Photo: Elsa Dorfman.
We were sad to learn that Joanne Kyger, whom the San Francisco Gate calls “a leading poet of the San Francisco Renaissance and a rare female voice of the male-dominated Beat generation,” died last week at eighty-two. In an illuminating 2014 interview with The Conversant, Kyger discussed her process and, memorably, the role of psychedelics in her work:
I participated in several peyote ceremonies and in February of 1959, while taking it with some friends, I had a quite unpleasant experience of massed black energy intercut with animal faces. The fact that I was unwisely taking this trip in my apartment, which was over a bar in North Beach, and was not feeling well, added to a very unstable sense of “reality.” This “black energy” resembled an animal, which I later named, hoping to focus it. A wild animal, which I paid attention to whenever I saw it or saw mention of it. For years I was afraid of stepping over some edge into a loss of self or schizophrenic duality. Living in Japan and seeing the guardian warriors outside the temple doors with their fierce animal-like expressions, I finally realized they were protectors. Fear creates a wall one can be afraid to pass by. If they scared you off, you didn’t have enough courage or knowledge to enter further. I think I was fearful of the energy of the animal self, whatever I thought that was.
The Review published Kyger’s poems in the late sixties and early seventies; digital subscribers should check out her work in our Spring 1966, Summer 1970, and Spring 1973 issues. Below is my favorite, “June 7 … ”
June 7 … June 7. To get a head start Yea, but I’m too old Yea, but I’m growing too old To wait around this long ______________________ Nobody wants to sit with me _______________________ Forgive this interlude for a while: I became infinitely glamorous and careless, like the best memory, of past loves. ___________________________________________ I often tell women’s secrets to men ___________________________________________ It was open, in the clear gray, morning. Babies cries, and a dog barks, birds shrill from the top of the trees. I’m going to run away from all this. I am going to enter into another dimension. Oh my little head and hope. I am projected ahead. I will realize the continuum from the past. I will not be abusive, I am smitten in glory. I am full of hopeful rushing. On into the high out rocking waves.
June 7 …
June 7. To get a head start
Yea, but I’m too old Yea, but I’m growing too old To wait around this long ______________________
Nobody wants to sit with me _______________________
Forgive this interlude for a while: I became infinitely glamorous and careless, like the best memory, of past loves. ___________________________________________
I often tell women’s secrets to men ___________________________________________
It was open, in the clear gray, morning. Babies cries, and a dog barks, birds shrill from the top of the trees. I’m going to run away from all this. I am going to enter into another dimension. Oh my little head and hope. I am projected ahead. I will realize the continuum from the past. I will not be abusive, I am smitten in glory. I am full of hopeful rushing. On into the high out rocking waves.
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