Jack Hirschman (December 13, 1933 – August 22, 2021)[1] was an American poet and social activist who wrote more than 100 volumes of poetry and essays.[2][3]
SaxophonistsArt Pepper (left) andDexter Gordon (right) chat with North Beach poet Jack Hirschman (center) atKeystone Korner in San Francisco, in October 1981Beppe Costa with Leonardo Omar Onida, Hirschman, and Paul Polansky in civic Theatre during theOttobre in poesia festival in Sassari, Italy, in 2011Hirschman and Agneta Falk atCaffe Trieste in July 2013
At 19 years old, Hirschman sent a story toErnest Hemingway, who responded: "I can't help you, kid. You write better than I did when I was 19. But the hell of it is, you write like me. That is no sin. But you won't get anywhere with it."[7][8][6] Hirschman left a copy of the letter with theAssociated Press, and when Hemingway killed himself in 1961, the "Letter to a Young Writer" was distributed by the wire service and published all over the world.[9][8]
In the 1950s and 1960s, Hirschman taught atDartmouth College and theUniversity of California, Los Angeles. During his tenure at UCLA, one of the students enrolled in his class wasJim Morrison, later to be a cofounder and lead vocalist of the American bandThe Doors.[9]TheVietnam War, however, put an end to Hirschman's academic career;[3] he was fired from UCLA after encouraging his students to resist the draft.[6][5] His marriage disintegrated, and he moved to San Francisco in 1973.[3]
For a quarter century, Hirschman roamed San Francisco[3] streets, cafes (includingCaffe Trieste,[10] where he was a regular patron), and readings, becoming an active street poet and a peripatetic activist. Hirschman was also a painter and collagist.[3]
Hirschman died fromcoronavirus-related causes at his home in San Francisco, on August 22, 2021, at the age of 87.[11][12][13] He was remembered by theSan Francisco Chronicle as, "a scholar and translator in nine languages who threw over a career as a college professor for the life of a proletarian North Beach poet."[14]
His first volume of poetry,A Correspondence of Americans, published in 1960 byIndiana University Press, included an introduction[15][8][7] byKarl Shapiro: "What a relief to find a poet who is not afraid of the vulgar or the sentimental, who can burst out laughing or cry his head off in poetry – who can make love to language, or kick it in the pants."[16]Among his many volumes of poetry areA Correspondence of Americans (Indiana University Press, 1960),Black Alephs (Trigram Press, 1969),Lyripol (City Lights, 1976),The Bottom Line (Curbstone, 1988), andEndless Threshold (Curbstone, 1992).He also translated over two dozen books into English from languages including Hebrew, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Persian, Russian, Albanian, and Greek.[3]
In 2006, Hirschman released his most extensive collection of poems yet,The Arcanes.[4] Published inSalerno, Italy by Multimedia Edizioni,The Arcanes comprises 126 long poems spanning 34 years.
Also in 2006, Hirschman was appointedPoet Laureate of San Francisco by MayorGavin Newsom.[17][18] In his Poet Laureate inaugural address, Hirschman envisioned creating an International Poetry Festival in San Francisco, reprising a great tradition from the city's literary past.[19]
Hirschman was named Poet-in-Residence with Friends of the San Francisco Public Library in 2009.[4] Hirschman continued his work supporting the literary community and was the key organizer for the now biennial San Francisco International Poetry Festival.[4]
From 2007 Festival on, Hirschman, in partnership with Friends of the San Francisco Public Library and the San Francisco Public Library, have presented smaller poetry festivals in a variety of languages, including the Latino Poetry Festival, the Vietnamese Poetry Festival, and the Iranian Arts Poetry Festival.
Hirschman curated the Poets 11 Anthology, which collected poetry from each of the city's 11 districts.[4]
Hirschman was a long time mentor to author and actressAmber Tamblyn.[21]
Hirschman supported the anti-war movement, theBlack Panther Party,[22] and advocated for the rights of homeless people.[2]
According to a 2006 book review, Hirschman was aStalinist.[23] Hirschman translated the youthful poems ofJoseph Stalin into English[11][5] (Joey: The Poems of Joseph Stalin; Deliriodendron Press, 2001). He was an assistant editor at the left-wing literary journalLeft Curve[11] and was a correspondent forThe People's Tribune. He was active with the Revolutionary Poets Brigade.[4] Hirschman is profiled in the 2009 documentaryRed Poet[24] in which he identifies as aMarxist-Leninist. He stated in an interview with theSan Francisco Chronicle, “The most important thing as a poet is that I worked for the Communist movement for 45 years, and the new class of impoverished and homeless people.”[2]
In 1954, Hirschman marriedRuth Epstein,[3] whom he'd met and dated when they were students at CCNY.[25] Following graduation, Ruth became a program director forKPFK and eventually general manager of Santa Monicapublic radio stationKCRW. The couple had two children, David and Celia.[2]
(with Mark Eisner, John Felstiner, Forrest Gander, Robert Hass, Stephen Kessler, Stephen Mitchell, and Alastair Reid) Neruda, Pablo,The Essential Neruda City Lights Publishers, 2004ISBN9780872864283
Pasolini, Pier Pablo,In Danger : a Pasolini anthology City Lights Publishers, 2010ISBN9780872865075
Sénac, Jean,Citizens of Beauty : Poems of Jean Sénac Michigan State University Press, 2016ISBN9781609174859
^Kaufman, Alan."Superb landscapes full of horrible glory",San Francisco Chronicle (November 12, 2006): "A die-hard Stalinist Communist, he is also a virtuoso kabbalah scholar who, as a Yiddish-inflected Jew and artist, would probably have been executed – alongside such figures as Isaac Babel and Osip Mandelstam – in the Soviet Union about which he so fervently rhapsodizes."
