Live! From City Lights

David Meltzer reads from When I Was a Poet

Accompanied by a reading from his creative partner, Julie Rogers, David Meltzer read at City Lights on June 24th, 2011 from his new collection of poetry, When I Was A Poet. A dual milestone in City Lights history, When I Was a Poet is volume 60 of the Pocket Poets Series as well as our first book of poems by this renowned Beat author.

The title piece is an ambitious work by a master at the height of his powers, a spiritual assessment of the meaning of a lifetime spent writing poetry. Also included are portraits of key figures in the poet’s life, including Semina artist Wallace Berman, as well as “California Dreamin’,” a reminiscence of Beat-era bohemian life. Among its other highlights are the vintage, previously uncollected series, “French Broom,” a nutty homage to “Mr. Peanut,” a section of mystical “amulets,” and complete versions of “Night Reals” and “Dogma,” which appear here for the first time. With its profound meditations on love, loss, aging, and death, When I Was a Poet is a substantial contribution to American poetry by one of its foremost living practitioners.

David Meltzer is a poet associated with both the Beat Generation and the San Francisco Renaissance. A pioneer of jazz poetry readings, Meltzer also formed a psychedelic folk-rock group. He continues to perform with the music and poetry review, “Rockpile.” He has edited many anthologies, including San Francisco Beat: Talking with the Poets (City Lights, 2001), and has published 11 erotic novels. He also taught for many years in the poetics program at New College of California. In 2005, Penguin Books published David’s Copy: The Selected Poems of David Meltzer.

 

Rebecca Brown reads from her new collection of essays American Romances, published by City Lights Books

This collection of mordant, poignant and playful essays shows Rebecca Brown at the height of her imaginative and intuitive powers. A wry and incisive social and literary critique is couched in a gonzo mix of pop culture, autobiography, fiction, literary history, misremembered movie plots and fantasy that plays with the notion of what it is to be “American.”

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Rebecca Brown, Kevin Killian, Dodie Bellamy, and Robert Gluck celebrate the release of Life As We Show It: Writing On Film, edited by Brian Pera and Masha Tupitsyn and published by City Lights.

Life As We Show It is a dynamic cross-genre collection that uses short stories, essays, and poetry to explore the cinematic experience. In these innovative writings, the movie-viewer relationship is positioned as protagonist, theme and plot, and most importantly, as a new genre in its own right.

 

David Hilliard discusses Huey Newton’s life, the legacy of the Black Panther Party, and Newton’s newly republished book, To Die for the People, published by City Lights Books.

Was Huey Newton a gifted leader of his people or a dangerous outlaw? Were the Black Panthers heroes or terrorists? Whether Newton and the Panthers are remembered in a positive or a negative light, no one questions Newton’s status as one of America’s most important revolutionaries. Long an iconic figure for radicals, Huey Newton is now being discovered by those interested in the history of America’s social movements. This new release of a classic collection of his writings and speeches traces the development of Newton’s personal and political thinking, as well as the radical changes that took place in the formative years of the Black Panther Party.

With a rare and persuasive honesty, To Die for the People records the Party’s internal struggles, rivalries and contradictions, and the result is a fascinating look back at a young revolutionary group determined to find ways to deal with the injustice it saw in American society. And, as a new foreword by Elaine Brown makes eminently clear, Newton’s prescience and foresight make these documents strikingly pertinent today.

David Hilliard is a founding member and Chief of Staff of the Black Panther Party, was involved in every major activity of the best recognized African American organization of the 1960s and 70s. Hillard, a vibrant voice on our recent history, speaks eloquently to the racial divisions in America today. Hilliard is author of the book, This Side of Glory.

This podcast was recorded January 14, 2010 at City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco

 

Kevin Killian reads from his new collection of new fiction, Impossible Princess, published by City Lights Books

Impossible Princess is the third collection of gay short fiction by Kevin Killian. An original member of the notorious San Francisco-based “new narrative” circle including Dennis Cooper and Kathy Acker, Killian is a master short story writer, crafting campy yet edgy tales that explore both the humor and darkness of desire. From an examination of an ex-British-boy-band-member’s skeevy skivvies, to a sexual assault inside a copy machine, to a nocturnal tryst in a panther cage, Impossible Princess runs a bizarre gamut of erotic experience, where the appetite of lust is only satisfied by the peculiar unexpected.

A founder and former director of Small Press Traffic, Kevin Killian has long been a hidden favorite of gay literary San Francisco. Killian has published numerous books, including two previous story collections, the Pen award-winning Little Men (1996) and I Cry Like a Baby (2001). His latest novel, Spreadeagle (2010), is published by Alyson Books. With his wife Dodie Bellamy, he edits the long-running poetry zine, Mirage/Periodical. His work has been widely anthologized and has appeared in, among others, Best American Poetry 1988 (ed. John Ashbery), and Discontents (ed. Dennis Cooper).

Recorded Thursday, December 3 at City Lights Books in San Francisco

Yippie co-founder. merry prankster and satirical provocateur Paul Krassner reads from Who’s to Say What’s Obscene?: Politics, Culture and Comedy in America Today, published by City Lights Books, July 15, 2009.

Fans of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Onion will appreciate this timely collection of satirical essays by counterculture icon Paul Krassner. With irreverence and an often X-rated wit, Krassner explores contemporary comedy, and obscenity in politics and culture from “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” banners to scenes cut out of recent movies, including Borat.

In his essay “Don Imus Meets Michael Richards” Krassner examines racism in comedy from Lenny Bruce to Dave Chapelle, on The Sarah Silverman Show and Curb Your Enthusiasm, and in controversial comic strips like The Boondocks.

“These are times of repression,” says Krassner, “and the more repression there is, the more need there is for irreverence toward those in authority.”

Praise for Paul Krassner:

“He is an expert at ferreting out hypocrisy and absurdism from the more solemn crannies of American culture.” — New York Times

“To classify Krassner as a social rebel is far too cute. He’s a nut, a raving, unconfined nut.” — Federal Bureau of Investigation

“The FBI was right. This man is dangerous—and funny; and necessary.” — George Carlin

Lew Welch, advertising copy-writer, taxi cab driver, and one of the principal poets of the Beat Generation in San Francisco, reads from his poetry at a raucous evening at San Francisco’s Glide Memorial Church on June 8, 1968.

Read more about Ring of Bone, the collected poems of Lew Welch. A new edition will by published by City Lights in June 2012.

This podcast was made possible by the generous folks at the Pacifica Radio Archives.

On the occasion of her becoming San Francisco’s 5th Poet Laureate, we thought we’d celebrate the work of Diane di Prima with a podcast of her reading from her book, Revolutionary Letters in October 2007. Di Prima succeeds Jack Hirschman, who served in the position from 2006 to 2009. Allen Ginsberg described her as “a revolutionary activist of the 1960s Beat literary renaissance.” City Lights was fortunate to have published her Pieces of a Song: Selected Poems in 1990.

 

City Lights celebrated the release of San Francisco Noir 2: The Classics (published by Akashic Books) with a Valentine’s Day reading inside Tenderloin’s wonderfully seedy Ha Ra Club bar.

Some like to spend this romantic holiday amidst candles and soft music. Not us. It was an evening of passionate heckling and literary transgression as Peter Maravelis, the editor of San Francisco Noir, hosted a release party for a second volume of hardboiled fiction celebrating the underbelly of our city-by-the-bay.

Authors from San Francisco Noir, Volumes One and Two read selections from their works and the works of noir masters of the past. The evening included readings by Craig Clevenger, author of The Contortionist’s Handbook and Dermaphoria; David Corbett, author Blood of Paradise and Done for a Dime; Don Herron, original Suicide Club member & creator of The Dashiell Hammett Tour; John Shirley, cyber-punk trailblazer, author of Black Glass; Sin Sorrocco, original Black Lizard author, author of Low Bite and Edge City; and Domenic Stansberry,
author of The Last Days of Il Duce and The Ancient Rain

We couldn’t include them all (owing to limited space and an uncooperative and very loud refrigeration system), but we present for you here two readers from that evening:

Don Herron, original Suicide Club member & creator of The Dashiell Hammett Tour, & Domenic Stansberry, author of The Last Days of Il Duce and The Ancient Rain.