ABSTRACT
Canada's relation with the Beat movement is multi-faceted. A desire to challenge national and linguistic boundaries and a wish to escape conformity and explore identity through stylistic innovations in different media mark the Beats' complex legacy in Canada. Many Canadian writers were inspired by Kerouac's life and writing. In Jacques Poulin's Volkswagen Blues, the main characters, Jack Waterman and his traveling companion, a Metis woman nicknamed la Grande Sauterelle (the Big Grasshopper), drive from Gaspesie to California in a Volkswagen bus. Beat culture in Toronto's Yorkville neighborhood brought about innovations in art, film, music, and literature. Allen Ginsberg's visits to Canada had enormous repercussions. In 1963, Ginsberg was among the speakers at the University of British Columbia Vancouver Poetry Conference. In 1969, Allen Ginsberg visited Montreal for a series of performances and readings as part of the poetry series at Sir George Williams University. The Spaceshits were banned from many Montreal venues because of their sometimes-violent juvenile delinquent audience antics.
