Bob Kaufman

Bob Kaufman (1925-1986) was associated with the Beats, which included Jack Kerouac and Allan Ginsberg, and others in that group. He is the least remembered of the Beats but still made his own mark. Kaufman spent much of his life in San Francisco where he was known as a street poet. He adhered to an oral tradition where he would recite poems to total strangers.

I'm attracted to quirky individuals and Bob Kaufman is certainly different. Still he made his own mark with his jazz inspired poems and resonates with Beat fans to his day.


O-Jazz-O

Where the string
At
some point,
Was umbilical jazz,
Or perhaps,
In memory,
A long lost bloody cross,
Buried in some steel cavalry.
In what time
For whom do we bleed,
Lost notes, from some jazzman's
Broken needle.
Musical tears from lost
Eyes.
Broken drumsticks, why?
Pitter patter, boom dropping
Bombs in the middle
Of my emotions
My father's sound
My mother's sound,
Is love,
Is life.








Sources:
www.poetryfoundation.org 
www.english.illinois.edu