a poet at age eleven and child performer on radio and television, he began his literary career during the Beat heyday in San Francisco and combined his poetry with jazz improvisation. He is the author of many volumes of poetry including The Clown, The Process, Arrows: Selected Poetry, 1957 – 1992, No Eyes: Lester Young, Beat Thing, and David’s Copy. This June, City Lights Bookstore published his book, When I Was A Poet, as # 60 in their renown Pocket Poets Series. As well he has published fiction, numerous anthologies, and essays including Two –W ay Mirror: A Poetry Notebook and has edited numerous anthologies such as Reading Jazz, Writing Jazz, and San Francisco Beat: Talking with the Poets among others. He composed, performed, and recorded as a singer /songwriter during the ’60s and 70s; albums include “Serpent Power” and “Poet Song.” He taught in the Humanities and graduate Poetics programs at the New College of California in San Francisco for 30 years and is now writing, reading, and performing on tour and in the Bay Area. Visit his website at www.meltzerville.com

was born in the desert foothills of the Catalina Mountain Ridge near Oracle, Arizona, in 1930. She attended the University of Arizona, majoring in literature and history. She was there, at the historic moment, when Allen Ginsberg read “Howl” at the Six Gallery in San Francisco on Friday, October 7, 1955. Her writings include Wolf Eyes, Extended Love Poems, and Hard Edge.

 is a poet and photographer born in 1943.  He was the chief assistant for artist Andy Warhol in the mid –1960s, with whom he founded the magazine Interview in 1969. He was also featured in several of Warhol’s films, collaborated with Warhol on his “Screen Tests” project, and was a member of Warhol’s cross – genre undertaking, “The Exploding Plastic Inevitable.” He has published the photography books Good Girls (1994) and Resistance to Memory (1998). With Victor Bockris, he co – authored Up –Tight: The Velvet Underground Story (2003). He lives in New York City.

is a poet, activist, journalist, and author of a dozen books and tapes of poetry. His poems have appeared in many anthologies over the last twenty – five years. He is founder of Friends of The Los Angeles River, a “40 year art work” to bring the Los Angeles River back to life. His book, Birth of the Cool: Beat, Bebop and the American Avant Garde was published in 2001. A new collection of poems, The River: Books One, Two & Three, takes the Los Angeles River as its metaphor, weaving the story and song of the poet, activist, and journalist as these three roles form the confluence which is the man.