Cleveland Dreams's topics - tribe.net

We have a new arrival...

2007-08-17T16:14:46Z

his name is LARRY
and he would like to know
a little more about Jau Billera...

can anyone assist?

Larry?
thanks for joining!
I have really fallen asleep at the wheel.

Thanks for waking me.

~confetta

posted in Cleveland Dreams - 0 replies

Perhaps Cleveland's first literary magazine...1945...

2007-08-16T23:38:53Z

1945 – General: Harry Truman takes over presidency after death of Franklin D. Roosevelt; first atom bomb is dropped on Hiroshima, Japan (189,000 casualties), then Nagasaki; end of WW II.
Culture: Art: Abstract Expressionist art is thriving throughout the Beat Era with such artists as Jackson Pollock, Mark Tobey, William de Kooning, Mark Rothko, Robert Motherwell, Franz Kline, Jasper Johns, many of whom gathered in the Greenwich Village scene; Broadway: Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie and He Touched Me; Films: The Lost Weekend, Mildred Pierce, The Body Snatcher; Media: radio: “Queen for a Day,” “Arthur Godfrey Time,” “One Man’s Family” (soap opera); television: Macy’s first Thanksgiving Day Parade; Music: Be-Bop jazz evolves with Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker; Fiction: Steinbeck’s Cannery Row, Orwell’s Animal Farm; Nonfiction: Louis Bromfield’s Pleasant Valley; Poetry: Gwendolyn Brooks’ A Street in Bronzeville W.H. Auden’s Collected Poems

Cleveland: Cleveland Community Relations Board formed to promote racial harmony.
The American Weave Literary Journal (1945–1964) published by Loring E. Williams and Alice Crane Williams from their home at 23728 Glenhill Drive, Cleveland Heights, Ohio 44121. Printing was performed by Villier’s Publishers Ltd., Ingestre, London NW5 England. When Alice died in 1964, Loring moved back to Maine. Editors Alfred B. Cahen, David C. French and James L. Weil continued to publish this collection of poems and light verse until 1971. *Alice Crane Williams was the Aunt of famed Cleveland area poet Hart Crane. The journal was partially funded by the Hart Crane Memorial Fund and the Alice Crane Williams Memorial Fund. Final address for the publication offices was 4109 Bushnell Road, University Heights, Ohio 44118. Local poets from the Cleveland Poetry Society at Fenn College (now Cleveland State University) were frequent submitters to American Weave

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Chasing Helen Blog Spot...

2007-05-21T19:38:48Z

http://chasinghelen.blogspot.com/

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NEW BOOK! d.a.levy & the mimeograph revolution by Ingrid Swanberg and Larry Smith (Paperback - April 19, 2007)

2007-05-05T20:00:19Z

d.a.levy & the mimeograph revolution (Paperback)
by Ingrid Swanberg (Editor), Larry Smith (Editor)
http://www.amazon.com/levy-mimeograph-revolution-Ingrid-Swanberg/dp/1933964073/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2/002-8409112-7548030?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1178394966&sr=8-2

Chronology of d.a.levy's life and work,

Biographical essays & photographs,Interviews, profiles, statements, art work, poems;Critical appreciations of his writing, “Cleveland Prints” full color,

* Includes 2006 dvd of Kon Petrochuk’s film "if i scratch, if i write"

Contributors:

Ed Sanders, T.L. Kryss, rjs, Karl Young,

Allen Frost, Joel Lipman, Kent Taylor, Mark Kuhar, Ingrid Swanberg, Larry Smith, Russell Salamon, John Jacob, Douglas Manson, Michael Basinski, Jim Lang, and others

Praise of d.a.levy

“Here is a poet who used everything that he laid hands on to help further creativity, poetry, poets & to help make a better world....In a very pure sense levy was a true revolutionary. We get a few of these people per century.” -Doug Blazek

“I feel brother to levy not only as poet, but as fellow-worker in the Buddha-fields.”

-Gary Snyder

Product Description
Chronology of d.a.levy's life and work,

Biographical essays & photographs,Interviews, profiles, statements, art work, poems;Critical appreciations of his writing, “Cleveland Prints” full color,

* Includes 2006 dvd of Kon Petrochuk’s film "if i scratch, if i write"

Contributors:

Ed Sanders, T.L. Kryss, rjs, Karl Young,

Allen Frost, Joel Lipman, Kent Taylor, Mark Kuhar, Ingrid Swanberg, Larry Smith, Russell Salamon, John Jacob, Douglas Manson, Michael Basinski, Jim Lang, and others

Product Details

* Paperback: 276 pages
* Publisher: Bottom Dog Press (April 19, 2007)
* Language: English
* ISBN-10: 1933964073
* ISBN-13: 978-1933964072

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Steven B. Smith

2006-10-24T04:20:28Z

Oh, dreamers of Cleveland, what say you about this fellow Steven B. Smith?

http://www.agentofchaos.com/

posted in Cleveland Dreams - 9 replies

CLEVELAND?

2006-07-26T23:25:38Z

HAVE YOU BEEN TO CLEVELAND?

WHY were you THERE?

HOW LONG were you THERE?

WHAT did you SEE THERE?

DO THERE?

EAT THERE??

WHY DID YOU LEAVE CLEVELAND?

DO YOU HAVE CLEVELAND DREAMS ???

IF SO WHAT ARE THEY LIKE????

MY CLEVELAND DREAMS:

I myself, have
NEVER BEEN
to CLEVELAND
although I DO
occasionally have

CLEVELAND
DREAMS......

Recurring
Cleveland
Dreams.

In MY Cleveland Dreams
I am with a friend who is
FROM CLEVELAND.......

I am
SEEING
CLEVELAND
Through
HIS EYES
and not
my own.

His Vision (and memories) are different then mine so everything is a little blurry and out of focus around the edges.

We are walking through the neighborhoods of his childhood.

A Street.
An Apartment.
A Bookstore (now empty).
A House (now gone).
A School Playground (where children play baseball and tug-of-war in the August sun).

It is very hot.

I am wearing sandals.

He tells me to be careful because
there are scorpions in Cleveland.

I see them scuttling along the pavement.

There is a sense of danger and excitement.

A man calls out his name but we cannot see him.

We walk for a long time trying to find the body that goes with the voice.

We both heard him call out but he seems to have disappeared.

The Dream Ends.

I wake up and call him.

We talk about many things.

I do not tell him of the dream.

posted in Cleveland Dreams - 2 replies

Works inspired by the Cuyahoga Valley

2006-06-13T21:53:21Z

Hey all, I'm collecting a list of literature inspired by the Cuyahoga Valley for the Cuyahoga Valley Institute. I can't read every work by every poet who's ever been in the area, and was hoping you guys could recommend some works to look at. Basically anything relating to or inspired by Whiskey Island, the river, and areas immediately surround the river, such as the parks. Thanks a ton for any help you can offer.

posted in Cleveland Dreams - 1 reply

a belated touché for d.a.levy by Kent Taylor

2006-06-10T03:03:51Z

.
a belated touché for d.a.levy
by Kent Taylor

you can watch the ones who
didn't move fast enough
they are dying
& they are called Poets
-- d.a.levy

Antares guided you home
the month
of the day
of the dead
1968
when you stumbled
into your shadow

no one was quick enough
to keep the sun
overhead
in Cleveland

two thousand miles and
sixteen Novembers
west
the night still yields
reluctantly

i only see
what your shadow covered
at noon
a bloody flag
left as a bookmark
inscribed fuck it goodbye

~kent taylor

posted in Cleveland Dreams - 0 replies

Beat Generation

2006-06-10T02:16:21Z

There is a great deal of information on Wikipedia about "The Beat Generation". Although it does not focus on The Cleveland Poets it does give info about some of the influential characters whose work may have served as a catalyst and/or a source of inspiration to them.

Beat generation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beat_Generation

aaR

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Russell Salamon

2006-06-09T18:46:07Z

I am seeking biographical information on Russell Salamon.

There is very little information about him on the internet.

Please add any additional information you might come across.

Thanks,

aaR

posted in Cleveland Dreams - 2 replies

wake - for Nick Gabaldon, pioneering waterman

2006-06-01T05:22:03Z

stuck
in life

at a loss
for words
or witnesses

drifting back
to the day
you first
paddled
up the coast
from Santa Monica
to surf
Malibu

years later
your oracular
poem
played out there

light still
warps
where you hit
the pier

~kent taylor

posted in Cleveland Dreams - 0 replies

not quite Janine

2006-05-29T09:24:27Z

not quite Janine

Einstein
couldn't chart
your passage

fate brings you to earth
not gravity

no one
at fifteen
is subject to
the laws of physics

you fade
in and out
as the dimensions
of the known world
struggle
to accommodate you

the trick
is to cast
what's indistinct
far enough ahead
to be recognizable
when you catch up

~kent taylor

posted in Cleveland Dreams - 1 reply

MoDeRaToR has been internetless since monday night.....

2006-05-26T19:52:48Z

not sure when it will be fixed...

sos sos sos!!

weLL we are a LucKY 13 of us now!

YES!

A Baker's Dozen!

FANCY!

Feel free to introduce yerselves (please)

ANSWER ME THIS:

1. WHERE ARE YOU FROM ?

2. HAVE YOU EVER BEEN TO CLEVELAND...IF SO WHEN & WHERE EXACTLY, WHY ETCETRY?

3. DO YOU EVEN LIKE POETRY?

4. IF YOU ANSWERED YES TO THE ABOVE NAME 3 POETS YOU LIKE AND WHY...

5. IF YOU HAVE A POEM YOU ESPECIALLY LOVE PLEASE POST IT HERE.

see you soon!

should be back on line in say....10 hours to a week ; )

oxo

aaR

posted in Cleveland Dreams - 3 replies

SHORT BIO'S

2006-05-23T15:05:11Z

d.a. Levy
Born October 29, 1942. Died November 24, 1968.
Multi-talented Poet, Publisher, Printer, Painter, Proselytizer
and cult figure who committed suicide at the age of 26.

Jau Billera
New York transplant.
Edited the poetry magazine PODIUM.
He hosted a radio show in Cleveland.
Committed suicide in Las Vegas in1981.

Kent Taylor.
Born November 8, 1940, Newcastle, PA.
Medical Research, Poet, Sprinter.
Lives in San Francisco, CA.

Russell Atkins.
Born February 25, 1926.
Poet, Composer, Theorist, Musician,
Editor of Freelance Magazine. Lives
in Cleveland.

Russell Salamon.
Poet on the scene to the mid 60's then
became a member of the armed forces.
Lives in Los Angeles.

Tom Kryss.
Born in the late 1940's.
Poet, Publisher of Black Rabbit Press.
Artist known for iconic silkscreen rabbits.

Geoffrey Cook.
Entered the Cleveland poetry scene
in the mid to late 60's. A Poet who
later became involved in mail art and
multi-media performances. Lives in
Berkeley, CA.

RJS.
Born in 1947 or 1948. Poet, Publisher,
currently lives outside Cleveland.

Jim Lowell.
Born in Cleveland in 1932, died in 2004.
Opened his legendary Asphodel Bookstore
in 1963 and was the proprietor until his death.

posted in Cleveland Dreams - 1 reply

A post from Australia...

2006-05-22T19:47:39Z

cannot get onto the cleveland dreams tribe. i wrote this this evening to post there, if it will fit for the page and you think it ok, could you post for me please

hole in the wall

You saw what it was for free, never were one to pay
If you could get away,
With not, or just sneak out when the going got rough
Leave others to fix up after your mess
We always knew that?s what you did,
The old man always chased us but never you
One day we waited until you had gone, sneaked back
Saw where it was you went,
Then we knew for sure why the old man
Never chased you,
None of ever told about what is was we knew
One by one the rest just up and went
Oh yes, I knew why,
Thinking about reasons made me sad
The others had said perhaps the old man really was mad
Their talk was ? it isn?t right, that?s the truth?
Just jealous, when what they alway wanted,
The lot of them
After the laughs, put downs, sly jokes
All the innuendo
Was to be, maybe, a little like you

~Rob
http://people.tribe.net/125ac750-f343-4411-96bb-d6f2d2987547

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Late Show At The Starlight Laundry (Cleveland: Black Rabbit Press, 1989), Kent Taylor

2006-05-21T02:00:55Z

Late Show At The Starlight Laundry (Cleveland: Black Rabbit Press, 1989) first edition, stapled silk-screened wrappers, cover art by T.L. Kryss.

posted in Cleveland Dreams - 2 replies

Shit Outside When Eating Berries (Cleveland: Black Rabbit Press, 1971), Kent Taylor

2006-05-21T01:56:02Z

Shit Outside When Eating Berries (Cleveland: Black Rabbit Press, 1971) first edition, stapled illustrated wrappers, 268 copies, mimeograph printed.

posted in Cleveland Dreams - 3 replies

Torn Birds (San Francisco: Black Rabbit Press, 1969) - Kent Taylor

2006-05-21T01:48:31Z

Torn Birds (San Francisco: Black Rabbit Press, 1969) first edition, stapled silk-screened wrappers, 500 copies, cover art and preface by T.L. Kryss, blurb by d.a. levy.

posted in Cleveland Dreams - 6 replies

Kent Taylor

2006-05-20T18:11:26Z

Kent Taylor
http://www.writersregister.com/artist_info.php?memberId=231&number=CA331&PHPSESSID=b8075bb033225dbf769c9a3d39853267

Started writing poetry his freshman year at Ohio Wesleyan University. After quitting medical school at Ohio State University, he returned to his hometown, Cleveland, and became a charter member of the underground poetry scene that erupted there during the 60's. His first six books were published by d. a. levy. Taylor moved to San Francisco in 1970. Publications include 14 books and hundreds of appearances in such anthologies and periodicals as The Quarterly, Rattapallax, Abraxas, Ragged Lion, Onthebus, Invisible City, Vagabond Anthology, Painted Bride Quarterly, Free Lance, and Rain City Review.
A. Books

1. SELECTED POEMS. Cleveland: Renegade Press. 1963.

2. ALEATORY LETTERS. Cleveland: Renegade Press, 1964.

3. fortuItOns MotHeRFuCer (with d.a. levy). Cleveland: Renegade Press, 1965.

4. (MIST). Polluted Lake Series 4. Cleveland: Renegade Press, 1965.

5. (OVER). Ohio City Series 2. Cleveland: 7 Flowers Press, 1965.

6. LATE STATIONS. Cleveland: 7 Flowers Press, 1966.

7. TORN BIRDS. San Francisco: Black Rabbit Press, 1969.

8. CLEVELAND DREAMS. Cardiff, Wales: Second Aeon Publications, 1971.

9. SHIT OUTSIDE WHEN EATING BERRIES. Cleveland: Black Rabbit Press, 1971.

10. EMPTY GROUND. Cleveland: Black Rabbit Press, 1976.

11. DRIVING LIKE THE SUN. Ellensburg, WA: Vagabond Press, 1976.

12. LATE SHOW AT THE STARLIGHT LAUNDRY. Cleveland: Black Rabbit Press, 1989.

13. RABBITS HAVE FLED. Cleveland: Black Rabbit Press, 1991.

14. fortuItOns MotHeRFuCer (with d.a. levy). Facsimile ed. Toronto: Letters Bookshop, 1995. (Pirated)

15. NIGHT PHYSICS. Vancouver, WA: Kirpan Press, 2002.

B. Periodicals

The Quarterly, Onthebus, Abraxas, Rain City Review, Invisible City, Painted Bride Quarterly, Marrahwanna Quarterly, Scree, Vagabond, Silver Cesspool, Swamp Root, Atom Mind, Pinchpenny, Widener Review, Bombay Gin, Coracle Poetry, One Trick Pony, Ally, Cream City Review, Ann Arbor Review, Wormwood Review, Ole, Limberlost Review,Free Lance, Took, Taproot, Owl, Input, Kauri, Tampa Poetry Review, Asylum, Quixote, Meatball, Poetmeat, Grist, The Little Mag, Sum, Mother, Sattvas Review, Beginning, Second Aeon, 15T, Potpourri, Gooseberry, Fine Arts, The Willie, Earth, Marrahwannah Newsletter, 8 Pager, Hika, Up:jut, Shaded Room, Moonstones, Glass Onion, Podium, Free Love Periodically, Congress, Runcible Spoon, Gronk, Poets At The Gate, Cow In The Road, Proctor Bulletin, Transom, Suisun Valley Review, UCSF Journal, Synapse, Assassinators Broadsheet, Radical Voice, Cancer Support Community Newsletter, TKE Alpha Museletter, The Fold, Beveavement Family Services Newsletter, Pearl, Astarte, Listening Eye, Red Cedar Review Of Colorado, Grist On-Line, MA!, Caprice, Fenn College Poetry Forum Worksheets, Snakeskin, Bard, F/X, Lucid Moon, Rattapallax,Say Yes, Rattle, Boog City

C. Anthologies etc.

UKANHAVYRFUCKINCITIBAK (d.a. levy tribute), Vagabond Anthology, The Living Underground Anthology, Hard Love--Writings On Violence And Intimacy, Zen Concrete & etc., Tribute To Jim Lowell, 465, 306, Cleveland Manifesto, Telegrams From Central Control, Once More With Feeling, Planet Detroit Anthology Of Urban Poetry, Three Poems By Cleveland Poets, Death Row, Ole Anthology, Panama Gold, Amper∧, What There Is Left To Understand..., Ground Zero, Allegheny Star Route, World Sounds, We Are The Secret Living Leprosy, Cleveland Sampler, Asphodel Book Shop Catalogue, Cleveland Concrete, Melody Of The Muse, Poetry Parade, San Jose Campus-Community Poetry Festival Poster Series, American Renegades Catalog, Asphodel Book Shop 25 Years Tribute, Poets On.Parnassus Anthology, Valentine, Are You Talking To Me? (audio tape), Bebop-Rebop (audio tape), Ragged Lion, The Asphodel--A Tribute To Jim Lowell(Too) On The Occasion Of His 70th Birthday

D. Works In Translation

(German) AMERICAN FREEWAY. Edited by Al Masarik and Rainer Wehlen. Augsberg: Maro Verlag, 1982.

E. Works Exhibited

AMERICAN RENEGADES. University of Colorado, Boulder, 1992.

MEMORIES, MILESTONES, AND MIRACLES. Charles W. Bowers Memorial Museum, Santa Ana, 1993.

ART & POETRY. Mesa Verde Art Gallery, Mesa Verde High School, Citrus Heights, CA, 1999.

posted in Cleveland Dreams - 1 reply

Tom Kryss

2006-05-20T05:38:52Z

Here is an article on Tom Kryss:

VAGABOND'S CURRENT OUTSIDER
T.L. KRYSS
http://www.eburg.com/%7Evagabond/main/outsider.html

T.L. Kryss is an outsider's outsider and as sweet a poet as I've ever encountered. He was part of the Cleveland poetry scene in the Sixties that had d.a. levy as its catalyst and got hammered hard by the police; the Cleveland scene back then had more outsiders per square foot than any poetry scene since or before.

Kryss, along with the Willie, Kent Taylor, Joel Deutsch, etc., made the exodus to California after levy's alleged and controversial suicide. Deutsch and Taylor stayed on in California, Willie disappeared from the face of the earth, and Kryss, still in his teens, returned to his blue-collar roots in East Cleveland, where he began leading what on the surface looks like a normal life. But in his poetry, Kryss:

"...rolls out the universe like an organ grinder's song and leads it into green pastures like a unicorn in heat; he finds it in all its splendor in a scrap of a small child's drawing blowing down a winter street. He rocks it like a baby in his gentle nature. He stares out the bus window on the way to work, and a vacant lot between two boarded-up buildings erupts into a field of sunflowers thirty feet high with heads as big around as the sun. The bus rolls on thru the grey streets of Cleveland..." (from: "Great Poets Do Not Do Great Things," essay by John Bennett.)

What Tom Kryss does, more than any poet I know, is strip away excess and cut to the bone. He staked out a modest turf and then hunkered down and stayed there. He has not squandered time and blurred his focus chasing down publishers and polishing his image. So that what he writes is unencumbered and fraught with the particular, which is the unique, which is the only way to get a handle on the universal. What he writes always gives you something and never takes anything away.

A number of limited-edition Kryss books have appeared and disappeared over the years. Two in particular stand out:

Sunflower River, arranged, designed and printed by Don Cauble and Lady Jess in Portland, Oregon in the spring of 1972.

I first ran across Sunflower River in 1974 and was blown away by it. The book kicked off a correspondence between Kryss and myself that goes on to this day. It also prompted me to publish a Kryss chapbook, Music in the Winepress, Parrots in the Flames, now out of print.

The Book of Rabbits, Ayizan Press, Cleveland. (Typical of the anarchistic, outsider, burn-it-behind-you Cleveland publications of the Sixties, Rabbits has no copyright and no publication date.)

You want the antidote to all this Harry Potter shuck and jive? Here it is. Here is the children's book of all time that--like all good children's books--speaks to anyone with ears to listen. Or, in this case, eyes to see. There are no words other than Kryss' brief introduction. There are only drawings, magical drawings of rabbits, some of which we will hopefully be able to scan and display.

Here is part of the Kryss intro:

To the children who may read this book and wonder why there are no words:

...I have drawn these rabbits without words so that you may pay close attention to the rabbits themselves. The words do not matter as much as the rabbits...you yourself will make up the stories, and each story will be different for every person who sees the rabbits. In this way the rabbits will speak to you in a way that only you can hear.

I will tell you a secret about these rabbits, and then I will say no more. (I have said too much already.) If you look hard, you will find yourself in the rabbits. If this does not happen with the first drawing, try looking at another and another until you find the rabbit that you can recognize from a dream you once experienced, or a happiness or a sadness you once felt. It will help you if you look with an open heart....

The one and only time I met Tom Kryss was in 1981. Cindy (my wife at the time) and I were spending the summer travelling around the country in a VW van. I was keeping a travel journal that turned into a book, Tripping in America. Here is the entry made the morning after meeting Tom in Cleveland:

"...Tom Kryss lives in the neighborhood he grew up in, just like Jack Saunders. He has a wife and three children. A year or two ago they cut him open, went into his lung which had collapsed due to a congenital defect. He still chain smokes Camels, sucks the smoke in deep. More than any poet I've met, he's the place his poems come from.

"We arrived about 9 p.m. and spent three hours sitting around the kitchen table with Tom and his wife Carol, drinking beer and talking. A two-story house, just like the other working-class houses on the block. Normal furniture, normal dishes, normal things on the walls. Tidy. Ethnic. A solid Polish neighborhood. The straw of life from which the poems are spun.

"Upstairs, a room in which he keeps his books and his mimeo. The last of the mimeo poets, one of the best poets the country has, as close to being totally unknown as a poet can be. An expert on sunflowers and linoleum, children and clowns, rabbits, rivers and trains. A recluse, a citizen of a reality that has nothing to do with the six o'clock news....

"Round about midnight we all got up and went out into the yard to look at Tom's birdhouse. Tom build his birdhouse entirely from newspaper and glue; it hangs under the eaves of the garage. It's been there for two months, but no birds have taken up residence in it. It's large, as birdhouses go--it probably weighs 100 pounds.

" 'I went to the library and got a book that told me how I could make just about anything out of newspaper and glue--furiture, boats, birdhouses, you name it,' Tom says. 'Structures so sturdy they last 100 years! But unmarketable, of course, because--well, not many people want something made of newspaper and glue in their living rooms...'

"He squints critically at his birdhouse hanging still in the light of the moon. 'Maybe I have to relocate the hole,' he says. 'Maybe then the birds will come.'

"We walk out to the van. Tom has to get up at 4:30 and go to work. Over a decade ago, down and out, just back from the west coast, he walked into an employment agency. Since that time he's worked as a dispatcher for an alarm company. Alarms in four states are hooked up to the room Tom sits in, and an average of 100 alarms a day go off. One hundred alarms. 100-pound birdhouses with 100-year life spans. One hundred years of solitude. Tom responds to the blinking red lights by contacting the appropriate police station somewhere in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio or Indiana; then he goes back to his book. At the end of the day he rides the bus home to his wife and children. He does not drive a car. Occasionally, as he moves thru life, he writes a letter. A poem. Rarely now, he'll print a page or two on his Rex-rotary mimeo. He imagines in technicolor, paints in watercolor, and makes collages.

"At the curb we shake hands, and then Cindy and I cross the street and get into the van. I start the engine and U-turn, pulling up to the curb alongside Tom and Carol. I roll down the window but find there's nothing more to be said....I release the clutch and go bumping over the railroad tracks that until then I'd known only thru the poems. The tracks don't seem more real as we cross them; perhaps even less so."

You want your young genius poet of the 20th Century? Scrap Rimbaud. I give you Tom Kryss.

~John Bennett

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Russell Atkins

2006-05-20T05:14:54Z

Biography: Russell Atkins (1926- )
http://www.dlxs.org/products/archive-by-CDROM/4/TextClass/src/web/d/daap20/bios/da22022.bio.html

Russell Atkins was born in Cleveland, Ohio. He published his first poetry while still in high school and was recognized as a unique voice by distinguished older poets, including Edith Sitwell and Carl Van Vechten. He trained at the Cleveland School of Art, the Cleveland Music School, and the Cleveland Institute of Music, although his work toward a degree was interrupted by military service. In 1950 he cofounded Free Lance, a journal of poetry and prose that for almost 30 years published the work of young African-American poets and writers. During 1953 and 1954 Atkins attended the Iowa Workshop at the University of Iowa. He returned to Ohio, where he worked at the Sutphen School of Music (1957-1960), and served as a lecturer, writer-in-residence, and writing teacher in the Cleveland area, as he continued to write both poetry and music for publication and public performance.

From the first, Atkins's work has revolved around his fascination with the word and his belief that music and poetry can be successfully integrated to form a new and evolving art form. Many of his early efforts were concrete poems, with words exaggerated or placed on the page in nontraditional poetic formats to emphasize their meaning. In his later work, he joined words with music and drama to lift them off the page as part of performances. His works have been performed at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City, and his innovations on the poetic form have been warmly received in Europe. His best-known performance work was The Abortionist, which caused a furor of comment both at its original performance in 1963 and on its publication with another of Atkins's works as Two by Atkins: The Abortionist and The Corpse: Two Poetic Dramas to be Set to Music (Free Lance, 1963). At a time when abortion was rarely discussed openly, Atkins's representation of a naked woman undergoing the procedure on stage was considered scandalous by some critics, courageous by others. Atkins has also composed musical pieces including, with Langston Hughes and Hale Smith, a work published as Elegy (Highgate, 1968). He has also experimented with the short-story form, lectured widely, and served on literary advisory boards, including participation in the activities of the National Endowment for the Arts.

Atkins's first book of poems, A Podium Presentation, was published by Free Lance in 1960. Collections that followed include Phenomena (Free Lance, 1961), Objects (Hearse, 1961), Objects 2 (Renegade, 1964), Heretofore (Breman, 1968), Here in The (Cleveland State University, 1976), and Whichever (Free Lance, 1978). His collection of short stories, Maleficium was published in 1971 to some adverse reviews that criticized the violent content of the work. In 1991, Atkins privately published Juxtapositions: A Manifesto. He received an honorary doctorate from Cleveland State University in 1976 and a supporting grant from the Ohio Arts Council in 1978.

posted in Cleveland Dreams - 0 replies

d.a. Levy

2006-05-20T05:09:34Z

D. A. Levy
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
d.a. levy (1942-1968) was a Cleveland, Ohio-based artist, poet and alternative publisher active during the 1960s. d.a. levy was born Darryl Allan Levy on October 29, 1942 to Joseph J. and Carolyn Levy living on Cleveland's near West side. Toward the end of his high school years and later, during a short stint in the Navy, levy became frustrated with his perceived lack of respect from authority figures and turned to poetry as an outlet for his frustrations. He later found creative outlet in publishing on a small printing press. During this time he also discovered spiritual outlet in Buddhism. levy published his own and other's works, printed on his hand press or a mimeograph through his Renegade Press and Seven Flowers Press. His poetry and political activities kept him in trouble with the law. In 1966 he was indicted for distributing obscene poetry to minors. He was arrested again in 1967, prompting a benefit reading on May 14, 1967 on the Case Institute of Technology campus which drew such figures as Allen Ginsberg, Tuli Kupferberg and the Fugs. levy committed suicide on November 24, 1968 at the age of 26.

External links

d.a.levy Chronology
http://members.aol.com/lsmithdog/bottomdog/APARTIALCHRONOLOGYOFd.htm

d.a.levy Homepage
http://www.thing.net/~grist/l&d/dalevy/dalevy.htm

d.a.levy Bibliography
http://www.thing.net/~grist/ld/dalevy/lev-b-p.htm

Jim Lowell's Checklist
http://www.litkicks.com/Lists/LevyWorks.html

Cleveland Memory Project
http://www.clevelandmemory.org/levy/

d.a.levy Index
http://www.verdantpress.com/levy.html

posted in Cleveland Dreams - 0 replies

Welcome to Cleveland Dreams.....

2006-05-19T18:00:11Z

A Tribute to the Cleveland Poets

Including...........

• d.a. Levy

• Russell Atkins

• Kent Taylor

• Russel Salamon

• Tom Khryss

• Jau Billera

• Geoffrey Cooke

And of course Jim Lowell and his hugely influential Asphodel Bookstore which served as a nucleus to the Cleveland Poetry Scene.

~aaR

posted in Cleveland Dreams - 2 replies

Short Biographies lof the main Poets.

2006-05-13T23:02:41Z

I am going to list very short bios of the main Cleveland Poets.

Please feel free to ADD any relevant information YOU may have or might come across; poems, biographical information, photographs, art., etc.

I am just beginning. I hope to learn more with your assistance.

~aaR

posted in Cleveland Dreams - 0 replies