So, who is tending the Kerouac flame in Lowell?

A quick introduction: I am a near 30-year member of the Lowell Celebrates Kerouac Committee and have twice served as the organization’s president.

Our current President is Judith Bessette. LCK was originally formed in 1986 to create the Kerouac Commemorative at Bridge and French streets. It has continued on, producing an annual Jack Kerouac Festival in October, a Kerouac birthday observance in March, and other various Kerouac related events.

Since the time of LCK’s founding, Kerouac has become an internationally recognized literary and cultural figure. As the year 2000 approached, Modern Library ranked his signature novel, “On the Road,” 55 in the top 100 American novels published in the 20th century. Time Magazine rated it as one of the 100 best English language novels published between 1923 and 2005. Kerouac’s literary legacy has become an integral part of the curricula for American literature courses taught at American colleges and universities around the country.

Reflecting on all this, I view my involvement with Lowell Celebrates Kerouac with a mixture of pride and frustration.

I am proud to join with my fellow LCK committee members in keeping the Kerouac flame alive in his hometown. I am pleased at the ways we honor and celebrate his Lowell roots, as shown in the five Lowell-based novels he wrote that portray the city in the 1920s and 30s. I am pleased to host the Kerouac tour requests we get year-round, by way of our website, from persons who want to see his birthplace, What about a world-renowned gravesite, as well as many other writer who devoted five of his places in Lowell that Jack denumerous novels to his Lowell scribes. I especially remember origins, and honored its Franmeeting a busload of students co-American culture? from Aberdeen, Scotland, a few But, in the end, it’s really not summers ago who wanted a about my pride or my frustraKerouac tour included in their tion. It is about the city of LowAmerican East Coast visit. ell, along with its many histori

I’m grateful for the friendcal, cultural, educational, and ships my LCK involvement has artistic communities and orgagiven me with persons all nizations, coming to a fuller around the country and world awareness of just what they — who have been touched by the what we — have here with rewritings of Kerouac. It is a joy spect to the ever-growing legato witness, every October, those cy of Kerouac. We at LCK have, who make the trip to Lowell to in recent years, received some nurture and replenish their modest support for our efforts Kerouac Spirit. from the city for which we are

Here is where my pride mixgrateful. Let’s treat this as a es with frustration: The lion’s start towards an even greater share of keeping the Kerouac . civic engagement when it flame and spirit alive in Lowell comes to celebrating Kerouac. falls to an all-volunteer group A little over a year from now with no paid staff, and no physthe Jack Kerouac Centennial ical base of operation, and who will get underway. Jack was do all we do on a nickel-andborn on March 12, 1922 in Cendime budget that we manage to tralville. I am pleased to be the cobble together from one year convener of a broad-based coto the next to keep LCK going. alition in Lowell that is coming Such has been the case now for together to make plans for a sethe past 30 years even as Kerries of Kerouac Centennial ouac has become a global figevents to take place during ure. Yes, the University of Mas2022. This coalition consists of sachusetts at Lowell has the representatives of the kinds of Jack and Stella Kerouac Center groups and organizations cited for the Public Humanities. I above. In addition to giving commend the very good work Jack Kerouac the recognition my friends, Professors Michael he deserves in his hometown in Millner and Todd Tietchen, do the 100th year of his birth, my in giving Kerouac his much-dehope is that those of us who are served standing in academia. coming together now can show But what about Kerouac’s the way forward — in the years standing in the city of his birth beyond 2022 — for keeping the that first shaped his literary Kerouac flame in Lowell burnconsciousness? ing even brighter.

I appreciate the fine contributions the Whistler House and its staff make to Lowell’s artistic and cultural life.

I’m also aware that these contributions are done in the name of world-renowned artist who quite vehemently renounced his ties to Lowell.