I am fifty two, live alone, considered some mad freak genius
In reality I am a fucked up poet who will never come to terms with the world…
— Jack Micheline
When I began to write in the early fifties my work was full of anger and raw energy.
I roamed America like a mad dog, going from cause to cause and group to group never finding the answer outside of myself, my very being. I ended up in a twelve dollar fifty cent cold-water flat on Cornelia St. in the village. Only after I probed honestly inward did I start tapping in on the clarity of my voice and vision.
By some lucky accident, my first book of poems was published, “River of Red Wine,” with an introduction by Jack Kerouac. I was launched on a Rocket ship called hope into a literary jungle loaded with shit, far worse than the garment center where I pushed a hand truck years before, nonetheless I began to discover myself the process of being my own man had begun.
It was a time when Henry Miller, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Bill Burroughs were influencing young writers. A time of great energy in New York and San Francisco. Out of the Slime pits of America new voices were emerging in all the arts.