Collected poems / Jack Kerouac ; Marilène Phipps-Kettlewell, editor.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 714-729) and index.

Jack Kerouac, in his own words by Marilène Phipps-Kettlewell -- Mexico City blues (242 choruses) -- The scripture of the golden eternity -- Book of blues: San Francisco blues ; Richmond Hill blues ; Bowery blues ; MacDougal Street blues ; Desolation blues ; Orizaba 210 blues ; Orlanda blues ; Cerrada Medellin blues -- Pomes all sizes: Bus east ; Hitchhiker ; Neal in court ; On waking from a dream of Robert Fournier ; God ; Haiku Berkeley ; Poim ["Walking on water"] ; Various little pomes ; Two Dharma notes ; Gatha ; Beginning with a few haikus some of them addresses in the book ; "When you become enlightened" ; On ether ; Letter to Allen ; Mexico rooftop ; Mexican loneliness ; The last hotel ; Berkeley song in F major ; A sudden sketch poem ; Poem written in the Zoco Chico ; Three Tangier poems ; Tangier poem ; Poem ["Anyway the time has come to explain"] ; Flies ; Poem ["I could become a great grinning host"] ; How to meditate ; Buddha ; Poem ["I am God"] ; Haiku ["Came down from my"] ; My views on religion ; Lady ; Caritas ; Poem ["Old hornet me"] ; Lil poem on Louis Ferdinand Céline ; Skid Row wine ; The moon ; Poem ["Told him all about Minoan civilization"] ; The thrashing doves ; The sea-shroud ; My gang ; Pax ; Haiku ["The moon"] ; Prayer ; Poem ["You start off by suckin in"] ; Angel mine ; Perm ; Poems of the Buddhas of old ; Morphine ; Silly goofball pomes ; Pome ["Be me bespangled dotted-hat fool?"] ; 3 poems about titles of novels ; To Lou Little ; Airapetianz ; If I were Jesus, God ; Idiot ; Old Western movies ; Woman ; Hymn ; Goofball blues ; Goofball sillypomes ; Drunken scribbling poem ; Running through, Chinese poem song ; Sken 3 ; Cognac blues ; Beau Bébé ; The shack of desolation ; Poor sottish Kerouac ; Long Island Chinese poem rain ; Pome ["If I dont use the cork"] ; Pome on Doctor Sax ; A curse at the Devil -- Old angel midnight -- Desolation pops -- Book of haikus -- Uncollected poems. Observations ; America in the night ; Old love-light ; I tell you it is October! ; "I am my mother's son" ; Thinking of Thomas Wolfe on a winter's night ; Alabama, May 11, 1944 ; A translation from the French of Jean-Louis Incogniteau ; Psalms ; "God didn't make the world for satisfaction" ; Song ["I left New York"] ; Song: Fie my fum ; Pull my daisy ; Pull my daisy [alternative version] ; "He is your friend, let him dream" ; Visions of Doctor Sax ; The poems of the night ; Long dead's longevity ; "Someday you'll be lying" ; Daydreams for Ginsberg ; "Sight is just dust" ; Mindmatter ; A TV poem ; Heaven ; Sitting under tree number two ; To Harpo Marx ; "I / clearly / saw / the / skeleton / underneath" ; Rimbaud ; Sea ; Sept. 16, 1961 ; A pun for Al Gelpi ; To Edward Dahlberg ; A selection of uncollected haikus -- Chronology.

Poetry was at the center of Jack Kerouac's sense of mission as a writer. This landmark edition brings together for the first time all Kerouac's major poetic works--Mexico City Blues, The Scripture of the Golden Eternity, Book of Blues, Poems All Sizes, Old Angel Midnight, Book of Haikus--along with a rich assortment of his uncollected poems, six published here for the first time. He wrote poetry in every period of his life, in forms as diverse as the classical Japanese haiku, the Buddhist sutra, the spontaneous prose poetry of Old Angel Midnight, and the poetic "blues" he developed in Mexico City Blues and other serial works, seeing himself as "a jazz poet blowing a long blues in an afternoon jam session on Sunday." Many poets found Kerouac a liberating influence on their work: Robert Creeley called him "a genius at the register of the speaking voice"; for Allen Ginsberg he was "a poetic influence over the entire planet"; and Bob Dylan said that Mexico City Blues was crucial to his own artistic development.