Julia Vinograd: Our Lady of Telegraph Avenue poem published

• POEM ON THE PASSING OF JULIA VINOGRAD, STREET POET was published in the anthology, Our Lady of Telegraph Avenue, Zeitgeist Press.

POEM ON THE PASSING OF JULIA VINOGRAD, STREET POET

POEM ON THE PASSING OF JULIA VINOGRAD

POET OF THE STREETS

Ah, Julia, named after a city of vines,

your knitted cap, a badge of the troubadour,

artist, wordsmith, I never knew you well,

but the street corners of Telegraph rose up

to greet you like feral cats weaving

invisible shackles with their thin bodies,

saying the poet is come. The poet is come.

The Bubblelady is come with her magic wand,

welcome words feeding the pigeons at dawn.

The fog weeps and mourns in tendrils

for the passing of the daughter of the street,

the poet-chronicler of alleyways and corners.

Yes, the street mourns for you,

it will miss the caresses of your jade eye

as you turned the suffering of those

sleeping in doorways into a cloak

of humanity and hope. Perhaps

someone will place a bronze star

or a bench with a bigger-than-life sculpture

of you hawking your books to unsuspecting tourists

in front of Moe’s Books for you,

Poet Laureate of the streets.

12/5/18

Published in Our Lady of the Avenue, Tribute Poems to Julia Vinorad, Zeitgeist Press

• Julia Vinograd: Our Lady of Telegraph Avenue poem ...

Poet role call, National Poetry Week poster from 1993

Blast from the past: National Poetry Week readings, 1993. Wonder where some of these folks are: Herman Berlandt is still on the Mesa. I visited Herman about 3 years ago and he has alcohol-related dementia, barely remembered me. Scary. Vernon Edgar looks in on him, takes care of him. Blind leading the blind. They seem to be enjoying life.

Last I heard. Julia Vinograd is still on the Avenue. She read at Watershed. Zoravia Bettiol moved back to Brazil; she may or may not still be with us. Robert Hunter, Mel C. Thompson, where are youse? David Fisher disappeared ages ago. I fear the worst. Last letter I sent was marked Return to Sender. What makes me especially sad is that I lost track of David and then couldn't find him again. I did several internet searches. Nada. Only to find he was alive all this time, only to find that he died this year. Sheesh! As Donna Champion said, Sometimes people retreat into their own lives, leaving past lives to the wind.

Bruce Isaacson said: Mel C. Thompson walks the earth! Made recent books by Deborah Fruchey and Nancy Depper, both excellent. All those found on the Facebook, but not Eli Coppola or Sparrow 13 who just doesn't compute. Dominique Lowell I think is walking Detroit,  Laura Conway walks Prague. Always wondered about Judy Grahn whose great A Woman is Talking to Death haunts mind still. Juan Felipe Herrera was walking Las Vegas recently and that was great treat.  Maureen--what a line up!  People don't know story of Herman Berlandt & Nat'l Poetry Week, they should.

I said, Wow. Blast from the past, or what Bruce? Fantastic roll call. I am relieved to know that Robert Hunter & Judy Grahn are still with us. Piri Thomas passed on. Sparrow 13 is on FB with a different name. I've got proof sheets from these readings. I just need a good negative scanner. Sad to hear about Piri Thomas. I really liked Piri.

I just met Pasha DeSaix yesterday at Whitman McGowan's memorial! All this time I thought she was a man. LOL. We're now FB friends. She knew my mom, and said she was just thinking of her a few days ago. I told her that she had given my mom a n audio tape, Leonard Cohen's 10 New Songs, and after my mother died, I played it incessantly. Thanked her for the unintended gift from so many years ago. Then she sent me a photo of my mom taken months before her death. The universe offering such strange gifts.

I had wild frenetic dreams all last night, I think Whitman was very much with us yesterday at the memorial. He was certainly in my head. I gave up on trying to sleep. Middle Aged Dub...

Whitman McGowan's joined Vampyr Mike Kassel, Joie Cook, Piri Thomas and David Fisher for that great open poetry reading in the sky. What a grand open mike list that must be. Wonder who's emcee?

From a Facebook post.

VOICE OF THE DEAD POET AT CITY HALL: FIRST SAN FRANCISCO ARTS COMMISSION FAIRE POETRY DAY IN HONOR OF BOB KAUFMAN

SF Arts Commission festival organizer, Allen Cohen 

VOICE OF THE DEAD POET AT CITY HALL
FIRST SAN FRANCISCO ARTS COMMISSION FAIRE POETRY DAY IN HONOR OF BOB KAUFMAN  (no tear sheet)

The small but steady crowd scattered amid the trees and sculpture gardens attended a day-long poetry event held in honor of the late poet Bob Kaufman in front of San Francisco City Hall, on Sept. 20. The event was designated as the first official Poetry Day at the San Francisco Arts Commission Festival "as an important step forward in recognition of the importance of poetry in our society," stated S.F.A.C. Festival Director Michael Bell, he continued, it's "…a milestone event." According to Poetry Day organizers Allen Cohen and Neeli Cherkovski, this was the first literary event ever sponsored by the Arts Commission in its 40 year history. A milestone event indeed.

Tributes to the acclaimed "American Rimbaud" and avant garde jazz poet Bob Kaufman who died January 12th, 1986 at the age of 60, included music, plays, and poetry. Saxophonist Richie Flores and playwright-biographer Mel Clay, who wrote Would You Wear My Eyes? a biography of Bob Kaufman, joined numerous luminous Bay Area poets including Janice Mirikitani, James Broughton, Jack Hirschman, John Oliver Simon, Kush, Julia Vinograd, Maureen Hurley, Jack Michelene, and Q.R. Hand—to name a few.

Kaufman's former wife of 26 years, Eileen Kaufman; and friend/companion Lynn Wildey both reminisced about Kaufman, and also read selections from his poetry.

Of the 16 poets who read at the Poetry Day Tribute, eight poets were winners from a juried poetry contest (I was one of those poets), and eight were chosen to represent a cross-section of San Francisco Bay Area ethnic communities for this first literary event, Michael Bell stated.

"The original BeBop Man," Kaufman, a legendary figure of San Francisco's "Beat Generation", was supposed to have coined the word "Beatnik." (Columnist Herb Caen made it a household word.) Kaufman was the first jazz-rap poet who brought the oral art of poetry to attention. His social political poetry "Second April," "Ancient Rain," and "The "Abomunist Manifesto" are considered to be among his finest writings.  Many of Kaufman's poems have jazzlike rhythms, riffs and synchopation he learned from the jazz greats—including Charlie "Bird" Parker.

Acclaimed in France as "THE  American Black Poet", Kaufman never received the poetic recognition he deserved in America. In France, his books are as avidly read as Rimbaud's, Kerouac's, Bukowski, or  Ginsberg's  poetry.  Because of the international recognition he has received, Bob was awarded a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship in 1960 to continue his work, but failing physical and mental health had already taken its toll.

Always an outspoken critic,  Kaufman experienced many brutal confrontations with the police which he documented in "Jail Poems" and "Would You wear My Eyes?" Kaufman's explosive and elegant outpourings ignited the San Francisco "Beat" poetry scene.

Kaufman was one of the founders of Beatitude Magazine, now in its 33rd year.  Ferlinghetti, Ginsberg, and Kerouac were deeply influenced by his work. Kaufman published numerous broadsides and his three books, Golden Sardines, Solitudes Crowded With Loneliness, and Ancient Rain are still available through City Lights Books.

In 1963, after the assassination of J.F. Kennedy, Kaufman took a Buddhist vow of silence neither speaking nor writing for ten years until the Vietnam war ended.

...
Let the voices of the dead poets
Ring louder in your- ears
Than the screechings mouthed
In mildewed editorials.
Listen to the music of centuries
Rising above the mushroom time.

—Bob Kaufman
    from "Believe, Believe."

On Sept. 20th, the stage in front of City Hall rang out with the words of "THE American Black Poet." The S.F.A.C. has made a first step forward in recognition of the importance of poetry in our society." Poetry Day should be an annual event. Will the S.F.A.C. continue to support literary events or will poets have to wait another 40 years to be heard?

SIDEBAR/PHOTO: A giant bar of Ivory soap carved into the likeness of the "Venus de Milo" by sculptor Art Grant and a roped-off section of grass sown with thousands of bullets representing our nuclear warheads, were some of the conceptual art pieces on display—suitingly surrealistic—for the event. Kaufman should have been there. It's too bad he had to die first in order to gain recognition as San Francisco's Poet. "Let the voices of the dead poets/ ring louder in your ears."

9/87