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. Poetry, Painting, jazz, Dance, Theater; many books will be published about that period. Hundreds of new voices were to be discovered, a time of revolt and breaking down of old values. McCarthy was gone and John Kennedy was making his rise to the Presidency of the United States. A time of hope. Almost every night there was a poetry reading in the eastside or Village. Books previously banned were sold in drug stores. A market place was being built for contemporary arts. The mass media absorbed the rebellion into the system, like a hungry octopus.

America didnât get any better it got worse. The business of America was business and would remain that way. Man would remain in the soup forever, "The best minds of our generation were (still being) destroyed by madness." The hope of the fifties became the nightmare of the Seventies. The Beats were transformed into the punks of the Eighties, Henry Miller fought his lone courageous battle and won, and Kerouacâs dream, The Great American dream, bloated with beer and bitterness and tragedy, dying in front of a TV set, the way of true genius. Klineâs great heart wasnât enough, going out before his time.

Nothing changed or will ever change. The Literary revolution was a put up job. A middle-class revolution, a paper tiger, a media hype at best. Mankind shoveled and controlled like a yo-yo. The masses well dressed and ignorant forever. A Promise, a dream blown up in smoke and gone to the winds of time. That man should believe in brotherhood and love, Whorehouses and park benches became the refuge of saints. The dollar bill emerged as king-rat. Nothing emerged from the mass protest but the enrichment of those controlling it. We who believed were passed over like a bad penny, an incurable disease, but I lived the dream and survived, desiring to become the most dangerous man in America, because I took the lonely solo path of a tortured saint. A martyr using my mind and body to experiment on life--to find a new way. The way of Self Liberation.

Everyday thousands of young people get murdered and no one says a word. Murdered by mind control. If I liberate myself I liberate mankind, I seek Brotherhood, love, kindness and worship the light and the sun. Now is the time for the emergence of new voices. The poor white voices not heard from, hidden in the dark corners of America. The voices crushed on the skid rows, and beaten on the bottom of cities. Those drunk on dreamers wine, singing in the bars and reading in the coffee houses, walking in the streets and highways of America out of their minds. Beaten up in drunk tanks and sent to mad houses and thrown into the dung heaps of time. Singing on the lone prairie with dogs and children. Climbing the lone mountain talking to God.

We who love life must affirm life. It is not too late, the way of Brotherhood and Sisterhood together and self liberation. This is a book about a way to be one-self with God and truth. To love and be true to oneself. To gain self knowledge. To be one with the world. One World. A lone attempt to be one with God and self, the search for love and brotherhood. A book I lived and believe in. The Unbelievable Belief. Read these poems and songs outloud. On skid row. Read it in the flop houses, and drunk tanks and mad houses. Read it on the buses, in cars on highways. Read it in the churches and schools. Read it to your parents, to the judges and politicians. Read it alone laughing and looking at the sky. Read it till youâre blue in the face. Find out who you are. Fight Back!!

* (It is believed that the book referred to in the last paragraph is OUTLAW OF THE LOWEST PLANET by Jack Micheline.)

To be a real poet is to be part of the waves of the sea. To give freely, asking no reward. To be a star that shines bright in a dark sky. Sometimes the tides hurl his body against the rocks, but somehow he keeps on going, carrying some blind faith within him. He stands alone amidst our frightened ages using his eyes as a mirror. Somehow, by some miracle he survives.

If he is honest he finds he is not wanted by a society based on status and mediocrity. He waters the parched earth with song and plants the seeds with his fired brain and angered conscience. We live in a time when to speak of trees and beauty and to create this beauty might be considered a crime. It is not the universities of nations that encourage and inspire the mind to genius. One is born with this gift and one pays a heavy price for it. Real poets are certainly not wanted in any society. These courageous men plant the seeds of change in the very soil of the nation. They lay their lives on the line like a soldier in battle. The issues at stake are not the beautiful images nor the craft of a poem, but the very sinew and feeling of the person that writes it. He who liberates himself indeed liberates the world.

We live in a spiritual desert, torn by fear created by greed, and sown by cowardice. Let the dead bury the dead. It is the unconquerable belief these poets have in life; the beauty that this life bestows upon the true artist; the unquenchable thirst for more life. These poets have not been endowed with grants or honors for they are the enemy of all systems that attempt to destroy the individual will. The consequence of these actions, the willful destruction of a gift endowed by spiritual power and personal faith, is the tragedy of the world bent on destroying itself. The poet alone is the true voice, not protected by preachersâ cloth or congregations.

He who loves the people, loves the country and it has nothing to do with flags, banners or patriotism. Let the ones who open their hearts be encouraged and loved instead of being persecuted and jailed and beaten down by the waves of indifference, and doomed to the conspiracy of silence by the forces of power who willfully murder themselves. It is a miracle that these poets survive and grow in the most totalitarian and profit-motivated systems. Let destiny ride the winds. For they shall seek porpoises and stars while juries sit in judgment murdering each other. It is the one who brings beauty and love to the world that is triumphant.

In these dark ages where the arts have become a business, truth does not bend nor do true poets. It is my hope that this country will heed the voice of its poets. It is my hope that the people who lie in the wilderness of self will find out who they are and what they are made of. it is my hope that this book of poems will inspire those who live in darkness with the courage to be better human beings.

It is to the credit of these six American poets that they have refused to accept the futility of these times. For in the acceptance of this despair is the destruction of self. These poets will not be used like a yo-yo on a string by the whims of some selfish grant.

It has been an honor and a privilege to put this book together and to have known these poets in their period of strife and growth and their undefeatable will to survive. It is their lives that count--their being. No matter what the future will bring these poets will continue to create under all obstacles, for they will bend the cross the bring back the sun.