For our Summer 2012 Issue we pay homage to Auerhahn Press. During its existence in San Francisco from 1958-1964, Auerhahn Press created some of the first chapbooks for many now world famous beat poets including Jack Spicer, Diane DiPrima, Philip Lamantia, Michael McClure, Philip Whalen, David Meltzer, William Everson (Brother Antoninus), and Charles Olson.
For this tribute issue we are incredibly thankful to be able to include poetry by Diane di Prima, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Donald Guravich, Dave Haselwood, Andrew Hoyem, Joanne Kyger, Philip Lamantia, Ron Loewinsohn, Michael McClure, David Meltzer, Daniel Abdal – Hayy Moore, Charles Plymell, Roxie Powell, Irving Rosenthal, Jack Spicer, Philip Whalen and John Wieners. We also have the great fortune to be able to include artwork from Bruce Conner, Robert Ronnie Branaman, Wallace Berman and Larry Keenan, Jr. Also included in this issue is an interview conducted by our chief editor, Steve Luttrell with Auerhahn Press founder, Dave Haselwood on May 15 of this year.
Acknowledgments
The Café Review is deeply indebted to the following for their participation in the creation of this issue:
Garrett Caples, Jason Davis, Robert Dewhurst, Ruth Elkins, Raymond Foye, Alastair Johnston, Larry Keenan, Jr., Kevin Killian, Nancy Peters, Chelsea Rhadigan, Brian Unger, Conner Family Trust, San Francisco /Artists Rights Society (ARS) in New York, Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley and the Michael Kohn Gallery.
Poems
Night Streets Crystal
by Ron Loewinsohn The streets at night Run broad and bright deep into the heart where they take me to myself. The streets at night Are filled
Zero: The Fool
by Ron Loewinsohn His sky is the same yellow as his boots, which appear to be thin and ill – suited for the craggy heights where he dances
Blood and Sand
by Jack Spicer It is as if the poem moves Without the poem. I have captured you. Done all my will. Have done with all Emotion. There is
Glenn Todd
by Charles Plymell We’ve seen the trace of tears on dusty Texas cheeks and cliffs of far away Pacific spray eat away timeless
Collateral Damage for Joanna McClure
by Charles Plymell The moon is sometimes bathed in night’s full light and the earth is aroused as when a woman bathes turns in her phases
red Fred’s piano
by John Wieners low down and dirty I sit having found the connection Eddy and Taylor to day they reprint Cocteau’s Diary of a cure I am hooked
Milton
by John Wieners down at the corner I worked in the variety & Drug store having nothing to do I hung out with kids at the wall in a small
Bag Dad by the Bay for Harry the H
by John Wieners There’s a little cabin in the sky mister on Fillmore
For What Time Stays
by John Wieners All the best poems since The Hotel Wentley Poems. Scheduled for publication Summer 1962. A sample: The fog flung over the fields.
The Kyoto Journals and Floating California
by Philip Whalen Three haiku and journal entries excerpted from the Philip Whalen Papers, circa 1940–2001, were transcribed and edited by Brian
Keep The Beat for MayDay Celebration, City Lights
by Diane di Prima keep it! was François Villon a Beat ? the Minnesingers ? what’s a troubadour ? what about them guys we call the “Wandering
The Elements
by Diane di Prima EARTH: The Snake Charmer Persimmons remain where the boughs are bare. And the ornamental plum blooms early before the rains.
Escapes for Julie Hay, circa April 26, 1986
by Diane di Prima I thought I was teaching Thought I knew some thing Till she came to my door, one baby in a stroller, one toddler held onto
A New Revolutionary Letter
by Diane di Prima they’re us & we’re starving for water for land for air a place to sleep or they’re our
The Lord’s Last Prayer
by Lawrence Ferlinghetti Our father whose art’s in heaven Hollow be thy name Unless things change Thy kingdom come and gone Thy will will be
A Big Bouquet of Haiku for Joko Dave Haselwood
by Michael McClure THE WING – FACE OF THE LITTLE BROWN MOTH looks up desperately MY MOSS HEAD (tiny red maple leaves, lichens) makes light
Infernal Muses
by Philip Lamantia GO! my calfheaded drone! O sheep faced Ana Stekel turning into dove’s dung, Ana Black Ana Noir over niagra of bureau lips,
Boobus
by Philip Lamantia Last night Mike told me he believed the stars are alive Today we walk with the yellow haired child Eyes of the auctioneer’s
Interior Suck of the Night
by Philip Lamantia Narcotic air simple as a a cone spun interior suck of the night
Jet Powered Suicide
by Philip Lamantia Just before landing — eerie sound like metallic gut string of atonal eeeeeh! My first con on the system my
A Poem for John Wieners Written on His Paper
by Philip Lamantia Who’s the white Lady ? can you answer — I cant make it who’s the white lady ? We walked in yr room talking of the white lady
Romantic
by Joanne Kyger You can see little hearts in the branches of Douglas fir trees on the computer screen Just for fun
Albert Saijo
by Joanne Kyger When I came back from almost two years traveling to Europe and New York in the late 60’s I found the Summer of Love and the Bay
Write Something About Poetics Says Cedar
by Joanne Kyger I dream about a totem pole of poets. Actually it was a poster Andrew Hoyem did for a reading of Bolinas writers in
Sounds Abroad at Lassen
by Dave Haselwood, Joanne Kyger, Donald Guravich The scene: The twilight becoming darkest night, the mysterious spring gushing out of a lava
How the Hotel Wentley Poems Undermined My Self-Confidence
by Irving Rosenthal I was visiting Allen Ginsberg one day, and in the midst of our usual light gossip about friends, artists, poets and
by David Meltzer
by David Meltzer Ah, ego wants everything all the time & spaces silence or blank page lays splayed apart for whatever words pass as art’s
Charley circa 1961
by Roxie Powell Crystalline child Trying to hot wire Your dreams, Electric throbs Pulse your brain. With surprising grace You fold off a window
Perspective
by Roxie Powell One must put things in perspective One must understand that the gaping Hole in one’s middle Will go away Soon be history. First,
Who’s Who
by Roxie Powell Sure, I remember you Like an eclipse or aurora borealis You come when you exist — Yeah, you did a number on me. Sure, I remember
Your Nearness to Me
by Roxie Powell Your nearness to me is no longer Dependent upon distance I sense you being here Open to my questions Ready to guide me toward My
After Age Seventy – Five
by Roxie Powell Like all the rest of life Seventy five came and went And I went to bed Curiously free of cares and Complexity Next morning, lying
Dorothy
by Andrew Hoyem Looking down over, it must be, Kansas, I see snow, patterns of agriculture, showing through, rectangles with diagonals and
Stadium
by Andrew Hoyem The super stadium sustains all games. Planted, planked, padded, paved, painted, Territories to be won and winnings counted. The
Orders 1
by Andrew Hoyem Start your engine. Get set, go. Push on the accelerator. Step on the brakes. Slow to a stop. Get out of the contraption. Crawl to
As Seen from Provincial Perspectives
by Andrew Hoyem On a summer morn in southern France, Toward the end of June when flowers fade From two months’ brilliance in rising heat, A guest
A Blue Sunset Sits on an Orange Horizon
by Daniel Abdal-Hayy Moore They trail their hands in the water Their feet hit the cold hard ground Their faces light up dark corners Their eyes
An Orange Sunset Sits on a Blue Horizon
by Daniel Abdal-Hayy Moore Laughing Buddha sits down with Weeping Sufi and they sing a song together that sets fire to the furniture and makes
Remembrance and Ongoing Love for Auerhahn Press
by Daniel Abdal-Hayy Moore Back in the 60s we were all Buddhists. Well, so it seems. Due to Ginsberg and Kerouac’s pervasive influence, Buddhist
Interview
Dave Haselwood Interview
conducted by: Steve Luttrell on May 15, 2012 Steve: Let’s begin with a few recollections and go from there. In an interview with someone as
Poet Biographies
John Wieners
January 6, 1934 – March 1, 2002. Born in Milton, Massachusetts, he studied at Boston College. In 1954 he heard Charles Olson read at the Charles
Philip Whalen
October 20, 1923 – June 26, 2002. He was born in Portland, Oregon and attended Reed College on the GI Bill, receiving a B.A. in 1951. He and Gary
Jack Spicer
January 30, 1925 – August 17, 1965, was an American poet often identified with the San Francisco Renaissance. In 2009, My Vocabulary Did This to
Irving Rosenthal
lives in San Francisco, California.
Roxie Powell
was born in Wichita, Kansas in 1935. After high school he began his career of many F’s in several universities both in the U.S. and abroad. After
Charles Plymell
was born in 1935 in Kansas, involved in the Beat scene in New York in the 1950s, and was a notable figure in the San Francisco literary scene in
Daniel Abdal-Hayy Moore
born in 1940 in Oakland, California, his first book of poems, Dawn Visions, was published by Lawrence Ferlinghetti of City Lights Books, San
David Meltzer
a “second generation Beat writer,” he came to San Francisco in 1957. During the late 1950s period of the San Francisco renaissance, his personal
Michael McClure
at the age of 22 he gave his first poetry reading at the legendary Six Gallery event in San Francisco, where Allen Ginsberg first read “Howl.”
Ron Loewinsohn
has been associated with San Francisco poetry renaissance since the late 1950s. In the early 1960s he taught at San Francisco State College, and
Philip Lamantia
October 23, 1927– March 7, 2005. He was born in San Francisco and raised in that city’s Excelsior neighborhood. He began writing poetry in
Joanne Kyger
born in Vallejo, California in 1934 she is an American poet influenced by her practice of Zen Buddhism and her ties to the poets of Black
Andrew Hoyem
was born in South Dakota in 1935 and has lived in California since 1946. After Pomona College and three years as a naval officer, he became a
Joko Dave Haselwood
is a Soto Zen priest and guiding teacher of Empty Bowl Sangha in Cotati, California. A Dharma heir of Jisho Warner –Roshi, he began his Zen
Donald Guravich
is a writer and illustrator. He has been a frequent guest faculty member at Naropa University’s Summer Writing Program, in Boulder, Colorado. His
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
born March 24, 1919, is an American poet, painter, liberal activist, and the co – founder of City Lights Booksellers & Publishers.
Diane di Prima
born in Brooklyn, New York, she is, undeniably, the most well – known female Beat poet. She attended Swarthmore College, then moved to
