11 Comments
User's avatar
Dwight Lee Wolter's avatar

How come I didn’t get to write this delicious line: “Every time I open my big mouth

I put my soul in it”?

Expand full comment
Bruce Isaacson's avatar

Bob Kaufman is THE most important Beat poet. He manages to be almost totally unknown while his Selected Works won a National Book Award in 2020, almost 25 years after his death. Thanks to Poetic Outlaws for reminding us.

Expand full comment
Maryann Lawrence's avatar

I have never heard of this poet. I adore this poem. So much beautiful wisdom. Thank you for introducing me to Bob Kaufman.

Expand full comment
Mitch Ritter's avatar

He was a saint sent to San Francisco where his writing is enshrined in Beat mausoleums and also wherever the new Oral Poetics is being heard and exchanged in public. Don't leave your search to AI. Go talk to a bookstore clerk or library associate about Bob Kaufman. For even more concision than the language of poets, try wiki:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Kaufman

He walked the earth as one of many caffeine toasts in Cafe Society of the Street Curbs......

Go out or stay in and spear yerself some Jazz Poetics....

Warmly,

Tio Mitchito

Mitch Ritter\Paradigm Sifters, Code Shifters, PsalmSong Chasers

Lay-Low Studios, Ore-Wa (Refuge of A-Tone-ment Seekers)

Media Discussion List\Looksee

Expand full comment
Dwight Lee Wolter's avatar

Nice poncho. Perfect stache. Great hat. Mirror reflection even better. Name of business misleading: restaurant, art museum, coffee bean exhibition?

Expand full comment
Benthall Adventures's avatar

I like your rhythm…how it stirs like jazz in a storm.

The cadence crashes, resurrects, unravels.

A rebel’s breath tucked into a beat.

Waked eyes, wrecked halls, whispered truths.

Thanks for throwing a match into the dark -

I’m watching the edges catch fire.

Expand full comment
Jane Hayward's avatar

This is such an enlightening, true article & beautifully and engagingly written.

Expand full comment
ashfont press's avatar

Rebels, here in the land of rebellion still get shunned for rebelling.

What is rebellion even, for to the fish— breathing the cool crisp air is rebellion.

And in the land of rebellion not rebelling might be the rebellion.

Expand full comment
Lisa B. Martin    zihuawriter's avatar

Bam! Rebel versus dissenter. Excellent point to ponder.

Expand full comment
Oseghale Nicholas's avatar

Nice article there.

Expand full comment
Brenda Dyack's avatar

“nerve paneled corridors of imagination” perfect

Expand full comment