ABSTRACT
On October 4 Vinkenoog and another Dutch writer, Adriaan Morrien, were present when Ginsberg, in the company of Corso and Orlovsky, composed his poem "POEM Rocket", inspired by the launching of the first Russian Sputnik; in certain parts of that poem Ginsberg was helped out not only by his two American friends, but also by Vinkenoog and Morrien. The Subterraneans clearly affected the prose which Simon Vinkenoog began to write after he had come in contact with the Beat generation. Because Simon Vinkenoog was primarily a poet, it is not surprising that at the end of the 1950s his poetry also began to be affected by the Beats. While Flanders is usually referred to as the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium, it cannot be denied that the Dutch that is spoken, and written, there is different from that which is used in the Netherlands.
