Jack Kerouac was a leader of the Beat Generation,  a group of young artists rebelling against their society.  Through his writing he shows his unconventional style, and desire to break free of the monotony and materialism of everyday life.  He altered spelling and tried to revive jazz through the sounds of his words rather than the content.  An example of this is in his poem McDougal Street Blues: Canto Uno:

The Chess men are silent, assembled
 Ready for funny war­
  Voices of Washingston Square Blues
  Rise to my Bodhisattva Poem
   Window
  I will describe them:-
   Ey  t  k  ey  ee
   Sa  la  o  s  o
   F  r  u  p  t u  r  t
Etc.
No need, no words to
  describe
The sound of ignorance­
They are strolling to
  their death
Watching the Pictures of Hell
Eating Ice Cream
  of Ignorance
On wood sticks
That were once sincere
 in trees­
But I cant write, poetry,
 just prose
   * * *

         The goal of his poetry is to make the reader recognize their own ignorance and to face the real problems of the world.  Because the was a definite concern, yet it was not accepted by the majority, he was considered both mainstream and a rebel.  Kerouac was famous when he wrote, although because of what he stood for, not his literary works.
 

Literature

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