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.

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.)