J A C K E T # S E V E N | C O N T E N T S | H O M E P A G E |
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T I M E L I N E A S P I C E R C H R O N O L O G Y | ||
Events / and / Publications |
| 1925 | Jack Spicer Born Los Angeles | |
| U.S. drops the atomic bomb on Hiroshima (6 August) and Nagasaki (9 August). Ezra Pound incarcerated in St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington, D.C. |
1945 | Spicer attends UC Berkeley, where he meets Robin Blaser and Robert Duncan. |
| One of William Carlos Williams' Paterson. Death of Gertrude Stein. | 1946 | Occident (Winter) "To the Semanticists," "The Chess Game," & "A New Testament." |
| President Truman issues Executive Order 9835, to investigate "infiltration of disloyal persons" into the U.S. government. Virgil Thompson and Gertrude Stein's Four Saints in Three Acts. Robert Duncan's Heavenly City, Earthly City. | 1947 | Begins graduate study in English at Berkeley. Contour Quarterly vol. 1 no. 1 "After the ocean, shattering with equinox," "Chinoiserie," & "4 A.M." Occident (Fall) "Miller: Remember to Remember" (review). The Wasps (unfinished) ms. of a novel. |
| Kinsey's Sexual Behavior in the Human Male. T.S. Eliot receives the Nobel Prize in literature. Disbandment of the Berkeley Writers Conference, through which Spicer, Robert Duncan, and Robin Blaser had been teaching. | 1948 | Berkeley Miscellany no.1, Robert Duncan, ed. "A Night in Four Parts," "Troy Poem," & "Sonnet". |
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1949 | Spicer hosts a weekly folk/ballad radio show on KPFA. Occident (Fall) "The Poet & Poetry: A Symposium" (essay). Berkeley Miscellany no. 2, Robert Duncan, ed. "The Scroll-Work on the Casket." |
| Beginning of the Korean War. Senator Joseph McCarthy announces his list of 205 (or 57) communists working in the U.S. State Department. Charles Olson's "Projective Verse" appears in Poetry New York no. 3. William Carlos Williams' Collected Later Poems. | 1950 | Spicer refuses to sign the loyalty oath required by the University of California Regents; leaves to teach at the University of Minnesota. |
| Jonathan Williams founds The Jargon Society in SF. Origin founded. Charles Olson becomes rector of Black Mountain College. William Carlos Williams' Collected Earlier Poems. Marianne Moore's Collected Poems. | 1951 | Spicer's father dies. |
| Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man. | 1952 | Returns to Berkeley, signs a now-modified loyalty oath, and resumes Ph.D. work. Language: Journal of the Linguistic Society of America vol. 28 no. 3 part one "Correlation Methods of Comparing Ideolects in a Transition Area," with David W. Reed. |
| Execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. City Lights Bookstore opens. Founding of The Poetry Center at San Francisco State College. Charles Olson's Maximus 1-10 - Highlands, North Carolina: Jargon Society. | 1953 | Beginning of Spicer's involvement with The Mattachine Society; Spicer becomes head of the humanities department at the California School of Fine Arts. |
| The Army-McCarthy hearings, culminating in Senate censure of Senator Joseph McCarthy. The Black Mountain Review founded. | 1954 |
 Spicer and others found the Six Gallery; attends Duncan's poetry workshop at San Francisco State. (Photo: Jack Spicer at the Six Gallery.) |
| Rosa Parks is jailed in Montgomery, Alabama, for sitting in the "whites only" section of a city bus. Six Gallery reading, 7 October: Allen Ginsberg, Michael McClure, Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen, Philip Lamantia, with Jack Kerouac in attendance. English translation of Federico Garcia Lorca's The Poet in New York. | 1955 |
Leaves San Francisco for New York, then New York for Boston (joining Robin Blaser there). Work on the After Lorca ms. |
| Cuban Revolution begins, 2 December. U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation forms COINTELPRO. Black Mountain College closes. Ginsberg's Howl published as no. 4 in City Lights' Pocket Poets Series. | 1956 |
Spicer returns to San Francisco. Spicer's "Poetry As Magic" Workshop at the San Francisco Public Library. |
| Charles Olson reads at San Francisco State, 21 February. Howl confiscated by U.S. Customs; City Lights Books acquitted of obscenity charges. City Lights reprint of William Carlos Williams' Kora in Hell. White Rabbit Press founded with Joe Dunn as editor: Steve Jonas' Love, the Poem, the Sea & Other Pieces Examined. Jack Kerouac's On the Road. Frank O'Hara's Meditations in an Emergency - NY: Grove Press. | 1957 | After Lorca - SF: White Rabbit Press. Cover by Jess [Collins]. Sunday afternoon poetry meetings at the Dunn's house. Begins Admonitions ms. Evergreen Review no. 1 "Berkeley in A Time of Plague," "The Dancing Ape," "Hibernation - After Morris Graves," "Psychoanalysis: An Elegy," & "The Song of the Blood in the Loins." Measure no. 1 "Song for bird and myself." |
| Denise Levertov reads at The Poetry Center, January. Louis Zukofsky teaches a summer workshop at San Francisco State. Marianne Moore reads at the Poetry Center. Auerhahn Press founded: John Wieners' The Hotel Wentley Poems. Ezra Pound released from St. Elizabeth's Hospital. The Left-Handed Gun, starring Paul Newman. George Stanley's The Love Root - SF: Auerhahn Press. | 1958 | Spicer reads "For Joe" at a reading given during the Levertov reception. Work on A Book of Music ms. Sunday afternoon meetings continue at various locations. The Tower of Babel (unfinished) ms. of a detective novel. |
| Fall of Havana to Castro's revolutionary guerillas. Robin Blaser returns to San Francisco. Beatitude founded. William Burroughs' Naked Lunch. | 1959 | Billy The Kid - Stinson Beach: Enkidu Surrogate. Illustrations by Jess [Collins]. Edits the SF mimeo zine J with Fran Herndon. Sunday afternoon meetings continue. Fifteen False Propositions About God in Beatitude no. 3 Beatitude no. 6 "Epithalamium" with Ronald Primack, Bruce Boyd, and George Stanley. |
| The New American Poetry 1945-1960, ed. Donald Allen; including Spicer's "Imaginary Elegies" and famous biographical note: "Jack Spicer: 'does not like his life written down.'" Robert Duncan's The Opening of the Field - NY: Grove Press. William S. Burroughs and Brion Gysin's The Exterminator. Fran Herndon's Sports Illustrated collages. | 1960 | Homage to Creeley - SF: Harold and Dora Dull. Sunday afternoon meetings continue. Beatitude no. 17 "When I hear the word Ferlinghetti / I reach for my g..n" (attributed). |
| First Performance of Helen Adam's musical San Francisco's Burning LeRoi Jones arrested for homoerotic content of his play "Dante's System of Hell" in The Floating Bear no. 9. "The Bay of Pigs": C.I.A.-organized coup fails in Cuba. U.S. commences direct involvement in Vietnam. Berlin Wall erected overnight, 12 August. Death of H.D. [Hilda Doolittle]. | 1961 | First public reading from Heads of the Town Up to the Aether ms. Commences work on The Holy Grail ms. Sunday afternoon meetings continue. |
| Cuban Missle Crisis. John F. Kennedy assassinated, 22 November. White Rabbit Press resurrected under Graham Mackintosh. Fiftieth Anniversary issue of Poetry (Sept.-Oct.) Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle. Fuck You: A Magazine of the Arts founded. George Oppen's The Materials. John Ashbery's The Tennis Court Oath. Robert Creeley's For Love: Poems, 1950-1960. | 1962 | Heads of the Town Up to the Æther - SF: Auerhahn Press. With lithographs by Fran Herndon. Lament for the Makers - Oakland: White Rabbit Press. Illustrated by Graham Mackintosh; the acknowlegements are an exact copy of those from Robert Duncan's The Opening of the Field. "Fix Series" ms. Sunday afternoon meetings continue. San Francisco Capitalist Bloodsucker-N (Spring) "Three Marxist Essays." Measure no. 3 "Central park west." |
| The Vancouver Poetry Conference in Vancouver, British Columbia. Death of William Carlos Williams. |
1963 | |
| The United States fakes the Gulf of Tonkin incident; President Johnson begins bombing in Vietnam. Berkeley Free Speech Movement begins. Robin Blaser's The Moth Poem - SF: Open Space. Robert Duncan's Roots and Branches - NY: New Directions. Issue no. 0 of Stan Persky's SF zine Open Space, a forum for the North Beach scene and especially the Spicer circle. | 1964 | The Holy Grail - SF: White Rabbit Press. Dear Ferlinghetti, Dear Jack: The Spicer/Ferlinghetti Correspondence (broadside), reprinted from Open Space - SF: White Rabbit Press. Work on the Language ms. |
| Malcolm X assassinated. The Berkeley Poetry Conference; Spicer lectures on poetry and politics. Joanne Kyger's The Tapestry & The Web - SF: Four Seasons Foundation. Robin Blaser's Les Chimeres - SF: White Rabbit Press. |
1965 | Language - SF: White Rabbit Press. Work on Book of Magazine Verse ms. Gives the Vancouver Lectures at the Tallman residence in Vancouver, British Colubia. Dies at San Francisco General Hospital |
| Death of Frank O'Hara. The Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church-in-the-Bowery founded. | 1966 | Book of Magazine Verse - SF: White Rabbit Press. |
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1967 | Floating Bear no. 34 "The Day 5,000 Fish Died in the Charles River." (broadside) - Pleasant Valley, NY: Kriya Press. |
| The Rev. Martin Luther King assassinated. U.S. troops in Vietnam massacre villagers at My Lai. FUCK YOU (!) UNDERGROUND POETS UNTERGRUND GEDICHTE (Verlag). "When You Go Away You Don't Come Home," "Heroes eat soup like anyone else," & "Love poem" (9) reprinted with facing German translation. | 1968 | A Red Wheelbarrow - Sussex, England: Collection One. |
| 600 Native Americans occupy Alcatraz Island for one year, in protest for Native American rights. A riot erupts at the Stonewall Inn in New York City, inaugurating the contemporary gay rights movement. Billy The Kid - Dublin: New Writers' Press. The Holy Grail, eds. Sir Bercilak & Morgan Le Fay - Berkeley: Jolly Roger Press. | 1969 | A Book of Music - SF: White Rabbit Press. Illustrated by Graham Mackintosh; back of title page: "No Spicer book was ever © Copyright." "Five Variations on the Earth" in Tish, issue d: "The Jack Spicer poem appears (personal communication from the author) to warn off those seeking to bring out definitive editions of his early poems." |
| Lament for the Makers - reprinted in NINE QUEEN BEES no. 0 (Honolulu). Death of Charles Olson. | 1970 | Admonitions appears in Writing no. 2 Caterpillar no. 12, Robin Blaser and Jack Spicer issue. |
| The Red Wheelbarrow - Berkeley: Arif. Lament for the Makers - London: Aloes. |
1971 | |
| Five burglars, one directly associated with Nixon's Committee to Re-Elect the President (CREEP) are caught breaking into the National Democratic Committee offices at the Watergate hotel in Washington, D.C. Death of Ezra Pound. |
1972 | |
| The United States withdraws all troops from Vietnam. Poetics of the New American Poetry, ed. Donald Allen and Warren Tallman; includes excerpts from Spicer's Vancouver Lectures and letters from After Lorca. James Herdon's Everything As Expected, a memoir of the Herndon's involvement with Spicer; includes Fran Herndon's Sports Illustrated collages. |
1973 | |
| Richard Nixon resigns as President of the United States. Admonitions - NY: Adventures in Poetry. Fifteen False Propositions About God - Berkeley: ManRoot Books. | 1974 | Berkeley in a Time of Plague (broadside) - Berkeley: Arif. An Ode and An Arcadia, Robert Duncan and Jack Spicer - Berkeley: Arif. |
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Manroot no. 10, The Jack Spicer Issue. Billy The Kid - SF: Oyster Press. | 1975 | The Collected Books of Jack Spicer, ed. Robin Blaser - Santa Barbara: Black Sparrow Press. |
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1976 | |
| 1977 | Boundary 2 vol. 6 no. 1, Jack Spicer. Includes "A Plan for a Book on Tarot" and numerous previously unpublished poems, critical essays on Spicer. | |
| Death of Louis Zukofsky. | 1978 | |
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1979 | |
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1980 | One Night Stand & Other Poems, ed. Donald Allen - SF: Grey Fox Press. |
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1981 | Collected Poems 1945-1946 - Berkeley: Oyez/White Rabbit Press, facsimile of a booklet inscribed to Josephine Miles, Christmas 1946. |
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1982 | Sulfur vol. 10 "'Kennst du das land?': Jack Spicer's Letters to Allen Joyce." |
| Ekbert Faas' Young Robert Duncan: Portrait of the Poet as Homosexual in Society. | 1983 | |
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1984 | |
| Jimmy & Lucy's House of "K" nos. 3 (January) and 4 (June) excerpts from Lewis Ellingham's ms. The Spicer Circle. | 1985 | |
| Jack Spicer Conference at the New College of California, 20 June. Ironwood vol. 14 no. 28, Listening for the Invisible - Emily Dickinson and Jack Spicer issue. |
1986 | |
| Acts no. 6 (San Francisco), Jack Spicer Issue; includes memoirs and essays from the New College conference. | 1987 | Line no. 9 (Burnaby, B.C.) "Letters to Robin Blaser, 1955-1958." |
| Death of Robert Duncan. | 1988 | |
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1989 | |
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1990 | |
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1991 | |
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1992 | |
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1993 | |
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1994 |
To 3/4 "The Wasps." First chapter of the early, unfinished novel. The Train of Thought, eds. Lewis Ellingham and Kevin Killian - Tenerife, Canary Islands: Zasterle Books; chapter three of The Tower of Babel. The Tower of Babel: Jack Spicer's Detective Novel, eds. Lewis Ellingham and Kevin Killian - NY: Talisman House. |
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1995 | |
| Michael Rumaker's Robert Duncan in San Francisco. | 1996 | |
| The Impercipient Lecture Series vol. 1 no. 7, Lewis Ellingham and Kevin Killian, "Five years in the Life of Jack Spicer" | 1997 | |
| Lewis Ellingham & Kevin Killian, Poet Be Like God: Jack Spicer and the San Francisco Renaissance - Hanover, NH: Wesleyan University Press. | 1998 | The House that Jack Built: The Collected Lectures of Jack Spicer, ed. Peter Gizzi - Hanover, NH: Wesleyan University Press. |
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1999 |
Golem - NY: Granary Books. Collages by Fran Herndon. Jacket no. 7, this issue |
J A C K E T # 7
Back to Jacket # 7 Contents page |