Jack Micheline(1929-1998)
Jack Micheline was of Russian-Romanian ancestry and worked as a union
organizer before dedicating his life to poetry and painting. Taking his
pen name from writer Jack London, he moved to Greenwich Village in the
1950s, where he became a street poet, drawing on Harlem blues and jazz
rhythms and the cadence of word music. He lived on the fringe of
poverty, writing about hookers, drug addicts, blue collar workers, and
the dispossessed. In 1957, Troubadour Press published his first book
'River of Red Wine'; Jack Kerouac wrote the introduction, and it was
reviewed by Dorothy Parker in Esquire magazine. Micheline relocated to
San Francisco in the early 60s, where he spent the rest of his life and
eventually published over 20 books.
Though a poet of the Beat generation, Micheline characterized the Beat movement as a product of media hustle, and hated being described as a 'Beat poet.' He was also a painter, working primarily with gouache in a self-taught, primitive style he picked up in Mexico City. His last publication was 'Sixty-Seven Poems for Downtrodden Saints', published in 1997. He died of a heart attack while riding a BART subway train in 1998.
Though a poet of the Beat generation, Micheline characterized the Beat movement as a product of media hustle, and hated being described as a 'Beat poet.' He was also a painter, working primarily with gouache in a self-taught, primitive style he picked up in Mexico City. His last publication was 'Sixty-Seven Poems for Downtrodden Saints', published in 1997. He died of a heart attack while riding a BART subway train in 1998.
