Poetry

While he is best known for his novels, Kerouac is also wrote poetry. Kerouac said that he wanted "to
be considered as a jazz poet blowing a long blues in an afternoon jazz session on Sunday.".[113] Many of
Kerouac's poems follow the style of his free-flowing, uninhibited prose, also incorporating elements of
jazz and Buddhism. "Mexico City Blues," a collection of poems published in 1959, is made up of 242
choruses following the rhythms of jazz. In much of his poetry, to achieve a jazz-like rhythm, Kerouac
made use of the long dash in place of a period. Several examples of this can be seen in "Mexico City
Blues":

Everything
Is Ignorant of its own emptiness—
Anger
Doesnt like to be reminded of fits—

— fragment from 113th Chorus[114]

Other poems by Kerouac, such as "Bowery Blues," incorporate jazz rhythms with Buddhist themes of
Saṃsāra, the cycle of life and death, and Samadhi, the concentration of composing the mind.[115] Also,
following the jazz / blues tradition, Kerouac's poetry features repetition and themes of the troubles and
sense of loss experienced in life.