Lenore Kandel (1932-2009). Courtesy Wikipedia.
Lenore Kandel (January 14, 1932 - October 18, 2009) was an American poet.
Life[]
Kandel was born in New York City. She was already a student of Zen when she moved in 1960 from New York City to San Francisco.
Her earliest works of poetry were the chapbooks An Exquisite Navel, A Passing Dragon, and A Passing Dragon Seen Again, published in 1959. Several of her poems also appeared in Beat and Beatific II in 1959.
In 1960 Kandel moved from her native New York City to San Francisco. where she met Jack Kerouac.
Kandel was briefly notorious as the author of a short book of poetry, The Love Book. A small pamphlet consisting of 4 poems, The Love Book provoked censorship with its poem, "To Fuck with Love." Police seized the work as being in violation of state obscenity codes, from both City Lights Books and The Psychedelic Shop in 1966. Subsequently Kandel gained cause célèbre status.[1] She herself defended her verse as "holy erotica." [2] A jury declared the book obscene and lacking in any redeeming social value in 1967 and sales went up; Kandel thanked the police by giving 1 percent of all profts to the Police Retirement Association.[2] The decision was overturned on appeal and the book continued to sell well.[2]
Along with Allen Ginsberg, Timothy Leary, Michael McClure and others, Kandel was a speaker at the Human Be-In in the Golden Gate Park polo fields on January 14, 1967. The only woman to speak from the stage, Kandel defiantly read from The Love Book. It was her 35th birthday that day, and McClure later stated, "The entire crowd of 20,000 or 30,000 people sang 'Happy Birthday' to her."[3] Kendel recited the poem JOY! at the iconic concert The Last Waltz performed by The Band.
She published her only full-length collection of poems, Word Alchemy, in 1967. Other works include An Exquisite Navel, A Passing Dragon, and A Passing Dragon Seen Again, published by Three Penny Press in 1959, although these are not so well known. Several of her poems also appeared along with Walter C. Brown's in Beat and Beatific II in 1959. She appears in the Kenneth Anger film Invocation of My Demon Brother (1969), smoking a marijuana cigarette contained in a miniature skull, and she was one of 15 people interviewed in Voices from the Love Generation (Little, Brown, 1968).
In 1970, Kandel was severely injured in a motorcycle accident with her then-husband Billy Fritsch (poet and member of the Hells Angels). Despite her withdrawal from public life during and after her long convalescence, she continued to write. In 2003, a limited edition of The Love Book was republished by Superstition Street Press, an independent publishing house from San Francisco, run by Kandel's friend and fellow poet, Joe Pachinko.
She died at home in San Francisco on October 18, 2009, of complications from lung cancer, with which she had been diagnosed several weeks earlier.[4]
Recognition[]
In 2012 the Collected Poems of Lenore Kandel were published by Berkeley-based independent publisher North Atlantic Books. The book features 80 of her poems, many of which had never before been published.[5][6]
In popular culture[]
Jack Kerouac immortalized Kandel as "Romana Swartz", "a big Rumanian monster beauty," in his 1962 novel Big Sur. In the novel, she is described as being the girlfriend of Dave Wain (who was based on Lew Welch). "Dave" describes how she walked around the "Zen-East House" wearing only purple panties. Kerouac described her as "intelligent, well read, writes poetry, is a Zen student, knows everything" [7]
Publications[]
Poetry[]
- A Passing Dragon. Hollywood, CA: Three Penny Press, [1959?].
- An Exquisite Navel. Studio City, CA: Three Penny Press, 1959.
- Beat and Beatific II: Poetry by Lenore Kandel & Walter C. Brown (illustrated by John Leslie Fox II). Studio City, CA: Three Penny Press, 1959.
- The Love Book (pamphlet). San Francisco, CA: Stolen Paper Review, 1966; San Francisco: Superstition Street Press, 2003. ISBN 0-9665313-1-0
- Word Alchemy. Grove Press (Evergreen trade paperback), 1967. ISBN 1-299-22275-7
- Collected Poems (edited by Diane DiPrima). Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books, 2012.
Anthologized[]
- Evergreen Review Reader, 1957-1967: A ten-year anthology. New York: Grove Press, 1968.
- A Different Beat: Writings by women of the Beat Generation (edited by Richard Peabody). Serpents Tail, 1997.
- The Beat Collection (edited by Barry Miles). London: Virgin, 2005.
Lenore Kandel To Fuck with Love.mov
Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.[8]
See also[]
References[]
Notes[]
- ↑ http://www.arthurmag.com/2009/11/05/lenore-kandel-1932-2009/
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 " Lenore Kandel, in William Lawlor, Beat Culture: Lifestyles, icons, and targets, p. 169.
- ↑ "Lenore Kandel: Beat poet whose 'The Love Book' fell victim to one of San Francisco's longest ever court cases," The Independent (December 11, 2009)
- ↑ Julian Guthrie, "Beat Poet Lenore Kandel Dies," San Francisco Chronicle (October 22, 2009)
- ↑ http://www.amazon.com/Collected-Poems-Lenore-Kandel/dp/1583943722/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1334070952&sr=1-1
- ↑ [1]
- ↑ Big Sur]], p. 75.
- ↑ Search results = au:Lenore Kandel, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, Oct. 15, 2014.
External links[]
- Poems
- "Enlightenment Poem"
- Poems and Prose - Lenore Kandel at Word Fiend (4 poems)
- Books
- Works by or about Lenore Kandel in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
- Audio / video
- Books
- Lenora Kandel at Amazon.com
- About
- Lenore Kandel, the 'Love Book' author, dies", obituary in the San Francisco Chronicle.
- Lenore Kandel: Beat poet whose 'The Love Book' fell victim to one of San Francisco's longest ever court cases, obituary in The Independent.
- Lenore Kandel Official website
- American underground poet / writer Joe Pachinko talks about Lenore Kandel, the Beats, and his books at Blues.gr, 2012
- Kandel and the Animal: a review of Kandel's Collected Poems
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