Bab Flanagan in the doorway of Papa Bach Bookstore, mid-1970s
Photograph copyright by Rod Bradley. Used by permission. All rights reserved to Rod Bradley.

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Wednesday, September 18, 2024

Beyond Baroque was not the first venue that a young poet and aspiring artist named Bob Flanagan first read at in the 1970s. I remember him participating, for instance, in the Andrew W. Thornhill poetry festival, which took place in an unfinished skyscraper in downtown Los Angeles. He was barely 21 years old at that point, and if I remember his appearance at that event, it is only because one couldn’t help but be impressed by how earnestly he believed that the poems were worth reading in public. Within a few years, however, his poems had significantly improved; thanks to the poetry workshop at Beyond Baroque, he had —- discarded the adolescent cliches that permeated his very early work and had begun to let the actual conditions of his life have a place in his effusive imagination. While he once gave a memorable reading of his “Bukowski Poem” at Papa Bach Bookstore, and his first fully mature poems were published in that bookstore’s literary magazine, BACHY, as well as in my magazine, MOMENTUM, it was Beyond Baroque that becameBob’s primary “home” as a poet. Eventually, he became a leader of its Wednesday night poetry workshop. In addition, he teamed with another young poet, Jack Shelley, to form a band, PLANET OF TOYS. Out of the larger circle of friends associated with Beyond Baroque in the period in which Dennis Cooper was the reading series director emerged Sheree Rose, a photographer who became Bob’s most important companion and collaborator as a performance artist.

Bob’s first collection of poems was published by Bombshelter Press, which was operated in those day by Jack Grapes and Michael Andrews. He went on to have several collections of poems published, including a collaboration with David Trinidad, but eventually he concentrated on performance art. His poems did appear in two sigificant anthologies, Dennis Cooper’s COMING ATTRACTIONS and my second anthology of Los Angeles poets, POETRY LOVES POETRY. Now, almost 30 years after his death, his poems have been collected into a single volume, FUN TO BE DEAD, which deserves to be nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Needless to say, it has no chance of winning. Unfortunately, the acolytes of the late Helen Vender would join ranks to stymie whatever chance it might have to get the sustained attention it deserves.

Let us not bemoan, however, that which we cannot change. Rather, I urge everyone who can attend the publication celebration of this book to join me at Beyond Baroque on the last Saturday of September, at 7:00 p.m.

FUN TO BE DEAD: Collected Poems of Bob Flanagan
edited by Sabrina Tarasoff
with essays by Tosh Herman and David Trinidad
Saturday, September 28, 7:00 PM PT
In Person at Beyond Baroque & Live on YouTube

Beyond Baroque
681 Venice Blvd.
Venice, CA 90291

Fun to be Dead is the first complete collection of Bob Flanagan’s poetry. To honor Bob’s legacy, friends of Bob’s and artists of the literary scene who have remained active in the literary scene of Los Angeles will be reading Flanagan’s work and reflecting on their connections to the author throughout his life as well as emerging voices influenced by Bob’s poetics, including, Jack Grapes, Amy Scholder, Ellen Butler, Bill Mohr, Pam Ward, Lily Lady, Robin Carr, and Jack Skelley.

EVENTBRITE LINK:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1014977243257?aff=oddtdtcreator

Post-Script to Scholars:
If you want access to Bob’s very earliest work as a writer and artist, it is now available thanks to the generosity of Ellen Butler at the Special Collections Library at the University of California, San Diego.

https://search-library.ucsd.edu/permalink/01UCS_SDI/ld412s/alma991023599361806535