On this date -- November 19 -- poet Joanne Kyger was born in 1934. She was an acclaimed poet in her own right who was associated with the Beat movement but never considered herself part of any particular poetry movement, having borrowed from many. She moved to San Francisco in 1957 and became part of the literary scene anchored by Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Michael McClure et al. To my knowledge, Kyger did not appear in any of Kerouac's works. She married Gary Snyder (Japhy Ryder in The Dharma Bums) in Kyoto, Japan on February 23, 1960.
Kerouac mentioned Kyger in several published letters (Jack Kerouac Selected Letters 1957-1969). In a December 6, 1959 letter to Gary Snyder, Kerouac wrote:
We missed [Philip] Whalen by a day. At that thumping mad 1713 Buchanan house where Joanne K. clobbered Jay Blaise with a half-gallon jug of port which decided us not to wait for Thanksgiving turkey there but take off. However I must say in very honesty with absolutely no bullshit that Joanne is the most sensitive woman I've met since Joan Adams (Bill Burroughs' dead wife). But Joanne needs a good man to put her in her place, in the sack. (Ibid, p. 259)I'm only reporting what Kerouac wrote, not endorsing misogyny.
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