Christopher Felver’s *Beat* is a photographic account of the Beat poetry era, published by the San Francisco imprint Last Gasp in 2007. Its subtitle identifies that historical and literary field directly, while the 200-page hardcover format gives Felver room to treat it at book length. Photography, rather than a conventional anthology or chronological literary history, is established as the volume’s principal means of approaching the period.

Felver is the book’s sole credited photographic author, giving the project a consistent point of view. Its classification under both photography and photojournalism suggests a documentary foundation: the camera records individuals and connections within the milieu instead of merely illustrating a received list of canonical names. Among the documented subjects is poet, publisher, and filmmaker Ira Cohen, who appears in multiple photographs, including an image with Judith Malina. Such inclusions indicate attention to the relationships surrounding Beat poetry as well as to individual figures.

The book’s significance lies in the different kind of historical evidence a photographic record can preserve. Beat writing is commonly encountered through poems, manifestos, readings, and memoirs; Felver’s photographs offer another register, grounded in visible presence and association. The result belongs simultaneously to literary history and to the documentary tradition, allowing the era to be considered through the people who inhabited and extended its cultural network.

For collectors of photobooks concerned with poetry, writers, and postwar cultural history, *Beat* occupies a clearly defined position. Its focused subject, sustained photographic authorship, substantial page count, and publication by a San Francisco press make it more than a supplementary illustrated volume. It is a coherent visual source through which the Beat poetry era can be studied alongside its written record.