Bob Kaufman
Encyclopedia
Bob Kaufman born Robert Garnell Kaufman, was an American
Beat poet and surrealist inspired by jazz
music. In France
, where his poetry had a large following, he was known as the "American Rimbaud
."
, Kaufman was one of fourteen children. He claimed to be the son of a German-Jewish father and a Roman Catholic Black mother from Martinique
, and that his grandmother practiced voodoo. At age eighteen, Kaufman joined the United States Merchant Marine
, which he left in the early 1940s to briefly study literature at New York
's The New School
. There, he met William S. Burroughs
and Allen Ginsberg
. In 1944 Bob Kaufman married Ida Berrocal. They had one daughter, Antoinette Victoria Marie (Nagle), born in New York City in 1945 (died 2008). Kaufman moved to San Francisco's North Beach
in 1958 and remained there for most of the rest of his life. He married Eileen Singe in 1958; they had one child, Parker, named for Charlie Parker
.
Kaufman, a poet in the oral tradition, usually didn't write down his poems, and much of his published work survives by way of his wife Eileen, who wrote his poems down as he conceived them. Like many beat writers, Kaufman became a Buddhist. In 1959, along with poets Allen Ginsberg
, John Kelly, A. D. Winans
, and William Margolis, he was one of the founders of Beatitude magazine.
In 1959, Kaufman had a small role in a movie called The Flower Thief
, which was shot in North Beach by Ron Rice
. In 1961, Kaufman was nominated for England's Guinness Poetry Award, but lost to T. S. Eliot
. He appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
four times in 1970-1971.
In an interview, Ken Kesey
describes seeing Bob Kaufman on the streets of San Francisco's North Beach during a visit to that city with his family in the 1950s:
to poetic euphony and meter, he became the quintessential jazz poet."
Poet Jack Micheline
said about Kaufman, "I found his work to be essentially improvisation
al, and was at its best when accompanied by a jazz musician. His technique resembled that of the surreal school of poets, ranging from a powerful, visionary lyricism of satirical, near dadaistic leanings, to the more prophetic tone that can be found in his political poems."
Kaufman said of his own work, "My head is a bony guitar, strung with tongues, plucked by fingers & nails."
After learning of the assassination of John F. Kennedy
, Kaufman took a Buddhist vow of silence that lasted until the end of the Vietnam War
in 1973. He broke his silence by reciting his poem "All Those Ships that Never Sailed," the first lines of which are
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Beat poet and surrealist inspired by jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
music. In France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, where his poetry had a large following, he was known as the "American Rimbaud
Arthur Rimbaud
Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud was a French poet. Born in Charleville, Ardennes, he produced his best known works while still in his late teens—Victor Hugo described him at the time as "an infant Shakespeare"—and he gave up creative writing altogether before the age of 21. As part of the decadent...
."
Biography
Born in New Orleans, LouisianaLouisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
, Kaufman was one of fourteen children. He claimed to be the son of a German-Jewish father and a Roman Catholic Black mother from Martinique
Martinique
Martinique is an island in the eastern Caribbean Sea, with a land area of . Like Guadeloupe, it is an overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department. To the northwest lies Dominica, to the south St Lucia, and to the southeast Barbados...
, and that his grandmother practiced voodoo. At age eighteen, Kaufman joined the United States Merchant Marine
United States Merchant Marine
The United States Merchant Marine refers to the fleet of U.S. civilian-owned merchant vessels, operated by either the government or the private sector, that engage in commerce or transportation of goods and services in and out of the navigable waters of the United States. The Merchant Marine is...
, which he left in the early 1940s to briefly study literature at New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
's The New School
The New School
The New School is a university in New York City, located mostly in Greenwich Village. From its founding in 1919 by progressive New York academics, and for most of its history, the university was known as the New School for Social Research. Between 1997 and 2005 it was known as New School University...
. There, he met William S. Burroughs
William S. Burroughs
William Seward Burroughs II was an American novelist, poet, essayist and spoken word performer. A primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodernist author, he is considered to be "one of the most politically trenchant, culturally influential, and innovative artists of the 20th...
and Allen Ginsberg
Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg was an American poet and one of the leading figures of the Beat Generation in the 1950s. He vigorously opposed militarism, materialism and sexual repression...
. In 1944 Bob Kaufman married Ida Berrocal. They had one daughter, Antoinette Victoria Marie (Nagle), born in New York City in 1945 (died 2008). Kaufman moved to San Francisco's North Beach
North Beach, San Francisco, California
North Beach is a neighborhood in the northeast of San Francisco adjacent to Chinatown, Fisherman's Wharf and Russian Hill. The neighborhood is San Francisco's Little Italy, and has historically been home to a large Italian American population. It still holds many Italian restaurants today, though...
in 1958 and remained there for most of the rest of his life. He married Eileen Singe in 1958; they had one child, Parker, named for Charlie Parker
Charlie Parker
Charles Parker, Jr. , famously called Bird or Yardbird, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer....
.
Kaufman, a poet in the oral tradition, usually didn't write down his poems, and much of his published work survives by way of his wife Eileen, who wrote his poems down as he conceived them. Like many beat writers, Kaufman became a Buddhist. In 1959, along with poets Allen Ginsberg
Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg was an American poet and one of the leading figures of the Beat Generation in the 1950s. He vigorously opposed militarism, materialism and sexual repression...
, John Kelly, A. D. Winans
A. D. Winans
Allan Davis Winans , known as A. D. Winans, is an American poet, essayist, short story writer and publisher. Born in San Francisco, California, he returned home from Panama in 1958, after serving three years in the military...
, and William Margolis, he was one of the founders of Beatitude magazine.
In 1959, Kaufman had a small role in a movie called The Flower Thief
The Flower Thief
The Flower Thief is an underground film directed by Ron Rice, shot in 1959 in San Francisco's North Beach neighborhood, using surplus 16mm film. The film features non-professional actors like Taylor Mead and Eric "Big Daddy" Nord, and Beat poets living in North Beach such as Bob Kaufman.-External...
, which was shot in North Beach by Ron Rice
Ron Rice
For the American football player see Ron Rice Ron Rice was an American experimental filmmaker, whose freeform style influenced experimental filmmakers in New York and California during the early 1960s.-The Flower Thief:Rice twice collaborated with future Warhol star Taylor Mead, including Rice's...
. In 1961, Kaufman was nominated for England's Guinness Poetry Award, but lost to T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot
Thomas Stearns "T. S." Eliot OM was a playwright, literary critic, and arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century. Although he was born an American he moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 and was naturalised as a British subject in 1927 at age 39.The poem that made his...
. He appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson is a talk show hosted by Johnny Carson under the Tonight Show franchise from 1962 to 1992. It originally aired during late-night....
four times in 1970-1971.
In an interview, Ken Kesey
Ken Kesey
Kenneth Elton "Ken" Kesey was an American author, best known for his novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest , and as a counter-cultural figure who considered himself a link between the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s. "I was too young to be a beatnik, and too old to be a...
describes seeing Bob Kaufman on the streets of San Francisco's North Beach during a visit to that city with his family in the 1950s:
- I can remember driving down to North Beach with my folks and seeing Bob Kaufman out there on the street. I didn’t know he was Bob Kaufman at the time. He had little pieces of Band-Aid tape all over his face, about two inches wide, and little smaller ones like two inches long -- and all of them made into crosses. He came up to the cars, and he was babbling poetry into these cars. He came up to the car I was riding in, and my folks, and started jabbering this stuff into the car. I knew that this was exceptional use of the human voice and the human mind.
Poetry
His poetry made use of jazz syncopation and meter. The critic Raymond Foye wrote about him, "Adapting the harmonic complexities and spontaneous invention of bebopBebop
Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...
to poetic euphony and meter, he became the quintessential jazz poet."
Poet Jack Micheline
Jack Micheline
Jack Micheline , born Harold Martin Silver, was an American painter and poet from the San Francisco Bay Area. His name is synonymous with street artists, underground writers, and "outlaw" poets...
said about Kaufman, "I found his work to be essentially improvisation
Improvisation
Improvisation is the practice of acting, singing, talking and reacting, of making and creating, in the moment and in response to the stimulus of one's immediate environment and inner feelings. This can result in the invention of new thought patterns, new practices, new structures or symbols, and/or...
al, and was at its best when accompanied by a jazz musician. His technique resembled that of the surreal school of poets, ranging from a powerful, visionary lyricism of satirical, near dadaistic leanings, to the more prophetic tone that can be found in his political poems."
Kaufman said of his own work, "My head is a bony guitar, strung with tongues, plucked by fingers & nails."
After learning of the assassination of John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
, Kaufman took a Buddhist vow of silence that lasted until the end of the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
in 1973. He broke his silence by reciting his poem "All Those Ships that Never Sailed," the first lines of which are
- All those ships that never sailed
- The ones with their seacocks open
- That were scuttled in their stalls...
- Today I bring them back
- Huge and intransitory
- And let them sail
- Forever
Further reading
- Abbott, Steve. "Hidden Master of the Beats." Poetry FlashPoetry FlashPoetry Flash is a literary magazine and website based in the San Francisco Bay Area; it has been called "an institution in the Bay Area's literary culture". It publishes literary reviews, poetry, interviews, and essays as well as an extensive calendar of literary activities on the west coast of...
(February 1986). - Anderson, TJ III. "Body and Soul: Bob Kaufman's Golden Sardine." African American Review (Summer 2000).
- Charters, Ann (ed.). The Portable Beat Reader. Penguin Books. New York. 1992. ISBN 0-670-83885-3 (hc); ISBN 0-14-015102-8 (pbk)
- Cherkovski, NeeliNeeli CherkovskiNeeli Cherkovski: Neeli Cherkovski: Neeli Cherkovski: (born Nelson Cherry, 1945, Santa Monica, California, Cherkovski grew up in San Bernardino, California. Cherkovski has resided in San Francisco since 1975 where he is known as a poet and memoirist. In the 1970s he was a political consultant in...
. Elegy for Bob Kaufman. San Francisco, CA: Sun Dog Press (1996). - Cherkovski, Neeli. Whitman's Wild Children. Venice, CA: Lapis (1988).
- Christian, Barbara. "Whatever Happened to Bob Kaufman?" Black World 21 (September 1972).
- Clay, Mel. Jazz Jail and God: Impressionistic Biography of Bob Kaufman. San Francisco, CA: Androgyne Books (1987).
- Damon, Maha. "'Unmeaning Jargon'/Uncanonized Beatitude: Bob Kaufman, Poet." South Atlantic Quarterly 87.4 (Fall 1988).
- Foye, Raymond. "Bob Kaufman, A Proven Glory." The Poetry Project Newsletter (March 1986).
- Kaufman, Eileen. "Laughter Sounds Orange at Night." In The Beat Vision: A Primary Sourcebook. Eds. Arthur Knight and Kit Knight. New York: Paragon (1967).
- Lindberg, Kathryne V. "Bob Kaufman, Sir Real." Talisman 11 (Fall 1993).
- Seymore, Tony. "Crimes of a Warrior Poet." Players Magazine (December 1983).
- Winans, A.D. "Bob Kaufman." The American Poetry Review (May/June 2000).