Customer Reviews (2)

Bob Kaufman is the real deal still on is line of flight
from San Francisco beat scene into utter poetic beatitude and broken forms of beauty and mongrel utterance.If there is anybody up ahead of Jack Spicer and Allen Ginsberg in the bay area poetics of experimentation and abomunation, it is Bob Kaufman. He comes out of Great Time of literature ahead of us, postmodern and material-real all at once.No wonder Spicer had to (symbolically) kill him off in Tower of Babel, he felt dimininished and threatened by his love and his poetics (but of course Spicer mocked himself as the minor academic poet John Ralston, safe and non-Blakean).Kaufman lives on in the "ancient rains" and imperial formations of queer and language-writing San Francisco, a long long time ahead.

Excellent book
Bob Kaufman is a great poet.He is one of the beat poets, speaking in coffee houses and on the streets of San Francisco.He strived to be anonymous.Read this book.Once you have done that, read his words out loud, and with passion.Its great. ... Read more

Book Description
incl the entire long out-of-print GOLDEN SARDINE ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Poet's Poet
Whenever I start to believe, I am a poet, I read this to remind me I am not.

Great compilaton of Kaufman
This compilation contains some poems from his book, "Solitudes Crowded with Loneliness," which I also bought, but there are also enough other poems in here from his ouvre to please most of his fans.Kaufman is not as well-known a name as Kerouac or Ginsberg, but he should be....in part because he influenced them both, but mainly because he was a GREAT poet.Like, dig, man!!

Effortless Grace
Of all the Beat poets, Bob Kauffman was the most naturally gifted.One gets the feeling that Kauffman dashed most of these poems off by cafe or bar light, and that's a big part of their power and their charm.These poems are not "finished" in the same sense as the standard, tenured faculty M.F.A. drivel that's defined as POETRY these ticky-tacky days.Rather, they are invitations: doorways into another time, place, and state of mind, and they're as pumped full of virtu (effortless grace) as a bop solo on the far side of midnight.

The True Beatnik
jazz, surrealism, and absurdism, all clash together in this splendid volume of work. kaufman was a contemporary of jack kerouac,allen ginsberg, leroi jones, and other beat luminaries of the 50's and 60's. he is creditedwith coining the term, "beat" and was the unofficial poetlaureate of san francisco's north beach area.reclusive and mysterious, hespent many of his readings, reciting his poems from memory; very fewvolumes of his poems were in print;there were only three known books of hiswork: " The Ancient Rain," " Solitudes Crowded withLoneliness" and " Golden Sardine." his poetic influences aremany, such as rimbaud and hart crane, but jazz is always at the heart ofhis work...to capture the essence of this brilliant poet, check out suchpiecesas " would you wear my eyes?" " i, too, know what iam not," and " walking parker home" ... Read more

Book Description
Biography of Beat poet Bob Kaufman.

Includes photographs and full bibliography of Bob Kaufman's work. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Poetry Bringing Poetry to Life
Very impressed with the prose of the text, reads very much like poetry, is poetry in fact.Grammar is used with poetic license and various images intersperse throughout.This book is not a standard biography, it does not go through the various facts of Bob Kaufman's life, there is not even that much information picked up about Bob Kaufman from reading it.But you get a sense of what his life was like.You enter Mel Clay's life searching for Bob through nonlinear rotating sections of conversation, tributes and imagery.It's really a beautiful read, and I wish that more poets wrote biographies in as fresh of a manner.If you're into prose poetry and like Kaufman's work who I think is one of the most underrated and greatest poets of all time, this is it.If you prefer more standard biographies, the only I have read is an excellent short one in Neeli Cherkovski's Whitman's Wild Children.Excellent Bibliography including all Kaufman appearances at the end, and nice photographs to accompany.

Support local bookstores if you can.

Absolutely blown away...
I met Mel Clay perusing through the infamous Citylights Bookstore on Columbus Ave in San Francisco just last week. He started talking with me and we began discussing William S. Burrough's intense novel "Naked Lunch" and how it changed our lives. He also gave me a signed copy of this book, "Jazz -- Jail and God." I went home and read it, mostly because I was so excited that I had just met a famous author! I didn't know what to expect. But this book literally blew me away. It stirs up something inside you. You envision everything going on so perfectly. I can't describe it any better than that. But everyone who is interested in beat literature, the spoken word, or especially Bob Kaufman should definitely read this book. ... Read more

Book Description
long poem for late great Black Beat SF poet ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

sensational minimalist farewell from a true literary soulmat
This deeply heartfelt work, a succinct and thankfully neo unself-righteous lamentation by Neeli Cherkovski to and for his for late north beach, san francisco, comrade-in-poesy bob "Abommunist Manifesto"kaufman.This is Cherkovski's finest creative effort, at least among thoseof Cherk's works this reviewer has studied.Cherkovski, biographer ofgiants Ferlinghetti, Winans, and Bukowski, this time sets aside thejournalistic and laborious near drudgeries of biographer toil, insteadtranscending the literary common-place to break bread with the gods,specifically those gods who specialize in living poetry's highest calling. I mean this time out Cherkovski is Inspired!Nothing obtuse about this newwork; nothing hacklike; nothing testy nor negative nor put down-y.Kaufmanwas really a close friend and is so sorely missed by Cherkovski a readerwill have a tough time keeping eyes dry.One must wonder about the amountof affection he felt for his former roommate, charles bukowski, incomparison to the genuine love, admiration, deep abiding respect bothcreatively and as a simple pal for a pal, and now sorrow for his departedwalk-mate an laugh partner, for so many fun filled moments of joy, laughs,hilarious revelries and ribald north beach shared experiences...Buy thisgreat book for your library, for those shelves you maintain the very bestof cogent spiritual works packed with holy sacred precious elegaicrenderings of our master surviving poet/scribes - if this one doesn't grabat least a Nobel nomination for poetry - I'll astro- project to stockholmmyself to beat on their ignorant and yes illiterate doors!Cherkovskihas dominated Bay area literary activity for twenty years, mentoring hisnear peers gregory corso, michael McClure, and especially star studentharold "hotel nirvana" norse, to new heights of literary success- without Cherkovski's calm and enlightened hand, such writers would havestruggled so much more to bring lucid cohesion to their new stanzas.Thiselegy will last if we last; a work to bring walls of bigotry down as longas hate sticks around - FOR AS LONG AS THERE REMAINS ONE GOOD EAR ON EARTHTHIS ELEGY WILL BE HEARD AND LIVE FOREVER. Amen ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Bobby Kaufman was the black Rimbaud
I met him once in caffe Trieste in the late 70's. Bought him a cup of coffee and he read me a poem. I didn't really know him then but later I discovered him and his poetry has sustained me ever since. Forget Ginsberg, Corso and even Kerouac. Bob was the real deal and still is. His lines were from the depth of his guts -- tough, honest and beautiful. Read him and when you're broken down enough you'll understand what I mean.

What a great riffer!
To those young poets who take part in poetry slams...check out Kaufman.All of his poetry was improvised into being, he never wrote anything down.His wife kept up a steady stream of shorthand, then transcribed it...if not for her, we'd never know how great Kaufman really was.His poetry is lyrical, funny, touching and surreal all at the same time.You have to read it to believe it!

ghost of verse
Bob Kaufman was one of two things, highly overlooked, and cursed with genius.He was of the San Francisco Renaissance, Gary Snyder, Michael McClure, et al.A BEAT, for lack of better...hailed by the French as the American Rimbaud.His writing I liken to the paintings of Jean Michel Basquiat, for their paranoid intensity, powerful confrontation, and schizophrenic cognizance.Like Basquiat, Kaufman's life was lived fast and blazing, like a nova, or shooting star, beautiful to watch and quick to collapse.He was the best of the so-called BEAT writers, his poetry is true jazz and of the streets.Le pauvre garcon, mon couer mon dieux, encre en feu. ... Read more

Product Description
Humanessence Publishing Co. (San Francisco), blue stapled pictorial wraps, stated: Publication date: February 1974, [ first edition ], unpaginated, POETRY ... Read more

Book Description
This digital document, covering the life and work of Bob (Garnell) Kaufman, is an entry from Contemporary Authors, a reference volume published by Thompson Gale. The length of the entry is 1922 words. The page length listed above is based on a typical 300-word page. Although the exact content of each entry from this volume can vary, typical entries include the following information:

• Place and date of birth and death (if deceased)
• Family members
• Education
• Professional associations and honors
• Employment
• Writings, including books and periodicals
• A description of the author's work
• References to further readings about the author

Book Description
This digital document is an article from San Diego Business Journal, published by CBJ, L.P. on October 29, 1990. The length of the article is 1980 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: This 'hired voice' reaches us via the 'subplot of sound'. (Bob Landers) (Special Report: Advertising)
Author: Laura Kaufman
Publication: San Diego Business Journal (Magazine/Journal)
Date: October 29, 1990
Publisher: CBJ, L.P.
Volume: v11Issue: n44Page: p17(3)

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

Book Description
This digital document is an article from Rider, published by Ehlert Publishing Group on February 1, 2006. The length of the article is 700 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Slogging through Siberia.(Letters to the Editor)(Letter to the Editor)
Author: Frank Koszyk
Publication: Rider (Magazine/Journal)
Date: February 1, 2006
Publisher: Ehlert Publishing Group
Volume: 33Issue: 2Page: 10(2)

Article Type: Letter to the Editor

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more