1. Jack Spicer was an American poet often identified with the San Francisco Renaissance.
14 Facts About Jack Spicer
1. 2.
In 2009, My Vocabulary Did This to Me: The Collected Poetry of Jack Spicer won the American Book Award for poetry.
3.
Jack Spicer spent most of his writing life in San Francisco.
4.
Jack Spicer graduated from Fairfax High School in 1942, and attended the University of Redlands from 1943 to 1945.
5.
Jack Spicer spent the years 1945 to 1950; and from 1952 to 1955 at the University of California, Berkeley, where he began writing, doing work as a research linguist, and publishing some poetry.
6.
In 1955, Jack Spicer moved to New York City and then to Boston, where he worked for a time in the Rare Book Room of Boston Public Library.
7.
Jack Spicer returned to San Francisco in 1956 and started working on After Lorca.
8.
Jack Spicer participated in, and sometimes hosted, Blabbermouth Night at a literary bar called The Place.
9.
Jack Spicer refused to have his work copyrighted, and after 1960, Jack Spicer refused to publish his work outside of California.
10.
Jack Spicer considered City Lights Bookstore a tourist destination, and boycotted selling his work there.
11.
Jack Spicer was unable to hold a job and fell into poverty so by 1964 he started selling books at City Lights.
12.
Jack Spicer is acknowledged as a precursor for the Language poets.
13.
The Collected Books of Jack Spicer gathered Spicer's works beginning from 1957, and specifically did not include his earlier poetry per Spicer's requests.
14.
My Vocabulary Did This to Me: The Collected Poetry of Jack Spicer edited by Peter Gizzi and Kevin Killian, won the American Book Award in 2009.