On the occasion of the recent publication of the collected poems of both Pat Parker (Sinister Wisdom 2016) and Bob Kaufman (City Lights Books 2019), this talk revisits the archives of protest poetry and police violence in 1950s-70s San Francisco, and the networks of writers, publishers, distributors, scholars, and activists that forged a revolutionary world of poetry in print and in person.

We will discuss the “incident of the poem on the wall” as the SFPD called it—in which Kaufman posted a poem critical of the police chief on the wall of Co-Existence Bagels in North Beach—and return to the historical scene in which these poets each made their mark, equipped with the insights their collected works have delivered to us anew.

Online via Zoom