Richard Brautigan

Lewis Warsh

Bill Berkson

Ted Berrigan

Robert Creeley

Michael Bond

Jim Carroll

Aram Saroyan

Tom Clark

Alice Notley

Anne Waldman

Joe Brainard

Bill Brown

Philip Whalen

Stephen Ratcliffe

Diane Di Prima

John Thorpe

David Meltzer

Lewis MacAdams

Phoebe MacAdams

Joel Weishaus

Arthur Okamura

Max Crosley

Bobbie Louise Hawkins

Duncan Mc Naughton

Jim Brodey

Ebbe Borregaard

Joanne Kyger

John Doss

Gailyn Saroyan

Keith Lampe

Lawrence Kearney

Charlie Vermont

Poetry. California Interest. Afterword by Lytle Shaw. The Song Cave presents an expanded edition of the long out of print City Lights Books classic ON THE MESA: AN ANTHOLOGY OF BOLINAS WRITING in celebration of its 50th anniversary. This is a gathering of poets, writers and artists living on or around the mesa in Bolinas, California. Not so much a school of thought as a meeting of those who happened to be at this geographical location at this wobbly point in time, several divergent movements in American poetry (Black Mountain, San Francisco Renaissance, Beat, and New York School poets) came together with new Western and mystic elements at the unpaved crossroads of Bolinas. Featuring work by: Gordin Bladwin, Bill Berkson, Ted Berrigan, Michael Bond, Ebbe Borregaard, Joe Brainard, Richard Brautigan, Jim Brodey, Bill Brown, Jim Carroll, Tom Clark, Robert Creeley, Max Crosley, Diane Di Prima, John Doss, Bobbie Louise Hawkins, Lawrence Kearney, Joanne Kyger, Keith Lampe, Lewis Macadams, Phoebe Macadams, Duncan MC Naughton, David Meltzer, Alice Notley, Arthur Okamura, Stephen Ratcliffe, Aram Saroyan, Gailyn Saroyan, John Thorpe, Charlie Vermont, Anne Waldman, Lewis Warsh, Joel Weishaus, and Philip Whalen.

An Anthology of Bolinas Writers

On the Mesa

One of the most respected poets of the Beat and San Francisco Renaissance periods, David Meltzer has kept alive interest in the interface between jazz and poetry that exploded in the 1950s. This new edition of selected poems includes previously unpublished material and serves as a map to this very prolific and interesting poet.

The Selected Poems of David Meltzer

David's Copy

A poetic meditation on the last year of tenor saxophonist Lester Young's life, of joyful playing and self-willed dying. In 1959, at the age of fifty, jazz greaet Lester Young--a lyrical player, his airy tone haunted by a breathy melancholy--died alone in the Arvin Hotel in Manhattan. As Meltzer explains, "No Eyes is a book about death, and Young sits in for a metaphor for the artist living and dying for and with his art." An "inside" biography, No Eyes is a brilliant jazz-world evocation, composed in free verse whose flow is arrested to capture significant moments, Meltzer creates a layered narrative of vivid colors and textures, the material facts of Young's story dissolving into internalized, projected truths of erotic understanding and spiritual sympathy with the "sweet and isolate lovely other."

Lester Young

No Eyes

David Meltzer reveals proven business and life principles and how to “make a lot of money, help a lot of people, and have a lot of fun.”

Connected to Goodness

Colleen McKee

Ronald J. Pelias

Keith Russell

Gaylord Brewer

Laura Madeline Wiseman

Jack Hirschman

Joe Benevento

Glenn Sheldon

Michael Castro

Simon Perchik

Tunji Ajibade

Alexander Balogh

María Balogh

Jason W. Dockery

Michael Anthony Dorlac

Adrian Hein

gaye gambell-petersen

Spencer Hurst

N. Jeff Lind

Richard Luftig

Jeff Penn May

Chris Mazauskas

Jessica Moses

W.E. Mueller

Michael Rothenberg

Tabitha Russo

Gina Tabasso

Untamed Ink

Make business decisions with the confidence and clarity as the world’s best sports coaches. When the pressure is on, great coaches remain laser-focused, confident, and fully in charge of their roster. They’re the same way when it comes to developing strategies and game plans to succeed. In short, they always win because they have a superior decision-making process. Game-Time Decision Making provides everything you need to up your decision-making game and build a championship-level business. It takes you step by step through the process of: •Putting together an all-pro team with diverse skillsets•Building a positive mindset that will overwhelm the competition •Developing a keen awareness of "the playing field"•Learning from failures so you never make the same mistake twice •Creating both offensive and defensive strategies for branding and marketing When you have everything in place to make quick, accurate calls in the toughest of situations, you have what you need to dominate your industry. Game-Time Decision Making is a proven playbook for positioning yourself for success. From creating and utilizing the best tactics and strategies to leading your company through times of change, this is your playbook for total business success.

Game-Time Decision Making: High-Scoring Business Strategies from the Biggest Names in Sports

The Agent

In his early in 20s, David Meltzer entered and quickly rose to the top of the business world. A born salesman and armed with a law degree, he was quickly flying around the globe to speak about his business philosophies. But his rapid success left him feeling empty and eventually heading into a personal downward spiral. Before he hit rock bottom, however, he became spiritually enlightened enabling him to transform his life. Beginning with his stint as CEO to the generally acknowledged first super sports agent Leigh Steinberg (Leigh was the basis for the movie, Jerry Maguire), David began to meld his newfound outlook with business. Upon starting a new venture, Sport 1 Marketing with Hall of Fame Quarterback Warren Moon, David was truly able to incorporate his philosophies into their business practice, and the business has thrived beyond any and all expectations. In Connect To Goodness, David reveals his Principles for success that will bring you the same peace and balance he enjoys in both business and in life, and which allow him to live by his mantra, "make a lot of money, help a lot of people, and have a lot of fun".

A dual milestone in City Lights history, When I Was a Poet is number 60 of the famous Pocket Poets Series, as well as our first book of poems by legendary Beat author David Meltzer. The title piece is an ambitious late work by a master at the height of his powers, a spiritual assessment of the meaning of a lifetime spent writing poetry. Also included are portraits of key figures in the poet's life, including his parents, his late wife and musical partner Tina Meltzer, and Semina artist Wallace Berman, as well as "California Dreamin'," a reminiscence of Beat-era bohemian life. Meltzer's wide-ranging musical knowledge manifests itself in "A Slew of Blues" as well as poems devoted to the likes of Art Pepper and Nusrat Ali Khan, while his esoteric interests are embodied in a series of mystical "amulets." The book's final section contains two more major works, the eight-part serial poem "Night Reals" and "Dogma," a modernist counterpoint to the autobiographical title piece. With its profound meditations on love, loss, aging and death, When I Was a Poet is a substantial contribution to American poetry by one of its greatest living practitioners. As Lawrence Ferlinghetti writes, Meltzer is "one of the greats of post-WWII San Francisco poets and musicians."

Pocket Poets Number 60

When I Was a Poet

San Francisco Beat is an essential archive of the Beat Generation, a rich moment in a fortunate place. America, somnolent, conformist and paranoid in the 1950s, was changed forever by a handful of people who refused an existence of drudgery and enterprise, opting instead for a life of personal, spiritual and artistic adventure. In these intimate, free-wheeling conversations, a baker's dozen of the poets of San Francisco talk about the scene then and now, the traditions of poetry, and about anarchism, globalism, Zen, the Bomb, the Kabbalah and the Internet. Diane di Prima, William Everson, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Jack Hirschman, Joanne Kyger, Philip Lamantia, Michael McClure, David Meltzer, Jack Micheline, Kenneth Rexroth, Gary Snyder, Lew Welch, Philip Whalen " . . . as we begin to slip into a national slumber somewhat akin to that of the Eisenhower years, it’s exhilarating to have this squall line of Beats pass through our consciousness."—Kirkus Reviews " . . . fierce engagement executed with humor and vernacular sensitivity."—Dale Smith, Austin Chronicle David Meltzer (1937-2016) was the author of many books of poetry, including Tens, The Name, Arrows: Selected Poetry 1957-1992 and Two-Way Mirror (City Lights). He was the editor of Birth, The Secret Garden, Reading Jazz and Writing Jazz, among other collections. His agit-smut fictions include The Agency Trilogy. Meltzer read poetry at the Jazz Cellar in the 1950s and in the 1960s fronted the band, "Serpent Power."

Talking with the Poets

San Francisco Beat

A classic book of poetics by a major Beat Generation poet in a beautiful gift edition.

A Poetry Notebook

Two-Way Mirror

Hero/Lil

Presents an anthology of writings on jazz by African American musicians, critics, writers, and poets

Writing Jazz

David Meltzer

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