Ray Bremser (1934-1998) in 1987. Photo by Allen Ginsberg. Courtesy Wikipedia.
Ray Bremser (February 22, 1934 - November 3, 1998) was an American poet.
Life[]
Bremser was born in Jersey City, New Jersey.
When he was 17 he went AWOL from the United States Air Force and was briefly imprisoned.
The next year he was sent to Bordenstown Reformatory for 6 years for armed robbery. He began writing poetry there and sent copies to Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso and LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka), who published his poems in "Yugen" and threw a party for him when he got out of jail in 1958.
In 1959, Bremser met and married Brenda Frazer, her name changing to Bonnie Bremser. In 1969 Troia was published from her prison letters to Ray, detailing her 1960s life on the road as a prostitute in Mexico, to support him and their child Rachel while Ray was on the lam or behind bars. Ronna Johnson's entry in BookForum: "Bonnie met and married the Beat poet Ray Bremser in 1959, having known him for three weeks. Two years later, they were on the lam in Mexico with their baby, Rachel, fugitives from the New Jersey prison authorities, which were pursuing Ray for violating parole. This flight, the manifest subject of Troia, is recounted in the daily two-page letters Bonnie Bremser wrote to Ray from March to November 1963, during his second incarceration. She retrospectively details her life of prostitution on the road in Mexico and the couple’s desperate relinquishment of Rachel there."[1]
Bremser read poetry in The Gaslight Cafe in the Greenwich Village neighborhood.[2] He had 5 books of his poetry published.
He died in 1998 of lung cancer.
Recognition[]
In popular culture[]
Bob Dylan mentions Bremser in his poem, "11 Outlined Epitaphs":
drownin' in the lungs of Edith Piaf
an' in the mystery of Marlene Dietrich
the dead poems of Eddie Freeman
love songs of Allen Ginsberg
an' jail songs of Ray Bremser
the narrow tunes of Modigliani
an' the singin' plains of Harry Jackson ...[3]
Bremser was featured in the 1987 film The Beat Generation: An American dream.[4][5]
Publications[]
Poetry[]
- Poems of Madness. New York: Paper Book Gallery, 1965.
- Angel: The work of one night in the dark, solitary confinement, New Jersey State Prison, Trenton. New York: Tomkins Square Press, 1967.
- Black is Black Blues. Buffalo, NY: Intrepid Press, 1971.
- Blowing Mouth: The jazz poems, 1958-1970. Cherry Valley, NY: Cherry Valley Editions, 1978.
- Born Again. Santa Barbara, CA: Am Here Press, 1985.
- Poems of Madness / Angel. Sudbury, MA: Water Row Press, 1986.
- The Conquerors. Sudbury, MA: Water Row Press, 1998.
Non-fiction[]
- Drive Suite : An essay on composition, materials, references, etc. San Francisco: Nova Broadcast Press / City Lights, 1968.
- The Village Scene. Sudbury, MA: Water Row Press, 2000.
Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.[6]
Audio / video[]
Ray Bremser - Blood-0
- Beat Poet Ray Bremser: Jazz poems (DVD). New York: Thin Air Video, [200-?][6]
See also[]
References[]
- Ronna Johnson, BookForum, Feb/Mar 2008, Troia: Mexican Memoirs.
Notes[]
- ↑ 'Troia: Mexican memoirs by Rhonna Johnson, BookForum, Feb/Mar 2008. Web.
- ↑ "INTERVIEW WITH ALLEN GINSBERG (8/11/96)". The George Washington University. http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/coldwar/interviews/episode-13/ginsberg3.html. Retrieved 27 November 2010.
- ↑ Bremser, Ray, Bob Dylan Who's Who, July 15, 1996, ExpectingRain.com. Web, Mar. 4, 2015.
- ↑ IMDb
- ↑ The Beat Generation on YouTube. Web, Mar. 26, 2011.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Search results = au:Ray Bremser, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, Mar. 4, 2015.
External links[]
- Poems
- Audio / video
- Books
- Ray Bremser at Amazon.com
- About
- Ray Bremser (1934-1998) at The Allen Ginsberg Project
- "On Ray Bremser" at the Evergreen Review
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