LA poets -http://www.beyondbaroque.org

On Sunday, April 7, 2002, Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center will host The Big Picture, a gathering of Southern California poets to be photographed for National Poetry Month.Southern California is a region of diverse populations, each with a unique voice.
Beyond Baroque was founded by George Drury Smith in a storefront on what was then West Washington Blvd. in 1968. In the late 1970s, Beyond Baroque moved to its current site in the old Venice City Hall on Venice Blvd. The list of poets who have read their work at Beyond Baroque comes close to a thousand people. Beyond Baroque has sponsored the longest running free poetry workshop in Los Angeles (on Wednesday nights). The workshop was begun by John Harris and Joseph Hansen, and has been moderated by a wide range of poets, including James Krusoe, Jack Grapes, the late Bob Flanagan, Franceye Dean Smith, John Thomas, and Will Alexander. Beyond Baroque''s collection of small press poetry books, chapbooks, and broadsides is perhaps the largest one available to the general public at any independent arts organization on the West Coast. The Beyond Baroque library owes the scope and magnitude of its assembled "underground" of alternative publishing to the generosity of hundreds of poets, who have donated their own books as well as books from their own library to the collection. Past presidents and/or artistic directors of Beyond Baroque include Dennis Phillips, Benjamin Weissman, Tosh Berman, Joceyln Fisher, Manazar Gamboa, Dennis Cooper, and the current artistic director/president Fred Dewey. Beyond Baroque has been the recipient of many grants over the years, but has survived due to the incredible generosity of many people in Los Angeles who loved literature and the written word
In the past half-century in Los Angeles, thousands of readings have taken place in coffeehouses, art galleries, museums, and small theaters, but only one place has managed to sustain a reading series for more than 30 years: Beyond Baroque - litetary arts center, in Venice, California.

http://www.virtualvenice.info/poets/index.htm
Linda Albertano
day job: manager of building where Jim Morrison used to live
Richard Beban
Rose Caf� reading series, "Living Mythically" workshop
Terry Blackhawk
Her poem "On the Mockingbird Singing in the Morning in the Barrio a Few Blocks from the Boardwalk on the Beach in Venice, California" was a runner-up in the 1997 Marlboro Prize poetry competition. Blackhawk went on to found and direct a writers-in-schools program called InsideOut, in Detroit.
Millicent Borges
many years in Venice, relocated to Topanga
Susie Bright
I don''t know if Susie Bright writes poetry, but in reviewing a record album she remarked that when she was 14 her father used to take her on Wednesday evenings to a poetry group that met in a shabby room in Venice. People passed around quarts of malt liquor and read their latest work, including a woman with the messiest hair I had ever seen, named Exene Cervenka.
Dennis Cooper
director of Beyond Baroque
Fred Dewey
director of Beyond Baroque
Jenny Factor
teacher of poetry at Beyond Baroque
Joe Hansen
co founder of the Venice Poetry Workshop
John Harris
co-founder of the Venice Poetry Workshop in 1969
Jack Hirschman
lived in Venice from 1967-71. His first major book of poetry was A Correspondence of Americans. He taught at UCLA and, along with other anti-Vietnam war activities, gave A marks to students eligible for the draft. This got him fired. He studied Kaballah, and as a homelessness activist, was arrested several times.
Claire Horner
Gas House habitue''
Bob Kaufman
The only black Beat poet with a Jewish name, Kaufman was born in New Orleans to a black mother and white father. He was also known as "The Black American Rimbaud" and "The Original Be-Bop Man." I first heard of Kaufman through being in a screenwriting seminar, at Beyond Baroque, with his wife Eileen. She was writing a screenplay about Kaufman''s life and their son was going to play the lead. I''m pretty sure she told me he was dead, and that was in early 1978. In October of ''81, I read a review by Kate Braverman of The Ancient Rain, a collection of Kaufman''s poems, and she spoke of him in the past tense.
So imagine my surprise on reading in January of 1986 that Bob Kaufman had just died from emphysema at age 60. The explanation of the mystery: apparently he was in the habit of withdrawing from life to such an extent that he might as well have been dead. It is said that Kaufman gave up talking in 1963 and didn''t speak again until 1975 when the Vietnam war ended. Andrei Codrescu says, Kaufman did, eventually, talk again and astonished everyone with long poems composed in his mind during the long years of silence.
Then in 1978 Bob Kaufman said, I want to be anonymous - my ambition is to be completely forgotten, and stopped talking again. It may be that he convinced his wife and everyone else to refer to him as no longer living.
John Kenevan
Korean war veteran, painter, poet, who ran the Venice West Caf� after Perkoff gave it up
Karen Kitchell
Rose Caf� reading series, also a novelist, teacher of "Living Mythically" workshop
Fritz Leiber
Mainly known as a science fiction writer and as an actor, upon his death Leiber left to the University of Houston more than 60 boxes of his literary effects. Box #38 (one of the 15 boxes of Leiber''s own writings) contains an item called "Poetry 1959 - The Beach at Santa Monica from Venice to Malibu."
Lawrence Lipton
Bruno in Venice West and Other Poems was published in 1976 by Venice West Publishers, which happened to be in Van Nuys. The works were selected and arranged by Lipton before his death in 1974. The title poem is dedicated to Giordano Bruno, who was burned by the Inquisition in 1600. This Venice of the West was born a bastard...when business and the arts are mated, money takes the Muse to bed.
There''s plenty more to be said about Lipton, but for now I''ll just mention seeing an autographed first edition of his book The Holy Barbarians offered for sale at around $300. Lipton signed the book in 1959 with the inscription, Come to Venice West and make the scene.
The first owner of this copy also included as a bonus a mimeographed invitation that was mailed to him on November 22, 1959. It''s eight inches square and says,
A Conformist Party for Squares - A Square Invitation For A Square Party. Come and join Lawrence Lipton in a program of rigged poetry, modern painting and the mating dance of the African Crane. Special rites for teenage Werewolves. The Gas House, 1501 Ocean Front Walk, Venice West.
Rod McKuen
His poem "Julie" contains the lines, ....so she went away to live in Venice wearing no makeup......but someone should have told poor Julie the Beats have all gone home......
Paul Mena
On a website devote to the haiku form, this poem was found:
Venice Beach
body builders
can''t stop the rain
Jim Natal
Rose Caf� reading series
Kevin Opstedal
born and raised in Venice
George Drury Smith
Don''t know if he lived in Venice. Founded Beyond Baroque
Patti Smith
poetry reading at the Fox Venice in 1976
David St. John
A 1994 issue of American Poetry Review published an interview conducted by Karen Fish with St. John at his home in Venice, where he had resided for seven years. Indeed the matter of where he lived was uppermost on the poet''s mind. When asked how he would prefer to begin, he cited the precedents of the Paris Review and Esquire, which had both recently featured writers talking about the places they inhabited. St. John wanted the article about him to note that he lives with his wife, poet Molly Bendall, and their daughter Vivienne in a 1910 Craftsman bungalow on a historic, palm-lined street in Venice, California.
He added that the fireplace mantel was made from a piece of the original Venice Pier, recovered after the fire. Before that, St. John had lived in an apartment near Muscle Beach in which some members of Suicidal Tendencies and the Eagles had previously lived. It was also near the boardwalk building that was once home to Jim Morrison, now decorated with a large mural depicting the musician.
St. John said that to him the most amazing thing about Venice was the mix of people.
Amber Tamblyn
Young Poets Society
Elizabeth Treadwell
Originated a zine called Stilts
David Trinidad
Beyond Baroque group in the early 80s, editor and publisher of Sherwood Press
Jan Wesley
ran the Rose Caf� reading series
Poets Respond to the War
This event took place on November 24, 2002 at Beyond Baroque, in reaction to the imminent war on Iraq. Participating poets included Wanda Coleman, Austin Straus, James Ragan, Henry Morro, John Harris, Linda Albertano, Jerry Quickley, Lewis McAdams, Michael Datcher, Jenoyne Adams, Dimi Hilal and Sami Shalom Chetrit.
Venice West Cafe
Founded by Stuart Perkoff, later taken over by John and Anna Haag, was on Dudley Avenue.
http://www.freevenice.org/Venice/Poets_etc.html
http://www.mindspring.com/~sagriffin/VeniceBeats.html-cafe