Description
Poetry. Art. Edited by Tate Swindell. This new collection features poems, ephemera, and art work from Beat Poet legend Jack Micheline. It is the largest compilation of unpublished material since Micheline's death in 1998, and includes poems, post cards, photographs and images of many pieces of original artwork by the author.
"This collection is fascinating and unique. Those of us who knew Jack, get to see a broader view of his work. Perhaps a side we did not know. An affirmation of his devotion to being a poet of the streets. All at once he pisses me off, breaks my heart and brings me joy. "—Eric Mingus
"What a treat to see this most beautiful edition of Jack Micheline's work! Poet, painter, and storyteller, Micheline never fails to fascinate me. His sense of rhythm comes through in everything he does and his way of condensing his life into his work is singularly unique. When I finish a poem his words flicker across my mind like a warm fire on a cold dark night. This book treats the reader to a wonderful cornucopia that is Jack Micheline at his best." —Bill Morgan
"ON VALENCIA STREET is a guided tour on pogo sticks of Jack Micheline’s zany, earnest mind. Editor Tate Swindell has done a terrific job of hauling Micheline back into daylight where he belongs."—Hilary Holladay
"Jack Micheline, who died on public transportation twenty-one years ago at the age of 68, was called a street poet but was in truth something different from that: a dedicated, brilliant, Jewish-American contrarian who stood for nothing but his own heart’s truths. He said about his son, Vincent, 'Who can tell him anything—he’s just like me.' 'There is something deeper than the earth,' he wrote, 'There is something deeper than the stone cities, / There is something deeper than our existence, / Deeper than all the robes of power.' He was speaking of the power of life itself. He posed, deliberately, as a crusty individual, and the pose masked the fact that he really was a crusty individual! And, no matter what he did, vivid. He could be impossible but he could also be loving, stunning, funny, a shape-shifter, an opener of the heavenly gate who looked (and sometimes acted) more like the janitor than like the angel he was. Throughout this wonderful collection, he is alive again, constantly justifying the act of being a poet. He was probably talking to his father but the words are for all of us: 'Ben, if you want to live a poet’s life / don’t stay at home jerking off / just slip from your tyrannical / commie dad and go on your own" —Jack Foley
Author Bio
Jack Micheline is the author of the poetry book ON VALENCIA STREET (Lithic Press, 2019). Micheline has never been published by the bigger presses, and according to himself he never will. He thinks he's living in "Siberia in the United States"—the loveless hell of people trying to get by in this greedy world. You'll never see this guy in a shoe commercial—that's for sure! Jack Micheline was born in the Bronx as Harvey Martin Silver. The reason for the name change was his father, a postman in whom Micheline saw the money-grabbing that could be found everywhere in the ghetto. He never liked the cruelty and injustice in his own streets. So, like many before him, he went on the road. He died in 1998.
Author City: SAN FRANCISCO, CA USA