April 18 marked the beginning of Beat poet Bob Kaufman’s centennial year, and San Francisco celebrated with three days of poetry, film and talks about the often overlooked but finally fully recognized artist. From about 1958-1986, he wrote poetry and made his home in the North Beach and Mission districts of San Francisco. He was a forceful presence on the scene, even as he had taken a vow of silence against the Vietnam War.
“He’s the quintessential representation of a San Francisco poet,” said San Francisco poet, Josiah Luis Alderete. In France, he was dubbed “The Black Rimbaud.”
For some time, it was hard to come by Kaufman’s slim volumes of poetry, but in 2019, City Lights Books published his first-ever collected works, with a forward by devorah major and edited by Neeli Cherkovski, Raymond Foye, and Tate Swindell. I wrote a long piece about him and his influence on modern day poets for the San Francisco Chronicle with more detail on his background and his surrealist’s eye.
A hundred years since he came into this world and nearly 40 since he left it, Kaufman’s poems against racism, injustice and war are as powerful now as they were then. San Francisco poet Kim Shuck said, “Bob Kaufman was so far and away the best…”
Filed under: anti-capitalist, anti-racist, anti-war, Arts and Culture, Books, Poetry, Beat, Bob Kaufman, Centennial, City Lights, North Beach
Denise Sullivan 