The core group consisted of Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Neal Cassady and William S. Burroughs. John Clellon Holmes was an early observer. Gregory Corso came later. On the West Coast, poets similar in outlook to the Beats were Gary Snyder, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Philip Whalen, Lew Welch, Michael McClure.
Writers (most not yet included in the Wikipedia Category Beat writers)
- Alan Ansen. Tangiers, Greece. No Beat writer (?), but close to them for some time
- Mary Beach (1919-2006). Important translator into French. Cut-up writer and collage-maker. Very active from the early 1960s.
- Sinclair Beiles. South African. Writer and editor at Olympia Press, Paris (c.1960). Friend of the publisher of Cold Turkey Press, Rotterdam.
- Hart LeRoi/Leroy Bibbs (* 1930, Kansas City). Diet Book for Junkies. Written, perhaps privately published in 1960. Published by a late number of the Afro-American little magazine Umbra in 1970. Poet, writer on Jazz, photographer.
- Adrian Brooks (author) (deleted)
- Baird Bryant. (1927-2008) Pen name: Willie Baron. Olympia Press, film-maker, memoir: Souvenirs from the Beat Hotel.
- Bill (William Huxford) Butler (1934-1973). Canadian poet, sf-writer, bookseller in England, died in Wales
- Ira Cohen (* 1935). Poet, editor, photographer. Tangiers, Nepal, New York City
- Leonard Cohen (* 1934)
- Jane Falk. Ira Cohen published some of her poetry in Kathmandu
- Dan Georgakas. Greece, Lower East Side (1960s Up Against the wall, Motherfuckers), Detroit. Anarchist. labor, class-war historian, also wrote poetry.
- Hammond Guthrie. Belfast Insert. Göttingen 1973 (cut-up). Memoir
- Brion Gysin (1916-1986)
- James Haynes (IT, SUCK, Handshake Press, Paris)
- Piero Heliczer (1937, Rome- 1993). Poet, films.
- Jan Herman. Editor, publisher, author, blogger
- Robert Lax. Minimalist, religious poet(?) Greece
- Christopher MacLaine. Underground film; lit mag, 4 issues; April 1947-1949. Strong addiction.
- Angus MacLise. Musician. Died in Nepal (drugs?)
- Ray Nelson. S-F
- Claude Pelieu (1934-2003)
- Charles Plymell
- Herschell Silverman. Krishna Poems. 1970
- George Solomos (* 1925, Detroit)
- Kenneth Tindall (* 1937, Los Angeles). Novelist: The Arboretum [1957-60]; Vindharpen, Kopenhagen 1967/Great Heads, Grove, New York 1969. More novels (pdfs) on his website)
- Roberto (Francisco) Valenza
- John Wieners
- Harriet Sohmers Zwerling. In Paris in the 1950s, around James Baldwin. < interesting, but really no Beat writer? > ---WPCat "Beat writers"
Lit.:
- Clay and Philips. The Ark on pp 16, 19
- David B. Griffiths: Beach and Temple: Outsider Poets and Artists of Western America. 1998.