largely male enclave she looks back by looking forward".
--Michael Davidson, author of
The San Francisco Renaissance: Poetics and Community at Mid-century and
Guys Like Us: Citing Masculinity in Cold War Poetics"Anyone seeking a cogent introduction to the significance of women Beat writers should turn to
Beat Myths in Literature: Revisionist Strategies in Beat Women. It proves a useful starting point and an expansion of extant scholarship through exploration of writers including Diane di Prima, Joanne Kyger, Joyce Johnson, Hettie Jones, and Anne Waldman. With cat-like nimbleness, Encarnacioìn-Pinedo elucidates their production of established Beat aesthetics while deftly arguing for the experimental techniques-via poetry, memoir, film, and archival work-by which the women looked backward into myth to create plausible visions of their then-contemporary realities alongside a more equitable future".
--Nancy M. Grace, author of
Jack Kerouac and the Literary Imagination and co-editor of
Girls who Wore Black: Women Writing the Beat Generation"In this masterful work, Estíbaliz Encarnación-Pinedo provides a compelling account of how Beat women writers skillfully deployed myths, both ancient and contemporary, to refashion their lives and poetics, offering nothing less than a re-evaluation of the myth of the Beat Generation itself in the process. Linking insightful close readings with a range of critical approaches, Encarnación-Pinedo has produced an eminently readable account of a body of texts that deserve more attention. An indispensable book not only for those interested in Beat writing, but for anyone concerned with how mythology continues to create meaning in the present".
--Erik Mortenson, author of
Capturing the Beat Moment: Cultural Politics and the Poetics of Presence and
Translating the Counterculture: The Reception of the Beats in Turkey"
Beat Myths in Literature: Revisionist Strategies in Beat Women is a fascinating survey of the ways authors including Joanne Kyger, Diane di Prima and Anne Waldman employ mythic narratives to illuminate their own lives as artists and at the same time reimagine a male-centered literary history from the silenced woman's point of view. Filled with insights concerning the intersections of ancient and modern myths and literature, this book marks an important advance in the field of Beat Studies and will remain an important source for both scholars in the field and the general reader."
--David Stephen Calonne, author of
Diane di Prima: Visionary Poetics and the Hidden Religions, and
The Beats in Mexico
