Jean-Louis LeBris de Kerouáck was born on March 12th, 1922 in the New England mill town of Lowell, Massachusetts. His older brother, Gerard died at the age of nine of rheumatic fever. Gerard's death haunted Ti Jean for the rest of his life. In 1941, Jack received a scholarship to play football at Columbia University in NYC. Before attending Columbia, he would attend Horace Mann School for a short time to be properly prepared for college. While at Columbia, Jack's family moved to Ozone Park in Queens, New York. Upon losing his football scholarship because of a knee injury, Kerouac left school to become a Merchant Marine. He sailed on a ship into the waters around Greenland; Having spent enough time at sea, he was discharged with 'schizoid personality.' He moved back to the Big Apple, and started working on the novel "The Town and the City" which was eventually published, but received little praise. Distraught over this, he traveled cross-country with friend Neal Cassady. While 'on the road' with Neal, he wrote "On the Road" in three weeks on teletype paper so he could flow in his 'spontaneous prose' form of writing. Kerouac went on to write many novels and poetry collections. He died of an abdominal hemmorhage caused by years of alcohol consumption. The date was October 21st, 1969. The age ... 47.
Carolyn Cassady Gregory Corso Gary Snyder Kenneth Rexroth Lucien Carr Michael McClure
John Clellon Holmes Philip Lamantia Bob Kaufman Jan Kerouac LeRoi Jones Bob Dylan
Charles Bukowski Anne Waldman Joanne Kyger Herbert Huncke
Peter Orlovsky Philip Whalen
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