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Kirby Doyle | |
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| Born | Stanton Doyle (1932-11-27)November 27, 1932 San Francisco,California, U.S. |
| Died | April 5, 2003(2003-04-05) (aged 70) San Francisco, California, U.S. |
| Occupation | Poet |
| Alma mater | San Francisco State University |
Kirby Doyle (November 27, 1932 – April 5, 2003), bornStanton Doyle, was an American poet. He was featured in theNew American Poetry anthology, with the so-called "third generation" of Americanmodernist poets. He was one of theSan Francisco Renaissance poets who laid the groundwork forBeat poetry inSan Francisco. Doyle also wrote novels.
Doyle was born inSan Francisco, California. AUnited States Army veteran, Doyle was pursuing art and culinary studies atSan Francisco State University when he published several poems in the school's literary magazine. This led to his association withRobert Duncan,Lew Welch, andKenneth Rexroth. But Doyle stressed the directness of the spoken word over formal poetry. In the late 1950s, Doyle wroteSapphobones, a collection of playful and evocative love poems, which cemented his literary reputation.
Words like mad exotic birds fluttering
from my thorax
whipping my speech -- moist and gaudy feathers
gone from my lips upward.
and in your sleep I awake here
have eaten an orange
have gone to the creek and bathed
listening to its thin and liquid speech
its joy to run so free and clean
Now, returning to this ragged tent
sanctuary to your sleep, your real sleep,
I wish for you waking
so that we together could take cool pause
at the hidden pond I found down stream
our bodies quick and chilled
by the water,
our bodies breathing - holding
His work appeared alongside that ofJack Kerouac,Lawrence Ferlinghetti, andAllen Ginsberg in the Summer, 1958 issue ofChicago Review, which was devoted to "San Francisco Renaissance" writers. Several of his poems were published on broadsheets by the Communication Company, the publishing arm of theDiggers.
Although his work maintained the directness of colloquial speech, it could also be lyrical and rhapsodic. Doyle's poems were sometimes humorous. He was a Romantic at heart. He adored the works ofJohn Keats,Emily Dickinson and the great 'projective verse' ofCharles Olson.
Doyle was a mainstay of theNorth Beach literary scene in San Francisco from the late seventies until his incarceration in Laguna Honda hospital for dementia and the effects of diabetes. Prior to that he had lived for long stretches of time oncommunes nearMount Tamalpais. The poetMichael McClure said of him: "He was a handsome, big-smiled Irish American rascal. He was an original Beat, loose-jointed, with a great laugh. His poetry was beautiful stuff."
Doyle died on April 5, 2003, in Laguna Honda Hospital in San Francisco.[1] He was one of the few writers of the San Francisco Renaissance who were both born and died in the city.[1]
NEWS FLASH: the Doyle papers were acquired by The Mandeville Special Collections Library at San Diego in 2012; and the scroll ofHappiness Bastard was acquired by Harvard University in 2014. Tisa Walden
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