Despite the fame the prolific impressionistic, confessional poet, novelist, literary iconoclast, and pioneer of the Beat Generation, Jack Kerouac, has acquired since the late 1950’s, his written letters are not recognized as works of literature.  The aim of this thesis is to examine the different ways in which Kerouac develops and employs the poetics he is most known for in the letters he wrote to friends and publishers before becoming a well-known literary figure.  In my analysis of Kerouac’s poetics, I analyze 20 letters from Selected Letters, 1940-1956.  These letters were written before the publication of his best-known literary work, On The Road. The thesis attempts to highlight the characteristics of Kerouac’s literary control in his letters and to demonstrate how the examination of these poetics: repetition, language, and narration merits the letters’ treatment as works of artistic literature.

Likewise, through the scrutiny of my first novella, “Trails” it then illustrates how the in-depth analysis of Kerouac’s letters improved my personal poetics, which resemble the poetics featured in the letters.