payment page
"The School" by Donald Barthelme
Donald Barthelme first published “The School” in The New Yorker magazine in 1974. In this very short story, an elementary-school teacher looks back on a surreal string of unfortunate deaths that plague his classroom. From trees to fish to puppies to classmates and family members, the teacher and his students try and fail to ascribe cause and meaning to their losses. Like “Emergency,” the story uses a stream-of-consciousness style and dark humor to explore life’s absurdities and death’s inevitability.
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman first published his Leaves of Grass poetry collection in 1885. Through free verse, Whitman explores the relationship between self and the world. Denis Johnson admired Whitman’s generosity of spirit and eagerness to love. He believed that Whitman’s introduction to Leaves of Grass summed up many of his own beliefs, especially the passage that includes “. . . have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young. . . .”
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
First published in 1957, Jack Kerouac’s novel On the Road follows a young man named Saul and his friend Dean as they hitchhike and catch buses, crisscrossing the U.S. and Mexico. The story explores themes of freedom, complicated friendships, and self-discovery. The novel is populated with people who live on society’s fringes, much like the main characters of “Emergency.” Like Denis Johnson, Kerouac drew heavily from his own experiences as a young man and the people he encountered. The novel’s frank depiction of drug use and “free love” shocked many readers in the late 1950s.
"Howl" by Allen Ginsberg
Allen Ginsberg published his controversial poem “Howl” in 1956, shortly after being released from an eight-month incarceration in a psychiatric ward. Denis Johnson would also spend time in psychiatric wards due to his drug and alcohol addictions. The poem’s opening lines could also be applied to the fallen souls of Johnson’s life and writing: “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix.” Ginsberg decries America’s increasing cultural conformity while celebrating the counterculture. Offended conservatives sought to ban the poem because of its explicit language and descriptions of drug use and homosexuality.
