Tribute to David Meltzer
David Meltzer (1937-2016) departed the world on December 31st. A great, prolific poet beloved by many, Meltzer was an important figure of the San Francisco Beat scene. He authored over 40 volumes of poetry, among them Arrows: Selected Poetry 1957-1992, Name: Selected Poetry, 1973-1983 and Beat Thing (2004), David’s Copy (2005), When I Was a Poet City Lights Pocket Poets #60 (2011) and Two-Way Mirror: A Poetry Notebook, a collection of anecdotes and quotations; and anthologies including Reading Jazz (1993), Writing Jazz (1999), and San Francisco Beat: Talking with the Poets.
Meltzer was raised in Brooklyn, NY. “I owe my own fluency with language to Brooklyn,” he said in an interview with The San Francisco Chronicle in 2015. “Everyone talked about everything, from the Dodgers to the revolution.” In 1954, he moved with his father to Los Angeles, and in 1957 he moved to San Francisco, where he became a part of the San Francisco Renaissance alongside poets Jack Spicer and Robert Duncan, one of the founders of the Poetics program at New College of California, where Meltzer taught for 30 years.
Please join us for a celebration of David’s life and work.
Readings from:
- Julie Rogers
- Jack Hirschman
- Agneta Falk
- Alejandro Murguía
- Sharon Doubiago
- Neeli Cherkovski
- Charlie Getter
- Dorothy Payne
- Sarah Menefee
- Bob Booker
- Jack Foley
- Charles Curtis Blackwell
- Aja Couchois Duncan
- Scott Thompson
- Les Gottesman
- Jessica Loos
- Gene Berson
- Music by Phil Deal
More details forthcoming…