JACK FOLEY
2569 Maxwell Avenue, Oakland, CA 94601, (510) 532-3737
"Jack Foley is doing great things in articulating the poetic
consciousness
of San Francisco." - Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Jack Foley is an innovative, widely-published poet and critic who,
with his wife, Adelle, performs his work frequently in the San Francisco
Bay Area.
For the past several years he has hosted a show of interviews and poetry
presentations on
Berkeley radio station KPFA. Until recently, he was Editor in Chief of
the widely-praised tabloid
poetry magazine, Poetry USA. His poetry books include Letters/LightsxWords
for Adelle
(1987), Gershwin (1991), Adrift (1993, nominated for a Bay Area Book Reviewers'
Award) and
the forthcoming Exiles (1996). Each of these books is accompanied by a
cassette
tape. Foley has also published essays on literature, art, and film.
Inciting Big Joy (1993) is a monograph on the films and poetry of James
Broughton. "O Her Blackness Sparkles!" (1995) is an essay on
the Batman Art Gallery, a center of Beat art which flourished in San Francisco
from
1960-1965; the book features photographs from the period by James O.
Mitchell. Janine Canan, editor of the anthology, She Rises Like The Sun:
Invocations Of The
Goddess By Contemporary Women Poets, calls Foley "a brilliant critic
and a unique poet
whose work energetically records the disintegration of the patriarchy."
Poet/critic Dana Gioia describes Foley's poetry as "that rare commodityxgenuinely
avant-garde
poetry...experimental poetry with depth and intelligence as well as intensity."
Poet/playwright Michael McClure calls Foley "our firebrand experimentalist":
"he holds his torch high so the
reader can have more light."
Editor Steven Hirsch writes,
When discussing the renaissance in experimental
poetry on the west coast, we must start with those
"renaissance" men and women that drive the new vision
of letters for this and future decades. One of those
oracular incandescences is Jack Foley. His Poetry USA
tabloid is the poetry bible of the `Bay' area and these
collaborative, multimedia poetry performances are both
seminal and shamanic, evolving from the linguistic
musical tradition of the original S.F. "Beat" poet/
performers and extending that eye, ear and voice of
penetrating clarity into a modern mythology...This is a
performance art that pries open new expressive
possibilities...very little poetry these days is as
compelling or comprehensively challenging
to the imagination....
Heaven Bone (#11, 1994)
Born Neptune, New Jersey (1940), grew up in Port Chester, New York.
Education: Cornell University (BA, English Literature, 1963); University
of California
at Berkeley (MA, English Literature, 1965). Referred to in TIME magazine
as a "literary
luminary" of California (Ishmael Reed, "Bad News for Blacks,"
TIME, 11/18/91). Adrift
nominated for a 1994 BABRA (Bay Area Book Reviewers Association) Award.
Recipient of
fellowship from Djerassi Resident Artists Program (September, 1994). Listed
in 1995
Who's Who In America.
PUBLICATIONS
BOOKS
Letters/LightsxWords for Adelle (Mother's Hen Press, 1987), poetry and
prose, preface by Larry Eigner, book with cassette tape.
Gershwin (Norton Coker, 1991), poetry book with cassette tape.
Adrift (Pantograph Press, 1993), poetry book with cassette tape. Nominated
for 1994
BABRA (Bay Area Book Reviewers Association) Award.
Inciting Big Joy (The San Francisco CinCmathaque, 1993), prose monograph
on the films
and poetry of James Broughton.
"O Her Blackness Sparkles!" The Life and Times of the Batman Art
Gallery,
San Francisco 1960-1965, Featuring the photographs of James O. Mitchell
(3300 Press,
1995), prose. Exiles (Pantograph Press, 1996), poetry book with cassette
tape.
Pamela Grieman wrote in a review of Gershwin:
Foley's poetry teems with multifarious
voices, none of which take precedence. The
poet doesn't privilege one particular voice
or so much as hint at one specific meaning.
There are multiple possibilities of meaning...
The jumble of voices that inhabit "Chorus:
Gershwin" speaks of night, sleep, frost,
death, fire, sexual desire, and the creation
of poetry, among other things...The possibilities
and resonances are endless....
"Touching Fire," Poetry Flash, Oct. 1992
Dana Gioia, author of the influential essay, "Can Poetry
Matter?"
(The Atlantic Monthly, vol. 267, no. 5, May, 1991) writes,
Jack Foley's work represents that rare
commodityxgenuinely avant-garde poetry. He
takes the polyphonic forms of Pound and Eliot
and pushes them into possibilities open only
to performance-based art. This is experimental
poetry with depth and intelligence as well as intensity.
In reviews appearing in TapRoot Reviews the experimental poet Jake
Berry describes Foley's work as "poetry that will change your life"
(Issue #1, Dec. 1992);
"Foley's work is science in the noblest sense of the word, of curiosity
and discovery, and it
is art in its purest form, the experience of transformative truth"
(Issue #4, Spring 1994).
"Foley," writes poet/playwright Michael McClure, "is our
firebrand experimentalist and he
holds his torch high so the reader can have more light."
Steven Hirsch writes,
Foley is multilingual, multidimensional in
performance with his wife Adelle, and on the page...
very little poetry these days is as compelling or
comprehensively challenging to the imagination. To
really read this work is to be irrevocably transformed
at some essential placexnot to be `Cast Adrift' but
to come home, to open heart and senses.
Heaven Bone (#11, 1994)
LITERARY AND CASSETTE MAGAZINES
POETRY
Poetry published in a wide variety of magazines: The New York Quarterly,
The CafC Review, Wet Motorcycle, Blue Beetle Press Magazine, Inkblot, Malthus,
MaLLife, Barque, Exquisite Corpse, The Galley Sail Review, Transmog, The
Beloit Poetry Journal, OutrC, NRG, Meat Epoch, The Berkeley Poetry Review,
Tight, Talisman, many others. My work has also appeared in POLY, the anthology
of "speculative" poetry (Ocean View Books, 1989), and The Love
Project (anabasis, 1993).
A single issue of the "otherstream" magazine, The Experioddicist,
was devoted entirely to my work (Sept., 1993); the issue was described as
"an ideal short introduction to what Foley is all about" (TapRoot
Reviews, Issue #4, Spring 1994).
I have also appeared in two issues of the cassette magazine, Poets 11.
Experimental Audio Directions issued Three Talkers, a cassette magazine
created by Jake Berry and featuring work by me along with work by Mike Miskowski
and Mr. Berry. We Magazine and MaLLife have produced various cassettes
in which my work is heard. The cassette tape accompanying my book, Adrift,
was described as "alchemy of high order, absolutely transubstantial.
It lures us into an almost shamanic altered state where music integrates
poetry with the worlds of our own conception invoked by its spell"
(TapRoot Reviews, Issue #4, Spring 1994).
My work has also been translated into other languages. The 1992 issue of
the Korean magazine, The Modern Poetry (vol. 3-11), contains an anthology
of San Francisco Bay Area poets which features, among others, Michael Palmer,
Leslie Scalapino, Robert Hass, and Brenda Hillman. The selection is begun
with a translation of my long poem, "Bridget, Pronounced `Breed.'"
CRITICISM
My literary criticism and reviews have appeared in Open Letter, Poetry Flash,
The Seattle Literary Quarterly, ELH, The Galley Sail Review, Heaven Bone,
W'ORCs, Linden Lane Magazine, Prosodia, lower limit speech, Konch, The Multicultural
Review, and MaLLife. In addition, I have written various prefaces and introductions
to poetry collections: Carlota Caulfied, 34th Street (El Gato Tuerto, 1987);
Elizabeth Clamen, Peripheral Visions (5 Fingers Press, 1989); Michael Kelly,
Dark Roses (New Hope Press, 1991); Crag Hill, Dict (Xexoxial Editions, 1989);
James Broughton, Special Deliveries (Broken Moon Press,1991).
I also wrote introductions to the selections from Allen Ginsberg and Robert
Kelly in the Before Columbus Foundation Poetry Anthology (W.W. Norton,
1992). The Spring/Summer 1988 issue of the Spanish/English literary journal,
El Gato Tuerto ("The One-Eyed Cat"), featured an interview with
me as well as examples of my poetry, and I have been quoted extensively
in various articles dealing with poetry, including "Poetry In Motion,"
the East Bay Express's feature article on Bay Area poetry (4/17/92). My
article, "Multiculturalism and the Media," was quoted from and
discussed in Walt Harrington's book, Crossings: A White Man's Journey
Into Black America (Harper Collins, 1992).
My film criticism has appeared in Bright Lights and Journal of Popular Film;
my art criticism in Artweek, Poetry Flash and the East Bay Express. Inciting
Big Joy, my monograph on the films and poetry of James Broughton, was published
by the San Francisco CinCmathaque to commemorate Broughton's 80th birthday
(November, 1993). "O Her Blackness Sparkles!" The Life and Times
of the Batman Art Gallery, San Francisco 1960-1965 attempts to create the
milieu of a Beat-era art gallery. Michael McClure writes, "The author
creates a time-capsule picture of the `Batman' with all of its glistenings
and doubts. This is recommended for those who love art."
EDITOR
Editor-In-Chief from 1990-1995 of Poetry USA, official publication
of the National Poetry Association. Poetry USA has been described as "one
of the more democratic poetry publications open and about" (Poetic
Briefs, Dec., 1991), "the poetry bible of the `Bay'area" (Heaven
Bone, #11, 1994).
In a lengthy review Catherine Francis wrote that, for Poetry
USA,
the important thing is not that you read "important"
poems, poems tagged as influential, but simply that
you read poetry, that you initiate word-play, that you
listen to a variety of voices outside your own world.
The reader experiences direct engagement with poetic
language and force....
Literary Magazine Review (vol. 10, no. 4, Winter 1991-2)
Factsheet Five called Poetry USA's experimental issue "very highly
recommended" and described it as demonstrating "the beauty that
lies in the outer fringes" (#50, 1993). Small Magazine Review described
it as "an American magazine reaching more than a few dozen readers
that is covering just about the ENTIRE poetic spectrum" (vol. 1, no.
10, March 1994). The Beatlicks: Nashville's Poetry Newsletter called Poetry
USA "a wake up call for poetry in America" (#17, 1993). The
magazine has three times been awarded a grant from the Oakland Arts Council.
I am also Contributing Editor to Poetry Flash, the Bay Area's poetry calendar
and review. I guest-edited a special section of Poetry: San Francisco (Issue
no. 13, Winter Solstice, 1988-89). This section was devoted to my reading
series at the CafC Milano in Berkeley.
PRESENTER AND PROMOTER OF POETRY
RADIO
I began doing poetry programming on the radio in 1988. I currently host
"Cover To Cover," a weekly series of interviews and poetry presentations
on Berkeley radio station KPFA (Wednesdays, 3-3:30 p.m., 94.1 FM). These
programs are being collected and archived (along with other examples of
my work) at the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley.
READINGS
Since our first reading in 1985, my wife Adelle and I have been in constant
demand for readings throughout the Berkeley-Oakland-San Francisco area.
These readings always feature multi-voiced pieces as well as music and
song. (One of my songs, "Just A Moment," was featured on the
cassette magazine, Anomaly. Another, a musical setting of one of Lawrence
Ferlinghetti's poems, "Dove Sta Amore," was presented on the occasion
of the dedication of Via Ferlinghetti in San Francisco, 4/24/94.) We perform
not only in local performing spaces such as Cody's Books but on local radio
and television stations. United Cable of Alameda's Star Rover program produced
a half-hour video, Jack & Adelle Foley: An Anthology For Television,
and I have been a guest on various other tv shows. Adelle and I have also
presented speeches on the subject of poetry at The Commonwealth Club in
San Francisco, the San Francisco Bay Area Book Fair, and other locations.
COLLABORATIONS
My activities include collaborations with artists in media other than poetry.
Judy Patton, a well-known dancer in Portland, Oregon, danced to a taped
recitation of my long poem, "Sweeney Adrift," and the tenor saxophonist
Glenn Spearman and I produced a radio show of poetry and jazz in which we
mixed poetry recitation with free jazz improvisation. (Glenn played tenor
sax while I played electric guitar; both of us recited poetry.) The title
poem of my book, Gershwin, has appeared as one of Servando Gonzalez's "hypertext"
booksxbooks designed to be read on the computer screen. My book, "O
Her Blackness Sparkles!" features photographs by James O. Mitchell.
My wife Adelle and I can be heard on the CD/Cassette, Lou Harrison: A Birthday
Celebration (Musical Heritage Society, Inc., 1994) performing one of Harrison's
poems.
COORDINATOR OF POETRY EVENTS
For a number of years I coordinated the very successful poetry series
at Larry Blake's and The CafC Milano in Berkeley, and I am active in various
local projects having to do with poetry. When Robert Duncan died I staged
a tribute to that poet which attracted over 300 people. I have served on
the board of San Francisco's annual National Poetry Week, and I performed
at and coordinated the high-energy "Performance Poetry Bash" featuring
Anne Waldman and others during National Poetry Week II. (See statement,
page 7.) As Program Director of PEN Oakland, I also coordinate the annual
PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Awards. These awards, which always include
poetry, are an attempt to call attention to high-quality multicultural writing
and to illuminate some of the problems faced by "ethnic" writers
in America.
PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
Board member and Program Director of PEN Oakland (the only chapter of PEN
to target multicultural issues as they occur within the United States);
former secretary of National Poetry Association; member of Poets and Writers
and the MLA.
STATEMENT ON PERFORMANCE POETRY
MADE FOR NATIONAL POETRY WEEK II (1988)
Camerado, this is no book...Walt Whitman
Performance poetry is an active and intellectually engaged responseto
the silence and whiteness in which most poetry remains entangled. Writing
of MallarmC, Frederick R. Karl has remarked, "The page or territory
is primary, on which language wanders like a lonely adventurer hoping to
survive emptiness and whiteness." The performance poet insists that
s/he is not a mere adjunct of a book but rather a manifestation of what
books arise out of:
the physical presence of the author. Historically, "poetry" and
"writing" remain in a state of tension. (Homer was a poet, not
a writer.) Performance poetry seeks to tilt that tension in the direction
of presence, to insist on the limitations of writing as a medium for the
presentation of the art. At the heart of writing, at the heart of all mass
culture, is a profound and disturbing absence. Performance poetry is an
insistence that absence, silence and whitenessxthe pagexare not the only
conditions in which poetry can be "heard."
I reside in Oakland, California, with my wife, Adelle, and my son, Sean.
ADELLE FOLEY: BIO
Adelle Foley is an economist, performer and Oakland arts activist.
She performs regularly with her husband Jack. Her haiku have appeared
in various magazines.
Jack Foley
2569 Maxwell Avenue
Oakland, CA 94601
(510) 532-3737
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