Various (Micheline, Jack et al.)

LitCity (Fall 1992)

No Place: LitCity, 1992. First Edition. “Jack Micheline, too, was one of a kind. There was no one like him–either in regard to his personality or his poetry. He was the first of the Beat poets that I really connected with once I’d moved to San Francisco. Jack and I hung out together a lot and even took a few trips up north to the Napa Valley and south to Santa Cruz together for readings he was giving in those early years. We’d go to the racetrack over in Oakland fairly often, as Jack loved to bet on the horses. He had a friend, Jimmy Lyons, who worked at the Oakland track and was himself an accomplished, if little known, jazz poet. Jack would get betting advice from Jimmy and then go to the track and put down money based on Jimmy’s advice…Through Jack I met Bob Kaufman and Kaye McDonough and Gene Ruggles and many of the lesser-known Beats. Jack was always on stage–at least that was the nature of his personality. He had a loud projective voice and a reading style second to none. Very musical, almost songlike. If you’ve ever heard a recording of him reading you’d identify him right away. He had a very loyal following because his work was so accessible and his delivery so performance-oriented. Jack had known Kerouac, Kaufman, Burroughs, Corso & co. during the 50s in New York. Kerouac had done a blurb for Jack’s first book of poems River of Red Wine (New York, NY: Troubadour Press, 1957) but it had gone out of print shortly after publication. Besides inclusion in little magazines, nothing else of his had come out until we published Poems of Dr. Innisfree with Beatitude Press in 1975. After this and all the exposure he got through Beatitude and City Lights readings, etc., his work got picked up by a number of different presses and he had a fairly constant stream of books come out up until his death…Jack’s uniqueness and personality made him not only a crowd favorite at readings and events during those years, but a welcome presence in more casual circumstances where he was always appearing, much to everyone’s delight.”--Thomas Rain Crowe, Thomas Rain Crowe Archive, pg 59. Offered today is the 1992 issue of LitCity Tribute Issue: Jack Micheline, July 7, 1992. A literary newspaper out of San Francisco, LitCity was a relatively guerrilla operation, run and printed by a number of die-hard lovers of literature and poets whose names, unfortunately, have been lost to time. Though precious little information can be found on LitCity, two major facts can be discerned: 1) LitCity was printed throughout the early 1990s, and 2) those who ran it had a deep and unrelenting love for literature and the poets, writers, and artists of the San Francisco literary-scene. This particular issue is a tribute to, and features many poems from Jack Micheline (1929-1998) the American painter, poet and San Francisco Renaissance legend. Alongside Micheline, this issue features: a poem by Detroit legend Mr. Sharkey, poems from a slew of (at the time) contemporary San Franciscan poets, snippets of writing from Henry Miller (1891-1980), Antonin Artaud (1896-1948), and many more. From the archive of Thomas Rain Crowe (b. 1949), scholar, writer and co-founding member of the Baby Beat Generation. For more information on the Thomas Rain Crowe archive (assembled & curated by Third Mind Books), see our book Starting From San Francisco: Thomas Rain Crowe in Conversation with Third Mind Books (item #3071) & the catalog for the Crowe archive (see item #1010), which contains several excerpts and quotations from the book as well as a full listing of the archive’s contents, which are now being offered for sale individually on the Third Mind Books site. Newspaper-format journal with loose sheets folded once each horizontally & vertically. First & presumably only printing. In relatively-fine condition with moderate wear to fine edges; mild age toning, small tears to front and back covers; slight fading to interior and exterior text blocks, and slight tearing at fold. Fine. [Item #7722]

Price: $40.00