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	Trip Trap Jack Kerouac, Albert Saijo, ... Grey Fox Press, 2001 - 57 pages average customer review:based on 5 reviews view larger image
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This newly-revised edition-originally published in 1973-of the haiku Jack Kerouac, Albert Saijo, and Lew Welch jotted down on the road from San Francisco to New York in 1959, are dense, earthy incarnations of life on the road: "A coral colored Cadillac/ in Texas/ Threw gravel all over us,/ our beat jeep/ -Our windshield is nicked/ but our eyes/ are/ CLEAR..." Albert recounts their November trip in Lew's Jeepster, making the big city scene, visiting Jack's home in Northport on Long Island, and the long drive back west. The book also includes letters to Kerouac from Lew Welch in Reno.

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Three voices, one volume

"Trip Trap: Haiku on the Road" represents a collaborative effort by Jack Kerouac, Albert Saijo, and Lew Welch. There is also an editor's note by Donald Allen. The book is divided into 4 main sections. "A Recollection," by Saijo, is an 11 page memoir of the road trip during which the poems in the book were written. "We Started for New York," also about the trip, is the opening of an unfinished novel by Welch. The main text, "Trip Trap," is a body of poetry attributed to all three as a collaborative effort. And finally, "Dear Jack" is a collection of letters (dated 1959-60) from Welch to Kerouac.

"Trip Trap" is thus, despite its short length (69 + vii pages), a diverse text with a fascinating history behind it. The poems are not haiku in the strictest sense; I would call them "haiku-like." The poems offer some interesting imagery and reflections on the American landscape, as well as a number of literary references. We get many glimpses from the men's journey--radio antennas in Texas, cows in Nebraska, a cross on an Arizona highway, etc. A particularly interesting section involves a Saijo haiku with alternate versions by Welch and Kerouac.

The book overall is infused with the sense of discovery one gets in traveling across the USA. Saijo notes that the poetry in the book "has the fathomless art of random speech overheard through the course of a day." I really enjoyed "Trip Trap."

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WILLYS JEEP HAIKU

TRIP TRAP IS YET ANOTHER ADDITION TO KEROUAC'S LEGEND, A SWEET LITTLE COLLABORATION. THIS BOOK TIES IN BEAUTIFULLY WITH BIG SUR (YOU'LL SEE) AND SHOULD BE PLACED NEXT TO IT ON THE SHELF. LEARN MORE ABOUT HAIKU; READ THIS BOOK.


It pays to be talented and famous

Such "haiku" - "They make good coffee / in Oklahoma" - not particularly haiku, not particularly interesting ... if I wrote the lines, they certainly wouldn't be published ... there are other similarly brilliant entries: "There's Mister I-Cower- / under-My Car" or brilliant stand-alone lines "Whore candy". Trip Trap leaves me unimpressed.

However, the book contains a recollection of the trip by Albert Saijo, the trip as described in an unfinished work of Lew Welch, Trip Trap itself which is a collaborative effort between those two and Jack Kerouac, and finally some letters of Lew Welch to Jack Kerouac. The net result is a book that gives insight into the beat movement and into the minds of Kerouac and Welch. For those with even a slight interest in either topic, this is an interesting and informative book.

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Worth the read for two of the poems.

Two poems contained in this book make it worth the read (neither of which is haiku). The first is called "Masterpiece" and is a look at the trascendental (in a way), that is so light-hearted and whimsical that it actually brings itself full circle and is to a degree enlightening and fulfilling. Second is the longer and equally as amusing "Dirty (...)" poem - which attempts to show the commonality (and the problems) of human existence through none other than the one thing, as the authors see it, we all share; (...) in need of better upkeep.

The rest of the book is disjointed, haiku-like "poetry" and stories from the travels of the authors. There are some real duds (for example, and these are reproduced in their entirity, "(...) candy" and "(...) Deadwood // rides // a shortlegged // Mongolian pony"), but there are also some amusing bits, such as "Albert in the old // outhouse: "Years // And years of *hit // in there."

On the whole, I'd only get this book if you've had experience with one or more of the authors, or if you're one of those people who likes to give the impression that you've had experience with one or more of these authors.

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