Craft: Bob Kaufman

Bob Kaufman in his natural habitat, the City Lights Bookstore, San Francisco

Bob Kaufman (1925-1986) was a peripheral Beat figure, whose work was highly idiosyncratic with both Surrealist and jazz influences. He was the tenth of 13 mixed Jewish and Black children. Though he was born in New Orleans, he is most associated with San Francisco, and the poetry that came from there in the 60s and 70s, mostly from the City Lights Bookshop.

Kaufman thrived among the Beat artists in San Francisco, an important group who included Jack Spicer, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Philip Lamantia, John Wieners, Jess, Robert Duncan, Stan Brakhage, Harry Smith, Jay DeFeo, Gary Snyder, Joanne Kyger, Wallace Berman, Rachel Rosenthal, and Anna Halprin.

Kaufman was peripheral because he was Black, he was Jewish, and his poems were more political than those of the rest of the Beats. Kaufman coined the word “beatnik” because the police had a vendetta against him and arrested and “beat” him 37 times.