Gregory Corso Doubting Thomist Kirby Olson October 2002 cloth, 0-8093-2447-4, $40.00s 240 pages, 6 x 9 Beat Studies / Poetry / Literature   “Use of me what you will . . . [and] good luck.” —Gregory Corso to Kirby Olson (March 14, 2000)   “Kirby Olson's study of Gregory Corso will assuredly generate renewed interest in one of modern America's neglected poets. He discovers the depths and intricacies of Corso's work by examining the religious and philosophical underpinnings of his poetry.” —Michael Skau, author of "A Clown in a Grave": Complexities and Tensions in the Works of Gregory Corso      Gregory Corso is the most intensely spiritual of the Beat generation poets and still by far the least explored. The virtue of Kirby Olson’s Gregory Corso: Doubting Thomist is that it is the first book to place all of Corso’s work in a philosophical perspective, concentrating on Corso as a poet torn between a static Catholic Thomist viewpoint and that of a progressive surrealist.   While Corso is a subject of great controversy—his work often being seen as nihilistic and wildly comic—Olson argues that Corso’s poetry, in fact, maintains an insistent theme of doubt and faith with regard to his early Catholicism. Although many critics have attempted to read his poetry, and some have done so brilliantly, Olson—in his approach and focus—is the first to attempt to give a holistic understanding of the oeuvre as essentially one not of entertainment or hilarity but of a deep spiritual and philosophical quest by an important and profound mind.   In nine chapters, Olson addresses Corso from a broad philosophical perspective and shows how Corso takes on particular philosophical issues and contributes to new understandings. Corso’s concerns, like his influence, extend beyond the Beat generation as he speaks about concerns that have troubled thinkers from the beginning of the Western tradition, and his answers offer provocative new openings for thought.    Corso may very well be the most important Catholic poet in the American literary canon, a visionary like Burroughs and Ginsberg, whose work illuminated a generation. Written in a lively and engaging style, Gregory Corso: Doubting Thomist seeks to keep Corso’s memory alive and at last delve fully into Corso’s poetry.    Kirby Olson is the author of Comedy after Postmodernism: Rereading Comedy from Edward Lear to Charles Willeford and the translator of Remembering Anna O by Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen. He has taught at the University of Washington and the University of Tampere in Finland and is currently assistant professor of English at the State University of New York at Delhi.    Also available in Beat Studies from SIU Press . . . “A Clown in a Grave” Complexities and Tensions in the Works of Gregory Corso Michael Skau A Choice Outstanding Academic Title, 2001 cl, 0-8093-2252-8, $40.00s 248 pages, 6 x 9   Kerouac, the Word and the Way Prose Artist as Spiritual Quester Ben Giamo pb, 0-8093-2431-8, $20.00s 256 pages, 6 x 9   Jack Kerouac's Duluoz Legend The Mythic Form of an Autobiographical Fiction James T. Jones cl, 0-8093-2263-3, $40.00s 291 pages, 6 x 9   A Map of Mexico City Blues Jack Kerouac as Poet James T. Jones cl, 0-8093-1828-8, $30.00s 215 pages, 6 x 9   The View from On the Road The Rhetorical Vision of Jack Kerouac Omar Swartz pb, 0-8093-2384-2, $20.00s 144 pages, 6 x 9   William S. Burroughs at the Front Critical Reception, 1959-1989 Edited by Jeanie Skerl and Robin Lydenberg pb, 0-8093-1586-6, $19.00s 281 pages, 6 x 9   Mad To Be Saved   The Beats, the 50s, and Film David Sterritt cl, 0-8093-2180-7, $32.00s 320 pages, 6 x 9   The Daybreak Boys Essays on the Literature of the Beat Generation Gregory Stephenson cl, 0-8093-1564-5, $29.00s 230 pages, 6 x 9