Via Mockingbird from an interview with Marilêëne Phipps-Kettlewell

“Kerouac's poems still speak to us because he did undress for us, in order to reach this element of Soul that we all share, this universal experience of being alive, the human abandonment_ã”the rage, the fear, the pain; the desire to partake of more of the goodness we encounter all too rarely, and which we could distribute much more selflessly, if it weren't for the rage, the fear, the pain _ã_ we recognize it all in Kerouac's poems, we empathize with him while being moved.”