The Ancient Rain, Poems 1956-1978 - Softcover

Kaufman, Bob

Softcover

ISBN 10: 081120801X ISBN 13: 9780811208017

Publisher: New Directions, 1981

Synopsis

"Mr. Kaufman has a genuine lyric talent, and his poetry is sensuous, exciting, and charged with vitality." ―Publishers Weekly

The Ancient Rain: Poems 1956-1978 is San Francisco poet Bob Kaufman’s third collection and his first to be published since the late 1960s. One of the original Beat poets (the coinage "beatnik" is his), Kaufman’s work has always been essentially improvisational, often done to jazz accompaniment. And he became something of a legendary figure at the poetry readings in the early days of the San Francisco renaissance of the 1950s. With his extemporaneous technique, akin in many ways to Surrealist automatic writing, he has produced a body of work ranging from a visionary lyricism infused with satirical, almost Dadaistic elements to a prophetic poetry of political and social protest. Born in New Orleans of mixed Black and Jewish parentage, Kaufman was one of fourteen children. During twenty years in the Merchant Marine, he cultivated an intense taste for literature on his long sea voyages. Settling in California, in the ’50s, he became active in the burgeoning West Coast literary scene. Disappointment, drugs, and imprisonment led him to take a ten-year vow of complete silence that lasted until 1973. The present volume includes previously uncollected poems written prior to his pledge and newer work composed in the years 1973-1978, before the poet once again lapsed into silence.

About this title

About the Author:

Bob Kaufman, one of fourteen children born in Louisiana to a German Jewish father and a black Catholic mother, ran away to sea when he was thirteen, circling the globe nine times in the next twenty years. In the 1950s, when working as a waiter at the Los Angeles Hilton, he met another erstwhile member of the Merchant Marine, Jack Kerouac, and soon thereafter both moved north to found, along withe Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, and others, the San Francisco literary "renaissance" of the time.

About this edition

• Publisher: New Directions
• Publication date: 1981
• ISBN 10: 081120801X
• ISBN 13: 9780811208017
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 96
• Editor: Foye Raymond