Bob Kaufman

Robert Garnell Kaufman was born on the eighteenth of April 1925 at New Orleans, Louisiana, the son of Joseph Kaufman — a New Orleans Black-and-mixed-race waiter of German-Jewish-and-African-American descent — and Lillian Vigne Kaufman — a New Orleans Creole-and-French-Caribbean Catholic of mixed African-and-French descent. He was raised in the principal New Orleans Creole-Catholic and Black-mixed-race community of the principal interwar New Orleans Treme and Faubourg-Marigny neighbourhoods.

He served in the United States Merchant Marine from 1942 to 1953 across the Second World War and the principal post-Second-World-War period — and was hired as principal organiser of the National Maritime Union from 1947 to 1953 at the principal post-1947 maritime-union period.

He was expelled from the principal National Maritime Union at the principal post-1950 McCarthy-era loyalty-and-anti-Communist-purge period in 1953 — and relocated to North Beach, San Francisco at the principal post-1953 California Beat-literary-community founding period.

He was a principal founding figure of the principal North Beach Beat literary-and-bohemian community of the principal post-1953 period — alongside Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Gregory Corso, and the principal North Beach Beat poets-and-jazz-and-coffee-house community.

He co-founded with the principal Beat poets John Kelly, William J. Margolis, and Allen Ginsberg the principal magazine Beatitude at San Francisco in May 1959 — the principal Beat-literary-magazine of the principal post-1959 San Francisco Beat-literary-magazine period.

He published his first poetic volume Solitudes Crowded with Loneliness at the New Directions Press at New York in 1965 — the principal early-1960s Beat-literary poetic volume of the principal post-1959 San Francisco Beat-poetic-canon.

He published his second poetic volume Golden Sardine at the City Lights Books at San Francisco in 1967 — and his third poetic volume Ancient Rain at the New Directions Press at New York in 1981.

He took the principal Buddhist vow of silence at the principal post-1963 Kennedy-assassination period — and held the principal Kaufman silence from November 1963 to the principal post-1973 end-of-Vietnam-War Peace-Treaty period.

He was the principal Black-American Beat poet of the principal post-1953 San Francisco North-Beach Beat-poetic-canon — at a period in which the principal American Beat-poetic-canon was overwhelmingly white.

He died at San Francisco on the twelfth of January 1986 of complications of cirrhosis of the liver and pulmonary failure, at sixty.

He is honored here as the principal Black-American Beat poet of the San Francisco North Beach Beat tradition.