type of person like “the cool, fake-intellectual hipster searching for kicks,
name dropping bits of Zen and jazz jargon to justify a disaffi liation from
society which is in fact just ordinary, callous exploitation of other people”
(101). While many writers of this period were zennists, Zen necessitated
neither their separation from society nor their abandonment of convention.
Their rebellion was a genuine reaction to the stifl ing conformity of the
American 1950ʼs. Zen was a way in which they could turn inward and
spiritually deal with their beliefs and their distaste for American politics,
society, etc. “Beat Zen,” on the other hand, uses Zen to justify rebellion.
Watts also points out the problem of drug use among those who have
adhered to Zen as something that is trendy and fashionable. He says, “In these
circles the smoking of marijuana is … defi ance of square authority. … [I]t is
a matter of symbolic principle, as distinct from the enforcement of rational
law” (102). Once again, Zen becomes an excuse for the counterculture to
challenge authority, to demonstrate their separation from the rest of society.
When practiced in this manner, Zen is reduced from a mode of serious
spirituality to a selfi sh justifi cation for acting against the established moral,
social, political, and even religious conventions of the time. From “Beat
Zen” to the Punk/Rock movement to Hollywood, Americans have used
Buddhism to proclaim and emphasize their individuality. This is not to say
that Americans do not have a genuine interest in Zen, but their perception
of it may be obfuscated or slightly confused.
Poetry Tomorrow
Eastern tradition has had a profound influence in many areas of
American culture and has served as a spiritual and artistic outlet for zennists
and writers across the country. The philosophy of Zen theoretically and
aesthetically fi ts with contemporary poetics and its current tendency towards
hybridity and experimentalism. Zen poetry, a hybrid overlap of language and
spirituality, has proven to be a particularly rich and inspiring subgenre of
contemporary American poetry and will probably lead to new and exciting
creative outputs in the future. While the divided and democratized nature
of present day poetry may be troublesome to describe and categorize, the
beauty of the situation lies in the colorful variety of how poets today are
using language in creative ways which challenge tradition and expand
the possibilities for artistic production. The critics complain that poetry is
inaccessible, but Americaʼs poets are busy reinventing it through hybrid
innovation and making it available to the people. Poetry today is rich,
and poetry tomorrow will continue to be so as long as humanity is still in
search of the genuine heart of nature, the intangible, ever-elusive truth. For
American Buddhist poets and their readers, the journey is irreproducible.
The twists are unexpected. Each moment is an opportunity.
63
Other Works Consulted
Johnston, Alan. “Consumption, Addiction, Vision, Energy: Political
Economies and Utopian Visions in the Writing of the Beat
Generation.” College Literature. 2005. 103-126.
Kerouac, Jack. The Dharma Bums. New York: Penguin, 1986.
Kerouac, Jack. Pomes All Sizes. San Francisco: City Lights, 1992.
Kerouac, Jack. Some of the Dharma. New York: Penguin, 1999.
Levine, Noah. Dharma Punx. San Francisco: Harper Collins, 2003.
McIrvin, Michael. “Why Contemporary Poetry Is Not Taught in the
Academy.” Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literature.
2006. 89-99.
Ritchey, Tom. “Analysis and Synthesis: On Scientifi c Method- Based on
a Study by Bernard Rhiemann.” Systems Research. 8.4. (1991):
21-41.
Smith, Huston, and Philip Novak. Buddhism: A Concise Introduction. New
York: HarperCollins, 2004.
Warner, Brad. Hardcore Zen. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2003.
Watts, Alan. Tao the Watercourse Way. New York: Pantheon, 1975.
Zen Poetry. Trans. and ed. by Lucien Stryk and Takashi Ikemoto. New
York: Grove, 1995.
Zen Buddhism