David Lerner

David Lerner (November 23, 1951 – July 1, 1997) was an American outlaw poet who helped lead the influential poetry group the Babarians at Cafe Babar in San Francisco.

Life

Lerner was born in New York City and came from a family of Russian-Jewish renegades, growing up as a so-called "red-diaper baby". Lerner later moved to San Francisco and worked as a journalist, but left that career to live a bohemian life because journalism interfered with his poetry.

In the mid-Eighties he became involved with poetry readings at Cafe Babar in San Francisco's Mission District, with the group of poets there being called the Babarians. Described by Bruce Isaacson as a "poetry phenomenon" However, their work was still called among the best in the United States and being representative of "the American avant-garde tradition."

In 1996, Lerner and other members of the Babarians did a series of readings in Germany. Lerner was also known for throwing peanuts at people during readings when their writing was bad.

Lerner and Bruce Isaacson co-founded Zeitgeist Press and have been referred to as "the Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot of the underground."

Lerner died of a drug overdose in 1997.

Poetry

Robinson Jeffers, Bob Dylan and Charles Bukowski have been cited as influences on Lerner's poetry, which Alan Kaufman described as a "tightly controlled eruption of paradoxes, visions, emotions and wit. bringing "a visceral joy to readers," and being "powered by wild, associative leaps." while The Singapore Review of Books called him an "eloquent screamer."

One of Lerner's most celebrated poems, "Mein Kampf," is considered a seminal statement of underground poetics in response to the weight of the mainstream.

Legacy

After his death, Lerner was named in Alan Kaufman's poem "The Last Emphysema Gasp of the Marlboro Man" while Julia Vinograd wrote the poem "For David Lerner: Death of a Poet" in his honor. Richard Cohn also wrote a poem in his honor.

In 2006 Trafford Publishing released the anthology New American Underground Poetry, Vol 1: The Babarians of San Francisco, edited by Lerner, Vinograd and Alan Allen. The anthology includes a selection of his poetry including "Mein Kampf." His poetry has also been reprinted in The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry.