francEyE | Call | Rose of Sharon Press

francEyE the bearded witch of Ocean Park, was born Frances Elizabeth Dean in San Rafael, California, on St. Joseph’s Day, 1922. Without consulting her, her parents whisked her off to the East Coast where she grew up, beginning to publish in the 1930s in school newspapers and Scholastic. She studied verse writing with Grace Hazard Conkling at Smith College in 1941, had a villanelle published by William Rose Benét in his column The Conning Tower in the Saturday Review of Literature in 1942, but then wrote little and published nothing until about 1963, when she finally returned to California. She has been writing, attending poetry workshops, and publishing here and there ever since.

Her work has been included in The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry, in L.A. Woman (published in Germany), in two British periodicals, in The Chiron Review, among many others and will be included in the forthcoming anthology of California poets to be published by Tebot Bach next month. Her book of poems, Snaggletooth in Ocean Park, was published in 1996 by The Sacred Beverage Press. Pearl #25 contains a 21-poem sequence called “Why Steal Fire?” Blue Satellite Final Issue contains a 27-poem sequence called The Asteroid Poems

Known as the bearded witch of Ocean Park and the female Charles Bukowski (with whom she had a child), francEyE has been a fixture in the Southern California poetry scene for more than four decades. She writes prolifically in a style compared to Ron Koertge and William Carlos Williams, and frequents poetry readings in both Los Angeles County and the San Francisco Bay Area. Continue reading

Gazelle Poetry Books

Gazelle Book Services is one of the most experienced book distribution companies in Europe, offers a fast, flexible and effective distribution service stretching across Great Britain, Ireland, Eastern and Western Europe. Since its inception in 1988, Gazelle has built up an unparalleled range of international publishers with lists spanning more than 200 subject areas. Continue reading

Zeitgeist Press

Zeitgeist Press started in 1986 to publish work from a group of poets generating tremendous heat at the Cafe Babar readings in San Francisco. It was originally a collective more than a traditionally structured press, which explains both the press strengths and weaknesses. All the way back to the late 1950s North Beach Coffee Gallery, there was a Thursday night open reading in San Francisco. This community spawned some incredible poets– Bob Kaufman, Richard Brautigan, Jack Micheline. Other top poets of the era passed through as well– Diane di Prima, Ginsberg first drafted Howl at a cubbyhole in North Beach, Jack Gilbert, Corso & Kerouac, Rexroth, Ferlinghetti, etc. The reading had died down, lost energy, by the mid-1980s when it moved to the Mission District in 1985. Bruce Isaacson and David Lerner, Julia Vinograd, Bana Witt, were the original partners in the 4 books that came out on Zeitgeist Press at the end of 1987. Lerner named the press and did publicity. Isaacson handled the business side, the mechanics, and acted as publisher. Both edited books by various authors, as did poets and others. Continue reading

Alex Gildzen

Alex Gildzen One of the legendary figures in the underground poetry movement. Alex Gildzen has a long list of chapbooks – from Into the Sea (Abraxas Press 1969) to Outlaw Dreams (Green Panda Press 2008). Some of his earliest poems were published by d.a. levy in Marrawannah Quarterly and by Hugh Fox in The Living Underground: An Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry. His LSD poem appeared in the Masters & Houston classic Psychedelic Art. He edited the little magazine Toucan whose contributors included Gary Snyder and Paul Metcalf. In 2003 Gildzen appeared on Todd Moore’s “List of One Hundred Outlaw Poets.” Continue reading

Todd Moore | 1937 – 2010 | Dillinger poems

For your information gansta poetry in this country isn’t Bukowski’s invention, it’s mine. I’ve been making this kind of stuff since 1970 give or take. And, it has nothing to do with Bukowski’s style or subject matter. Bukowski was the pornagrapher of pussy and a damned good one at that. I’m the pornographer of violence. — Todd Moore Continue reading