Poet Be Like God

Jack Spicer and the San Francisco Renaissance

by Lewis Ellingham; Kevin Killian

This biography of an often-ignored Beat poet begins in the early days of the West Coast Beat movement during the '50s, and ends with his death in 1965 of alcohol-related liver failure. Believing that selling poetry was the worst kind of careerism, the acerbic, anti-Semitic Spicer raged against the success of Beat luminaries like Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, and remained defiantly out of the mainstream.

Editions of Poet Be Like God

ISBN

9780819553089

Binding/Format

Hardcover

Publisher

Wesleyan Univ Pr

Date

1998

Price

$24.90

NEW/NEW

Publisher Notes

Jack Spicer, unlike his contemporaries Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and Gary Snyder, was a poet who disdained publishing and relished his role as a social outcast. He died in 1965 virtually unrecognized, yet in the following years his work and thought have attracted and intrigued an international audience. Now this comprehensive biography gives a pivotal poet his due. Based on interviews with scores of Spicer's contemporaries, Poet Be Like God details the most intimate aspects of Spicer's life - his family, his friends, his lover - illuminating not only the man but also many of his poems. The resultant narrative of the San Francisco Renaissance and the emergence of the North Beach gay scene during the 50s and 60s will be indispensable reading for students of American literature and gay studies.

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