the reason you state) except that, as a long-time
reader and follower of Jack Kerouac (including his later, last work) the
tone, the "voice" just isn't quite his.

In my opinion.

--
Idle Hour Night / The Shadowville All-Stars
http://www.reverbnation.com/willdockery/song/15928895-idle-hour-night--dockery-mallard

[Will Dockery]

"Hieronymous House" <hierony...@gmail.com> wrote in message

news:830b06b0-92f0-4ff9...@googlegroups.com...
> 8:26 AMWill Dockery

> On Friday, March 8, 2013 8:07:36 AM UTC-5, Hieronymous House wrote:
>>
>> It's the best explanation I could come up with given the immediately
>> available data.
>>
>> Considering Hoover's secretive nature and the speculation that he
>> maintained a closeted sex life, the poem may also have been authored by
>> some unnamed love interest.
>
> It wouldn't be so far fetched that Kerouac wrote the poem (possibly even
> for
> Hoover, and, *gasp* for the reason you state) except that, as a long-time
> reader and follower of Jack Kerouac (including his later, last work) the
> tone, the "voice" just isn't quite his.
>
> In my opinion.
>

> It doesn't make sense, to me,
> that Kerouac would write a pastiche
> of his own work at all, much less as a gift
> to someone for whom he had romantic feelings.

Well if Kerouac did write the poem himself, it wouldn't be a "pastiche".

[Will Dockery]

Hieronymous House wrote:
> 9:43 AM Will Dockery
>> "Hieronymous House" wrote in message
>> news:830b06b0-92f0-4ff9...@googlegroups.com...
>
> - show quoted text -

>
>> Well if Kerouac did write the poem himself, it wouldn't be a "pastiche".
>

> Exactly. And if the words and phrasing of the poem suggest Kerouac,
> and can be found in On The Road, then it would likely be a pastiche
> as opposed to a parody in that the sentiment conveyed, to my eye, is
> flattering rather than mocking of Kerouac. Whoever wrote it liked
> Kerouac enough to write it, and Hoover liked it enough to keep it.

It is possible that J. Edgar Hoover typed it himself.

[Will Dockery]

"Dave Moore" <da...@djmoorenospam.fsnet.co.uk> wrote in message
news:kh2h9s$als$1...@speranza.aioe.org...

> It does not seem like a Kerouac poem to me.
>
> Can anyone prove me wrong?
>
> Dave Moore

I just brought home Jack Kerouac's Wake Up, which I've never read but always
seem to think the style is not the average Kerouac, more of a "biographer"
atyle, so I figured that Kerouac could write in a style with no continuity
to his previous writing.

But now this review describes it that even Wake Up could be included on the
side of the Dulouz Myrthos, iow unmistakable wild old Jack:

http://thedailybeatblog.blogspot.com/2012/05/review-jack-kerouacs-wake-up-life-of.html

"...Instead, it was spontaneous prose meets esoteric obtusity. This book is
neither for the faint of heart nor the Buddhist beginner [...] While I'm
glad I read Wake Up, I'll stick with The Dharma Bums, my favorite Kerouac
novel, which Thurman describes as "the most accurate, poetic, and expansive
evocation of the heart of Buddhism that was available at that time" (p.
viii). In an "Author's Note," Kerouac describes Wake Up as "a handbook for
Western understanding of the ancient Law" (p. 5). At least for me, he partly
failed on that score, but it's good to read something challenging from time
to time and Wake Up certainly fits that bill..."

That still doesn't much make me think that the J. Edgar Hoover poem is
really written by Jack Kerouac, it reads more like something one of the
latter-day Beats would have written, in the later, a bit more swinging
times.

> "Will Dockery" wrote in message news:kh0r3m$rg7$1...@dont-email.me...