June 2008 – The Venice Beat Poets – –The Great River Outside the Mainstream – John Haag

By Jim Smith
In many ways, John Haag was a typical member of the Beat Generation in that he forsook a career in Academia or Madison Avenue, for a life dedicated to poverty, poetry and his community. But he was different in one important respect – he was political. 
The Rochester, New York native studied Italian Literature [...]

June 2008 – Poems by John Haag

 
History Lesson
That little ape that came down from a tree
and used a stick on his enemy
and called aloud to his family
to show what a great brave ape was he
made followers out of you and me.
 
That little ape that got caught in the rain
and used some branches to cover his brain
and thought up gods for rain [...]

May 2008 – The Venice Beat Poets – The Great River Outside The Mainstream – Lawrence Lipton

By Jim Smith
 
Lawrence Lipton was something of a father figure to the Beat poets of Venice. He was reviled by many of the poets for his manipulations and commercialism. Yet, they gravitated to his home at 20 Park Avenue, which became the center of the “scene” in Venice.

In contrast to the Beats in San Francisco [...]

May 2008 – Bruno In Venice West

By Lawrence Lipton
For Giordano Bruno
burned by the Inquisition
in the year 1600

Velvet and warm sweat under the torches
the Procession entered the city, tall bronze men
on the bronze great horses and the boys
carrying banners, the fat prelates wheezing
under the icons, and the musicians
Up Main street, pausing to erect
the great crucifix in the Circle
before the U.S. Post Office, [...]

April 2008 – Four Poems By James Ryan Morris

She Said 
there is a time
for us, & a place
for that – the poem.
such conflict, between
the lady & the poem
that separation is 
today, we look one
at the other, both
aware that in
the final love
there is no allowance
for tomorrow
———–
The Hope
softly, woman
softly,
your voice
my hand,
Our collaboration
of detail –
the way it is.
Quiet & softly
on the ledge
of night.
———–
Face To Face
In the cellar
I come
face [...]

April 2008 – The Venice Beat Poets – The Great River Outside The Mainstream – James Ryan Morris

By Shanna Moore 
Winter of 1959 and the boardwalk was bare, riding my bicycle along the boardwalk from Santa Monica down the coast. I’d stop at the Carousel, a gay bar on the Venice boardwalk where all the dudes and dudettes did a line dance…I loved joining in. One day this guy with the eyes of [...]

March 2008 – The Venice Beat Poets – The Great River Outside The Mainstream – Philomene Long

By Jim Smith
Philomene Long came late to the party, but she soon made up for lost time with her dynamic personality and soaring poetry. The Beat scene was a decade old when she arrived in Venice, but Long gave it new life and energy.

Readers of the Beachhead will know that her death last August resulted [...]

March 2008 – Philomene Long’s Cold Ellison I

 “Cold Ellison,” the apartment building on Paloma Avenue where she and John Thomas lived, became a theme of a number of Long’s poems.
 Cold Ellison I
By Philomene Long
“Cold cliffs more beautiful
The deeper you enter
Yet no one travels this road”
Cold Mountain – Han Shan
In this old cold building
The Ellison
In this small dark room
I sit cross-legged
Upon an old [...]

February 2008 – Interview with Venice Poet Frank T. Rios, Part 2

Part 2 (see January Beachhead for Part 1)
By Hillary Kaye

 
Beachhead: Is there anything else about Philomene Long you’d like to share?
Frankie: When she did The Beats, An Existentialist Comedy, I was involved in that. She was always a strange bird. She was outside the tip, even though she was with Stuart [Perkoff]. When he died [...]

February 2008 – The Venice Beat Poets – The Great River Outside The Mainstream – John Thomas

By Jim Smith 
Charles Bukowski – who should know – called John Thomas, “The best unread poet in America. He is the invisible genius of American poetry.”
Referring to John Thomas when he died, the London Independent quoted Lawrence Lipton, author of The Holy Barbarians about the Venice Beat “scene,” as follows: How does one review the [...]