Poet Be Like God

by Ellingham, Lewis; Killian, Kevin

• ISBN13: 9780819553089
• ISBN10: 0819553085
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1998-05-01
• Publisher: Wesleyan Univ Pr

Summary

Jack Spicer, unlike his contemporaries Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and Gary Snyder, was a poet who disdained publishing and relished his role as a social outcast. He died in 1965 virtually unrecognized, yet in the following years his work and thought have attracted and intrigued an international audience. Now this comprehensive biography gives a pivotal poet his due. Based on interviews with scores of Spicer's contemporaries, Poet Be Like God details the most intimate aspects of Spicer's life -- his family, his friends, his lovers -- illuminating not only the man but also many of his poems. Such illumination extends also to the works of others whom Spicer came to know, including the writers Frank O'Hara, Robert Duncan, Denise Levertov, Helen Adam, Robin Blaser, Charles Olson, Philip K. Dick, Richard Brautigan, and Marianne Moore and the painters Jess, Fran Herndon, and Jay DeFeo. The resulting narrative, an engaging chronicle of the San Francisco Renaissance and the emergence of the North Beach gay scene during the 50s and 60s, will be indispensable reading for students of American literature and gay studies.

Author Biography

LEWIS ELLINGHAM is a freelance editor and writer and author of The Jefferson Airplane (1972). Writer Kevin Killian's recent books are Little Men (1997), Arctic Summer (1997), and Argento Series (1997). Both live in San Francisco.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	vii	(2)
Prologue "Poet, Be Like God"	ix
Chapter One Prodigy Gone Wrong	1	(33)
Chapter Two After Berkeley	34	(29)
Chapter Three The Poet in New York (and Boston)	63	(15)
Chapter Four "The Whole Boon of His Fertility"	78	(40)
Chapter Five Honey in the Groin	118	(22)
Chapter Six "The Hell of Personal Relations"	140	(40)
Chapter Seven Heads of the Town	180	(40)
Chapter Eight The Holy Grail	220	(26)
Chapter Nine The Long Silence	246	(32)
Chapter Ten Crisis	278	(39)
Chapter Eleven "The Chill in My Bones"	317	(27)
Chapter Twelve Last Summer	344	(22)
Chapter Thirteen Epilogue: Les Chimères	366	(11)
Notes	377	(42)
Index	419