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Bob Kaufman centennial celebration April 17 – 19, 2025

Join us the weekend of April 17-19 to celebrate the centennial of Bob Kaufman.
His official birthday is Friday April 18th.
All of the events listed below are free to attend. They will not be livestreamed but will be recorded for eventual posting.

Thursday April 17 @ 7pm
Live Worms Gallery
1345 Grant Ave.
Words by Will Alexander
Followed by rare film clips including a screening of HEARTBEAT by Will Combs.
Also a screening of Bob’s first reading, after an extended period of silence, in San Francisco in December, 1974 by filmmaker Horace Washington.
Horace and Will are scheduled to appear.

Friday April 18 @ 5pm
Golden Sardine
362 Columbus Ave.
Poets reading Bob Kaufman include: James Cagney, Garrett Caples, Kevin Dublin, Tongo Eisen-Martin, Erica Lewis, & French translations w/ Quentin Jeanroy.

Friday April 18 @ 7pm
SunnyCo Studio
480 Francisco St.
Raymond Foye and Tate Swindell discuss the Collected Poems of Bob Kaufman, moderated by John Geluardi.
Words by devorah major to follow.

Saturday April 19 @ 6pm
Lion’s Den Bar and Lounge
57 Wentworth Pl.
Group reading of SECOND APRIL by Stellar Cassidy, Kevin Dublin, S.A. Griffin, J. Brandon Loberg, Jessica Loos, Sarah Menefee, Andrew Paul Nelson, Michael Stewart, Tate Swindell, Niko Van Dyke, Cara Vida, Michael Young. With additional words and music by Eric Mingus.

The talented Nicholas James Whittington, of Impart Ink has produced another stellar letterpress broadside for the occasion.
Limited edition of 100 copies featureing Bob’s BONSAI POEMS.
All sales of the broadside go directly to Robert Parker Kaufman.

Hope to see you at the events!

Click below to buy the centennial poster.





Click below to buy the centennial broadside.





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SOLAR HITS book release event @ City Lights Books March 13, 2025

City Lights and Lithic Press celebrate the publication of

Solar Hits

By Tate Swindell

Published by Lithic Press click here to purchase from Asterism Books

Tate Swindell in conversation with Julien Poirier in the Poetry Room at City Lights.

The first full length collection by San Francisco poet and archivist, Tate Swindell. These poems reflect Swindell’s long acquaintance with various ways of working with language. It’s all here: the jazz – the city – the mind – the longing – the high – the friend – the birds – the skin – the street – the show – the no where to go – the next election – the loss – the what-to-do – the Say-Hey – the marketing concept – the lava within – the imaginary dreamer – the human shout… this is Tate Swindell picking the lock of the heart with a question for the sun, which comes singing back to you.

Archivist, Poet and Photographer, Tate Swindell is the founder of Unrequited Records, which specializes in poetry records released on the vinyl format. Editor of On Valencia Street: Poems and Ephemera by Jack Micheline (Lithic Press, 2019). Co-editor of the Collected Poems of Bob Kaufman for City Lights Books (2019). Tate, and his brother Todd, worked extensively on the Harold Norse archives, which were donated to the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley. He is currently writing short stories about his experiences in the San Francisco medical cannabis movement. Previous collections of writings include Palpitations; The Creation of Deadlines; and Fotopomes.

Julien Poirier is a poet living in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is the author of several poetry collections, and the editor of an anthology of writing and a book of travel journals. His published work includes El Golpe Chileño (Ugly Duckling, 2010), Stained Glass Windows of California (Ugly Duckling, 2012), Way Too West (Bootstrap, 2015) and Out of Print (City Lights). He is one of the founding members of Ugly Duckling Press and currently edits the journal called Night Mail.

Made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation.

Click here to register for the City Lights stream via Zoom.

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David Dondero – Chaos the Cat

“Chaos the Cat” takes readers on a journey into the heart of California’s cannabis legalization era, where a secluded pot farm becomes the backdrop for a clash between preservation and exploitation. Amidst this backdrop, a diverse group of characters converges, each seeking their own form of self-improvement. At the center of the conflict is a trio of antagonists whose schemes threaten the harmony of the farm, pitting greed against enlightenment.

The protagonists, an artist dedicated to meditation, a trumpet player on the journey to sobriety, a Vietnam POW with cultivation expertise, and a serene guru overseeing the farm, unite in a unique collaboration to safeguard their sanctuary. The tale is narrated by Chaos, the cat, reincarnated from an artist deeply connected to the farm. Through Chaos’s feline perspective, readers witness personal transformations, humor, and wisdom amidst the unfolding drama, fostering a sense of shared experience.

As the story progresses, the farm becomes a microcosm of larger societal changes, with characters banding together to defend their sanctuary. “Chaos the Cat” ultimately explores themes of resilience, redemption, and community spirit, underscored by the unpredictability of nature’s influence on their fate.

Limited Edition, casebound with debossed artwork on canvas, of 150 copies all signed and numbered by David Dondero.

We are reserving the remaining copies for the book release in San Francisco. Thank you to everyone who purchased the book!

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El Sol poetry book by Rosemary Manno

The late poet Rosemary Manno moved to San Francisco in 1983. She grew up in Buffalo, New York and had lived in Paris whenever possible. Most winters she would travel to her beloved Mexico with artist-musician Roger Strobel. They shared a home life in North Beach for many years.

Rosemary was a poet, artist, lover of foreign tongues, the natural world and revolutionary struggle. Her work has appeared in numerous chapbooks, magazines and anthologies.

El Sol is a posthumous collection of poems that Rosemary and editor Tate Swindell worked on during the final years of her life. Faced with a terminal diagnosis of brain cancer these poems deal with the fragility of life with an uncompromising and unwavering fierceness that embodies the true spirit of Rosemary Manno.





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Vali Myers, A Memoir

A legend in her own time, Australian artist Vali Myers was the premiere dancer with the Melbourne Modern Ballet at the age of seventeen. Leaving home in 1950, she spent years in Paris, where the Dutch photographer Ed van der Elsken photographed her and some of the other young people hanging out in the cafes. Those photos became the book, Love on the Left Bank. During that period she befriended George Plimpton, who published an article about her, along with some of her drawings, in The Paris Review, the first time her artwork was in print.

In 1958, Vali and her then-husband Rudi Rappold made a home for themselves in the wild Valley of Il Porto in Positano, Italy, where she would live for the next forty years, working on her exquisite drawings and looking after a large menagerie of animals. She fought local authorities who wanted to introduce loggers into the Valley, and succeeded in having it designated a protected wildlife oasis.

When she returned to Australia in 1993 for the first time since she’d left, she found herself welcomed as a national treasure. In this memoir by her long-time companion Gianni Menichetti, Vali’s life and life’s work are brought into beautiful, clear focus with wit, candor, and great affection.

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Jan. 16th @ Bird & Beckett — book release & Q & A with Thomas Antonic – author of Amongst Nazis – William S. Burroughs in Vienna 1936/37

Thomas Antonic will speak about his latest book Amongst Nazis / Unter Nazis (William S. Burroughs in Vienna 1936/37). The presentation includes rare WSB audio and photos related to the book. Tate Swindell will join Thomas onstage for Q & A.

Thomas Antonic’s essay Amongst Nazis (Unter Nazis) is an expanded version of his lecture Dr. Benway meets Dr. Pernkopf: Burroughs and the Nazi Doctors in Vienna 1936/37 held on 4 October 2018 in Vienna as part of the seventh annual conference of the European Beat Studies Network. Moloko Plus has now published this essay in both English and German. Complete with illustrations, footnotes, introductions and postscripts in both languages this edition has not only turned into a thorough study of Burroughs’s stay in Vienna but also into a beautifully designed edition in the hands of Kai Pohl.

In the blurb on the cover of the book Beat scholar and Professor of American Literature Oliver Harris writes: “His mid-1930s visit to Vienna has always seemed a brief but colourful episode in William S. Burroughs’ biography, but Antonic’s study has turned it into a transformative chapter in the writer’s life. Based on meticulous and extensive historical research, Amongst Nazis not only gives the first detailed and accurate account of Burroughs’ experience there but offers new insights into its impact on his literary life, including the reasons why the city where Burroughs studied medicine was the birthplace of his most notorious character, Dr. Benway.”

Click here for link to Sea-Urchin website to purchase the book.                  (Please note this book ships from Europe.)

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Bob Kaufman broadside – TIN PAN ALLEY

 

This letterpress broadside, 10 x 14 inches, was exquisitely produced by Nick Whittington at Impart Ink in Oakland.

The poem was discovered, by poet S.A. Griffin, after the Collected Poems of Bob Kaufman went to print.

Bob wrote this poem in NYC in 1961. Thus, 61 copies were printed to celebrate Parker Kaufman’s 61st birthday. 100% of the sales of this broadside go directly to Parker.





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Bob Kaufman – Rappin Elite

Limited Edition of 200
Heavyweight 180 gram
Available in 3 different colors of virgin vinyl
No digital version !
Release date  October 13, 2020
Culled from various source tapes this is Bob Kaufman as you’ve never heard him before! On stage, at home, in bars and cafés, Bob is Rappin Elite.




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Gregory Corso – The Gold Standard

Limited Edition of 250
Heavyweight 200 gram
Gold colored virgin vinyl
No digital version !
Available August 1, 2019
This record was compiled from the recently discovered Scrivani Tapes. George Scrivani, Corso’s longtime friend, traveled with Gregory in the late 1970s throughout Europe. Having cut his bootlegging chops at various Operas in Europe, Scrivani recorded Corso at various readings, interviews and events. This included an impromptu lecture Corso gave at the JFK Institute, in Berlin, on the genealogy of the Beat Generation.
Upon returning stateside, Scrivani continued to record Corso in San Francisco, in the 1980s, at locations such as S.F. Art Institute, New College (r.i.p.) and the legendary Keystone Korner in the North Beach neighborhood.
The Keystone Korner tapes include a phenomenal reading with Allen Ginsberg in 1980. The two had not read together in San Francisco since 1956.
Another Keystone Korner tape features Jaki Byard on piano, the legendary multi-instrumentalist/composer/arranger,  joins Corso for two extended poems.
Each side contains 27 minutes of unprecedented Corso material.
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Purchase

Click on the link below to Download these albums
Bandcamp.com

 

ATTENTION INTERNATIONAL BUYERS
Please send an email before purchasing and we will send you an invoice with the correct shipping amount. Most international shipping is $25.




Click above to purchase Gregory Corso – The Gold Standard
$30.00 does not include shipping and tax



Click above to purchase Ronnie Burk – A Man of Letters Vinyl Record
$20.00 does not include shipping and tax



Click above to purchase Ronnie Burk – A Man of Letters CD
$10.00 does not include shipping and tax



Click above to purchase Jack Micheline – Give America A Break (Double Vinyl Record)
$30.00 does not include shipping and tax

SOLD OUT!

Click above to purchase Jack Micheline – Give America A Break CD (2 Discs)
$13.00 does not include shipping and tax




Click above to purchase Herbert Huncke CD (2 Discs)
$20.00 does not includes shipping and tax




Click above to purchase Jack Micheline In Amsterdam CD
$10.00 does not include shipping and tax




Click above to purchase Harold Norse (Double Vinyl Record)
$30.00 does not include shipping and tax

 

SOLD OUT!
Click above to purchase Harold Norse CD
$10.00 does not include shipping and tax

 

SOLD OUT!
Click above to purchase David Dondero ‘Golden Hits Vol. 1’ record
$22.00 does not include shipping and tax




Click Above to purchase David Dondero ‘This Guitar’ record
$18.00 does not include shipping and tax

Also available in these stores:

Beyond Baroque (Venice, California)

Please send check or money order to:
Unrequited Records
4304 18th Street #14903
San Francisco, CA
94114
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Ronnie Burk – a man of letters

The first half of this album contains various rare recordings of Ronnie including radio interviews & call-ins, specially taped segments for the ACTUP pirate radio show, as well as a visit to local San Francisco Lowell High School.

Hear Ronnie read Arthur Rimbaud, his own poetry including a brilliant collage letter to Andrei Codrescu, on confronting internal homophobia, the Aquarian love revolution, the rainbow credit card, rage as healing & how love is our greatest weapon.

The second half features more than two dozen friends & admirers reading Ronnie’s poems or sharing their remembrances & tribute poems. Included among the readers: Diane Di Prima, Andrei Codrescu, Lorna Dee Cervantes, Bob Holman, Will Alexander, Inés Hernández-Ávila, Sam Green, Mia Stageberg, Valery Oisteanu, Elaine Katzenberger and more…

Available on 12-inch vinyl, digipak CD or digital download, each version is unique and contains material not available on other formats.




Click above to purchase Ronnie Burk – A Man of Letters Vinyl Record
$20.00 does not include shipping and tax




Click above to purchase Ronnie Burk – A Man of Letters CD
$10.00 does not  include shipping and tax
Released September 10, 2016