Jack Micheline (November 6, 1929 – February 27, 1998), born Harold Martin Silver, was an American

painter Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ...

and

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or w ...

from the

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area G ...

. One of San Francisco's original

Beat poets Beat, beats or beating may refer to: Common uses * Patrol, or beat, a group of personnel assigned to monitor a specific area ** Beat (police), the territory that a police officer patrols ** Gay beat, an area frequented by gay men * Battery ...

, he was an innovative artist who was active in the San Francisco Poetry Renaissance of the 1950s and 1960s.

Beat poet

Born in

The Bronx The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

, of

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-ei ...

n and

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...

n Jewish ancestry.A. D. Wynans
"A.D. Winans Remembers Jack Micheline"
''Empty Mirror'', December 2008 Micheline took his pen name from writer

Jack London John Griffith Chaney (January 12, 1876 – November 22, 1916), better known as Jack London, was an American novelist, journalist and activist. A pioneer of commercial fiction and American magazines, he was one of the first American authors to ...

and his mother's maiden name. He moved to

Greenwich Village Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...

in the 1950s, where he became a street poet, drawing on

Harlem Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and Central Park North on the south. The greater Ha ...

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 Jean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac (; March 12, 1922 – October 21, 1969), known as Jack Kerouac, was an American novelist and poet who, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, was a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Of French-Canadian an ...

wrote the introduction, and it was reviewed by

Dorothy Parker Dorothy Parker (née Rothschild; August 22, 1893 – June 7, 1967) was an American poet, writer, critic, and satirist based in New York; she was known for her wit, wisecracks, and eye for 20th-century urban foibles. From a conflicted and unhap ...

in ''

Esquire magazine ''Esquire'' is an American men's magazine. Currently published in the United States by Hearst Communications, it also has more than 20 international editions. Founded in 1933, it flourished during the Great Depression and World War II under t ...

''. Micheline relocated to San Francisco in the early 1960s, where he spent the rest of his life. He published over twenty books, some of them mimeographs and chapbooks. Though a poet of the

Beat generation The Beat Generation was a literary subculture movement started by a group of authors whose work explored and influenced American culture and politics in the post-war era. The bulk of their work was published and popularized by Silent Genera ...

, Micheline characterized the Beat movement as a product of media hustle, and hated being categorized as a Beat poet. He was also a painter, working primarily with

gouache Gouache (; ), body color, or opaque watercolor is a water-medium paint consisting of natural pigment, water, a binding agent (usually gum arabic or dextrin), and sometimes additional inert material. Gouache is designed to be opaque. Gouache ...

in a self-taught, primitive style he picked up in

Mexico City Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital and largest city of Mexico, and the most populous city in North America. One of the world's alpha cities, it is located in the Valley o ...

Obscenity bust

In September 1968, a short story he wrote, "Skinny Dynamite", was published in ''Renaissance 2'', the literary supplement of John Bryan's Los Angeles alternative newspaper ''

Open City In war, an open city is a settlement which has announced it has abandoned all defensive efforts, generally in the event of the imminent capture of the city to avoid destruction. Once a city has declared itself open the opposing military will b ...

''. Solicited from Micheline by guest editor

Charles Bukowski Henry Charles Bukowski ( ; born Heinrich Karl Bukowski, ; August 16, 1920 – March 9, 1994) was a German-American poet, novelist, and short story writer. His writing was influenced by the social, cultural, and economic ambience of his adopted ...

, its subject was a promiscuous young woman. The story used the word "

fuck ''Fuck'' is an English-language expletive. It often refers to the act of sexual intercourse, but is also commonly used as an intensifier or to convey disdain. While its origin is obscure, it is usually considered to be first attested to ar ...

" and Bryan was arrested for obscenity, but was not convicted.

Second Coming Press Second Coming Press was a San Francisco-based small press founded by A. D. Winans that was in existence from 1972 to 1989. It specialized in publishing poetry and essays. Its published writers included Douglas Blazek, Charles Bukowski, Neeli Cher ...

published a book of Micheline's stories, entitled ''Skinny Dynamite'' after his most notorious work, in 1980.

Death

Micheline died of a

heart attack A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when blood flow decreases or stops to the coronary artery of the heart, causing damage to the heart muscle. The most common symptom is chest pain or discomfort which ma ...

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

while riding a BART subway train from San Francisco to Orinda in 1998. The back room at San Francisco's Abandoned Planet Bookstore (until it was closed) showcased Micheline's wall mural paintings.

Marriage and children

Micheline was married twice, to Pat Cherkin in the early 1960s, and later to Marian "Mimi" Redding. He had a son, Vincent, who was born in 1963 to his first wife, Pat.

Published works

*''Tell your mama you want to be free, and other poemsongs'' (1969); Dead Sea Fleet Editions. *''Last House in America'' (1976); Second Coming Press. *''North of Manhattan: Collected Poems, Ballads, and Songs'' (1976); Manroot. *''Skinny Dynamite and Other Stories'' (1980); Second Coming Press. *''River of Red Wine and Other Poems'' (1986); Water Row Press. *''Imaginary Conversation with Jack Kerouac'' (1989); Zeitgeist Press. *''Outlaw of the Lowest Plant'' (1993); Zeitgeist Press. *''Ragged Lion'' (1999); Vagabond Press. *''Sixty-Seven Poems for Downtrodden Saints'' (1997); FMSBW.2nd enlarged edition (1999). *''To be a poet is to be: Poetry'' (2000); Implosion Press. *''One of a Kind'' (2008); Ugly Duckling Presse.

References

;Citations ;Bibliography * Bukowski, Charles and David Calonne (ed.). ''Absence of the Hero (Uncollected Stories/Essays). City Lights Publishers. San Francisco. 2010. ; *Charters, Ann (ed.). ''The Portable Beat Reader''. Penguin Books. New York. 1992. (hc); (pbk)

External links

Official Website of Jack MichelineSome poems by Micheline
Eddie Woods' 1982 interview with Jack Micheline.

at '' Underground Voices'' *
Guide to the Jack Micheline Papers
at

The Bancroft Library The Bancroft Library in the center of the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, is the university's primary special-collections library. It was acquired from its founder, Hubert Howe Bancroft, in 1905, with the proviso that it retai ...

''Skinny Dyamite'' at amazon.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Micheline, Jack 1929 births 1998 deaths 20th-century American painters American male painters American people of Russian-Jewish descent People from the Bronx American people of Romanian-Jewish descent Beat Generation writers Outlaw poets 20th-century American poets 20th-century American male artists