Beatnik poet Bob Kaufman dies at 60
An S.F. original who heard
the 'beat between the beats' in
By
Larry D. Hatfield
OF THE EXAMINER STAFF
Bob Kaufman, the original beatnik whose
poetry labeled him a mad genius and his behavior, a madman, is dead.
Called variously a "black American
Rimbaud," a common drunk, "the original be-bop man,"
and a neighborhood nuisance, Mr. Kaufman died In a San Francisco residential
care home yesterday morning.
He
was 60.
The
listed cause of his death was emphysema, from which he suffered for years. He
also suffered from cirrhosis of the liver which purportedly ended his legendary
drinking several year's ago, but not his regular
visits to various
It was in one of those bars, Gino's and
Carlo's, where Mr. Kaufman delivered one of his more immortal, though
unpublished lines. According to Examiner columnist Warren' Hinckle, another
habitue, Kaufman delivered this line in the stentorian tone that used to draw,
cops from blocks around:
"Why turn a perfectly good frog into
a princess?"
Mr.
.Kaufman and his hangabouts, Jack Kerouac, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Allen
Ginsberg, John Kelly, William Margolis and the ilk, created the Beat Generation
in their
It
was Mr. Kaufman, if one believes legend, who inspired
Herb Caen to coin the phrase "beatnik" after, in a fit of poetic
and/or alcoholic ecstasy, he kicked the window out of the Co-Existence Bagel
Shop while commenting on current events: "Sputnik! Sputnik!"
Born in the Louisiana Bayou to a , black Catholic mother and a German Jewish father, Mr.
Kaufman was first urged to writing by a first mate in the merchant marine and
to publishing by one of his two wives, Eileen.
He and his cohorts changed poetry and
society from their
He and they were disdainful of the
traditionalists, and said so, as in his "Solitudes Crowded with
Loneliness," In which he described them as:
"Assuming the posture of frogs, croaking at appointed times,
Loudly
treading the plastic floors of copied temples
In
creeping cardboard creatures, endlessly creeping,
In
and out of time, eating the clock by the hour,
Poets
of the gray universities in history suits,
Dripping
false Greek dirges from tweedy beards,
While all the Troys are consumed
in mushroom clouds."
In the process of exposing the public to
his art, Mr. Kaufman had an ongoing relationship with the San Francisco Police
Department, logging dozens of arrests for drinking, drugging and disturbing the
peace.
In
one of the more memorable police attempts to quell the beatnik scourge, a young
officer named William C. Bigarani stormed into the Bagel House and tore down
poems by Mr. Kaufman, writing under the name of Bomkauf and Margolis, using the
nom d'needle Bimgo.
Bigarani,
who was to tangle with the beatniks for years and dismissed Kerouac's offerings
as "drivel," was this time offended by a poem of Mr. Kaufman's which
said Adolf Hitler, bored with burning Jews and fooling around with Eva Braun,
had moved to San Francisco and become a cop.
"What
do they think a policeman is, a robot?" stormed
Bigilrani, who was fired from the force three years ago after pleading no
contest to a charge he kept $50,000 from a check-cashing and bill-paying
operation he ran at Woolworth's.
He
was not available today to comment on Mr. Kaufman's death.
A
People
like Hinckle say he did in fact talk, but he did not publish during those
years.
And
he was mostly silent. Some said it was because his voracious appetite for
booze, drugs and outrage had nudged him over the edge; more friendly sorts said
it was because his spirit had died.
Former.
wife Eileen said once to an interviewer: "He
thought Kennedy was going to be able to help the world and especially help his
people... He had a lot of faith and then the assassinations began (Kennedy,
King, Kennedy, Malcolm X, George Jackson, etc.) and one by one, they were all
cut down."
It
was with Margolis, and fellow poets Ginsberg and Kelly, that Mr. Kaufman
started Beatitude magazine here in 1959.
At
the urging of wife Eileen, he was published frequently after years of reciting
his poetry in
In his later years, Mr. Kaufman was still
seen in
He
was 86'd (barred) from almost every bar in North Beach, according to longtime
barkeeps there, because when well-served, he liked to deliver his poetry to
young customers who no longer listened to the beats between the beats.
Before he entered the convalescent home,
he lived in the old Swiss American Hotel in
But
he was still active toward the end. He received a $12.500 grant by the National
Endowment for the Arts in 1981 and did a few readings in the later years.
But
to the end, he remained the figure he often wrote about, the lonesome, even
tortured, artist, striving to:
"Swing
higher -
Defiant
into a challenge key
Screamed
over a heartbeat
Shouting
to all beat seekers
To
vanish into soft sound of jazz
And
walk into him to smokey ends
While
his jazz walks forever
Across our parched hearstrings. "
Mr.
Kaufman is survived by a son, Parker; a daughter, Antoinette; two former wives
and eight
brother
and sisters.
Memorial services are pending.