When I Was Cool: My Life at the Jack Kerouac School

Kashner was the first, and for a while, the only, student at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at the Naropa Institute. The Institute was one of those spiritual experiments of the 1970s with gurus running amuck and people pretending that this is the way things should be. Kashner both runs slightly amuck and sees through some of the posturing while he's there. This memoir is, above all, fond, which makes it a delight to read.

an odd story that would be of interest to those readers who have an affinity for the writers of the Beat movement. Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Ann Waldman and Gregory Corso have starring roles. The author, Sam Kashner, graduating from high school is focused on becoming a poet and convinces his parents to support his enrollment in the newly formed jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics. The story is as strange as the name of the school implies. Well written, a sensitive and, at times, humorous coming of age story.

As funny as it is heartbreaking, Sam Kashner got the college experience I longed for as an undergraduate--and he did it with beatniks! As the best (and for a long time, sole) student at the Jack Kerouac School for Disembodied Poetics, Kashner got to live his dream by hanging out with, going on beer runs for, and being taught by the then-surviving greats--Allen Ginsburg, Gregory Corso, William Burroughs, and a host of other beats at the Naropa Institute. He parents were shockingly good-natured about it, and the graduation ceremony was beautiful! A testament to college life and beat literature! An all-round excellent read! Thanks, Dad! This was one of the greatest Christmas gifts ever!

A humorous, easy-to-read memoir about the author's experieces as the first student at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics in the late 1970s. Recommended to those interested in the beats and specifically, Allen Ginsburg, William S. Burroughs, and Gregory Corso.