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EileenINTRODUCTION by Eileen Kaufman

BANNAM ALLEY, where John Kelley printed Beatitude in 1959 was a little walk down place that drew poets out of the woodworks of North Beach, a lot of them stood in the alley drinking Thunderbird Wine, leaning against the walls of the Anxious Asp. The walls of that street, open at both ends, lured poets like Jack Spicer and his followers, the White Rabbit poets, Black Mountain poets,(Robert Stock), Academic poets, Beat and Jazz poets, they all had their own coterie, moving up and down the two steps of the busy press

The Jazz Workshop on Broadway tempted us nightly with the best. Sonny Rollins, Diz and Miles, Coltrane, Cannonball...From there we might drop into the 'Monkey Block's famous Bohemian bar, the Black Cat. Sometimes we's see the beret of a particularly animated Henri Lenoir, then owner of Vesuvio's on Columbus Avenue. Our favorite hangouts were "the cradle of creativity ", the Coexistence Bagel Shop, The tea Room and Coffee Gallery, both on upper Grant Avenue and the Caffe Trieste and Tosca where they had and still have opera on the jukebox.

After hours, Eric's Pad in the produce section, or Jimbo's on Filmore Street. These were the places frequented after a lively evening of Jazz/ poetry at The Cellar, where Kenneth Rexroth, Kenneth Patchen, David Meltzer, John Weiners, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Allen Ginseng held forth their poetry, with the jazz sounds of "Brew Moore Group; *Pony Poindexter, *Steve lacey, and our own poets backup, Omar, on trombone, Bobby Sieder, sax, Bill Wiesjahn, piano, a wild man by the name of Bill Young on drums. Bill Wiesjahn was the local pianist, but we also had Johnny Baker, our own 'Bud Powell" and whenever he fell by , he ripped the joint. All the asterisk guys became expatriates, Like Dexter Gordon , moving to different countries in Europe. The only one I hear from now is Steve Lacey, who corresponds with me from Paris. He is writing charts around Bob's poems. Those were the days of hot basement jazz and poetry that woke up the rest of the world poetry scene to the possibilities of the new poetic/jazz forms.

This issue (vol. 2) we chose a cover portrait of Victor Hernandez-Cruz standing in Bannam Alley. This is intentionally environmental as it is the original location of our first Beatitude Press. His portrait is by German Photographer, Christa Fleischmann. Christa, a close friend to the North Beach scene and who also did my portrait published fro this introduction, spent the sixties and seventies photographing the poets of North Beach. Her collection is titled "Mark In Time" and was published by Glide Press in 1971. She resides in San Francisco.

The primary Jazz Great photographs highlighting this issue's poems are by a KJAZ Broadcasting photographer, Brian McMillan, a member of Apprentice Alliance. Beatitude Editor/photographer, Michelle Boleyn, also a KJAZ photographer and 'AP' member includes some images. The winner of the ??? anonymous poet award in Vol. 1 is Joel Climenhaga, Professor of Theatre Arts and Dance at Teikyo Westmar University in LeMars, Iowa. He is a 'Kenneth Patchen' scholar, for it was of course an excerpt from page 219 of the 1947 Padell Edition of 'See You In The Morning' by Kenneth Patchen, Miriam Patchen has promised we can feature her husband's work in a future issue

... Au Revoir, Eileen Kaufman, Publisher. (North Beach 1992)

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