Jack Spicer
Who is Jack Spicer
Jack Spicer (January 30, 1925 – August 17, 1965) was an American poet often identified with the San Francisco Renaissance. In 2009, My Vocabulary Did This to Me: The Collected Poetry of Jack Spicer won the American Book Award for poetry. He spent most of his writing-life in San Francisco.
Early life
Born as John Lester Spicer on January 30, 1925 in Los Angeles, to parents Dorothy Clause and John Lovely Spicer.He graduated from Fairfax High School in 1942, and attended the University of Redlands from 1943 to 1945. While attending the University of Redlands, he became friends with Warren Christopher. After graduation he lived in Los Angeles briefly, and worked as a movie extra and a private investigator.
Berkeley
Spicer ended up in Berkeley...
Read Full Biography
Jack Spicer Poems
- A Diamond
<i>A Translation for Robert Jones</i>
A diamond
Is there
...
- -any Fool Can Get Into An Ocean . . .â?
Any fool can get into an ocean
But it takes a Goddess
To get out of one.
Whatâ??s true of oceans is true, of course,
...
- A Poem Without A Single Bird In It
What can I say to you, darling,
When you ask me for help?
I do not even know the future
Or even what poetry
...
- Sporting Life
The trouble with comparing a poet with a radio is that radios donâ??t develop scar-tissue. The tubes burn out, or with a transistor, which most souls are, the battery or diagram burns out replaceable or not replaceable, but not like that punchdrunk fighter in the bar. The poet
Takes too many messages. The right to the ear that floored him in New Jersey. The right to say that he stood six rounds with a champion.
Then they sell beer or go on sporting commissions, or, if the scar tissue is too heavy, demonstrate in a bar where the invisible champions might not have hit him. Too many of them.
The poet is a radio. The poet is a liar. The poet is a counterpunching radio.
...
- A Poem For Dada Day At The Place April 1, 1958
I
The bartender
Has eyes the color of ripe apricots
Easy to please as a cash register he
...
Read All Poems
Jack Spicer Quotes
Read All Quotes
Comments about Jack Spicer
- Peytondc78: jack posobiec
libs of tiktok
kirk cameron
sean spicer
name this band:
- Aliterarybot: they found that they had one tongue
we shall find that we have one tongue
i hope that we shall find that we have one tongue
—jack spicer, letters to james alexander
- Goldcovv: feeling like jack spicer
- Nowarwarren: jack spicer
- Pilotpressldn: thank you to everyone who has preordered a copy of jack spicer’s ‘a book of music’.
please do consider making a preorder if you can. it helps the press pay for printing without going out of pocket, keeping our head above water.
Read All Comments