Several of Brautigan's books were published during the decade of the 1960s, including Trout Fishing in America which catapulted him to international fame. He was invited to poetry readings around the country and during the Summer of Love, Brautigan was considered the one writer who best represented the sentiments of the countercultural movement centered in San Francisco. More information and resources about Brautigan, his life, and work during this decade are below.
Daughter Ianthe Elizabeth born. Artist friend Kenn Davis drove Brautigan to University of California Hospital where she was born.

This photograph shows Brautigan and his young daughter, Ianthe. Brautigan looks every bit the proud father.

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Brautigan gave a poetry reading with Andrew Hoyem at the Coffee Gallery, 1353 Grant, in San Francisco's North Beach. This stylized handbill, printed in black ink on white stock, announced the reading.

VIEW a larger image of this handbill.

The Octopus Frontier, a collection of twenty two poems, published. This was Brautigan's first pictorial book cover and featured the bare feet of a man (Brautigan?) standing on the suckered tentacle of a large octopus.

Lived with wife Virginia Dionne Alder and daughter Ianthe at 557A Greenwich Street, San Francisco.

A broadside issued by Borregaard's Museum in San Francisco listed Brautigan, [Burgess] Jess Collins, Paul Alexander, Harry Jacobus, Robert Duncan, Jack Spicer, Helen Adam, and other poets and painters scheduled to appear there. The Borregaard Museum, billed on the broadside as "the largest private galley in San Francisco," was a landmark of the Sixties avant-garde.

Camped, during Summer 1961, with Virginia and Ianthe in Idaho's Stanley Basin. Began writing Trout Fishing in America. More . . .

This photograph, taken during the camping trip, shows Brautigan posing atop an abandoned and rusted truck.

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Brautigan and his wife, Virginia (Ginny) Dionne Alder, separated on Christmas Eve 1962. Each pursued separate lives: Ginny as a political activist and teacher in Hawaii, Brautigan as a writer. They were divorced 17 February 1970 in San Francisco, California.

Ianthe Brautigan said the separation occurred a year later, in 1963, and was unclear about the reasons (Ianthe Brautigan 23).

Lewis Ellingham and Kevin Killian said the cause was an affair between Virginia and Tony Aste, a friend of Jack Spicer. "Virginia—Ginny—Richard's girlfriend," they said, engaged in an affair with Aste, newly arrived from Salt Lake City, Utah, starting in the spring of 1962. They eloped and married (Ellingham and Killian 223).

Alder and Aste returned to California in 1969 and lived in Sonoma County's Valley of the Moon. They had three children: Ellen, Mara, and Jesse (born 1970-1971?). Alder moved to Hawaii, late in 1975, and pursued a career as a teacher and political activist on The Big Island.

Ron Loewinsohn (poet and friend of Brautigan) said the friction began soon after Ianthe was born, when Virginia "was stuck at home with the kid and he'd [Brautigan] be out prowling with his buddies." As for the affair between Alder and Aste, Loewinsohn said Brautigan was in the habit of bringing people to the apartment for dinner and parties. "One of these guys [Tony Aste] eventually got it on with Ginny." Aste and Alder, and daughter Ianthe, left San Francisco for Salt Lake City. Brautigan was devastated and started drinking and taking pills (Peter Manso and Michael McClure 65).

Keith Abbott was more direct:

Tired of being left with the baby, Virginia had an affair with one of Brautigan's friends [Aste] and moved with him to Salt Lake City. This devastated Richard (Abbott 45).

Brautigan's action was immediate. An entry in one of his notebooks, entitled "The 20th Century Marriage in Flight," recounts how Brautigan gathered his writings before leaving; called Loewinsohn, who lived in Berkeley; slept on the Loewinsohn's couch; and returned to his family the next day, Christmas.

Following his separation from Virginia, Brautigan lived with Ron Loewinsohn and his wife for about three months.
Brautigan in San Francisco, 1963
Photograph by Erik Weber.

Brautigan and Ron Loewinsohn tried to start a literary magazine called Change (Peter Manso and Michael McClure 65). Only one issue was ever published and it consisted of mimeogaphed sheets (8.5" x 11") with a photograph of Loewinsohn and Brautigan on the front cover, dressed in black, looking like serious poets, standing in front of a billboard advertising "the fastest car on Earth." Featured first publication of Brautigan's short story "Coffee."

LEARN about Brautigan's literary magazine Change.
A Confederate General from Big Sur was published by Grove Press through a four novel contract brokered by Donald M. Allen. More . . .

This was Brautigan's first published novel, although it was the second he wrote as an adult writer, after Trout Fishing in America.

Grove Press sponsored a publication party and reading to celebrate the release of A Confederate General from Big Sur. The 8:30 p.m. reading was held at the California Club, 625 Polk Street. A reception followed, 10:00 p.m.-midnight, at the Tape Music Center, 321 Divisadero Street. The 4" x 9" invitations were printed on textured, deckle-edge stock and included small illustrations.

VIEW a larger image of this invitation.

Sales for A Confederate General from Big Sur were disappointing and Grove Press held off publishing Trout Fishing in America. They rejected Brautigan's two remaining contracted novels, In Watermelon Sugar and The Abortion as Brautigan presented them and allowed their contract for Trout Fishing in America to expire in July 1966. Grove Press did, however, keep A Confederate General from Big Sur alive in small editions, which Brautigan resented.

With no publishing contract, Brautigan once again faced poverty. He worked odd jobs, borrowed money from friends, and sold copies of Lay the Marble Tea and The Octopus Frontier on consignment at City Lights Books. With no other economic skills, and no contact with society other than the San Franciso writing community, Brautigan focused on succeeding as a writer. San Francisco's psychedelic scene was just beginning and the increased media attention focused on LSD, the hippies and happenings in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury neighborhood during the Summer of Love (summer 1967) helped him realize this dream.

According to the dedication included with the publication of the novel in 1968, Brautigan began writing In Watermelon Sugar in a house in Bolinas, California on this day. This small town across the bay and northwest of San Francisco was home to a significant colony of artists and writers. The house was rented, or borrowed. Brautigan purchased a home in Bolinas in 1970. Several times from 1966-1968, before he bought a house in Bolinas, California, Brautigan visited and stayed with writer and friend Bill Brown and his family according to Brown's son, Tony.


The Beatles were the most popular music group in the world. Joanne Kyger tells this story:

The Beatles are in the air. Richard Brautigan and I sit at Vesuvio and memorize their names and pictures—that's John, and that's Paul. We write a letter with Jack Spicer to Ringo Starr. (Kyger 196)

Lived at 533 Divisadero Street

Lived at 2830 California Street with Janice Meissner.

Brian Nation lived four blocks from Brautigan and Meissner on Californina Street. He spent time with each and made this photograph of Meissner.

In Detroit John Sinclair introduced me to Trout Fishing in America. Later that year I was in San Francisco. Dan McLeod introduced me to Joanne Kyger whom I later visited on occasion. I believe she was still married to—although separated from—Gary Snyder. At Joanne's apartment at 2921 Pine Street I met Ken Botto whose film I'd seen just days earlier. Botto shared an apartment at 2450 California Street with Jim O'Neill. Jim lived mostly with his girlfriend, so I moved in to his room. At Joanne's another time I met Richard Brautigan. The Presidio Branch of the San Francisco Public Library was just a few blocks away at 3150 Sacramento Street. I visited the library regularly for reading material and also because the librarian was yet another in a series of very beautiful women I secretly pined for. On one visit I was checking out Confederate General from Big Sur. She mentioned that she loved Brautigan's writing. Suddenly there was Brautigan. I introduced them. Another magical confluence of romance, ideas, and events. Brautigan invited me back to his place, also in the neighbourhood, four blocks from Botto's at 2830 California Street. There I met his girlfriend whose name I can't recall but which might have been Janice. I fell in love with her in an instant. I was 21, utterly single, and falling in love all over the damn place. Janice, Richard, and I became friends. Now and then I'd go by their place and we'd play Monopoly. Monopoly became a significant, recurring game during that particular time in San Francisco. And later, of course, Brautigan became a significant and very popular author for a couple of decades. Janice visited me once in a while, with or without Richard. One day I told her she was the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen in my life and asked to photograph her. We crossed the street to an empty lot where she stood before a wall and I ran off about half a dozen shots. Later I discovered the film had stuck in the camera so that every photograph, plus others I took later, were all exposed on a single frame. I discovered this months later, back in Vancouver [British Columbia, Canada] when I managed to find a darkroom and it was too late to take more pictures of Janice. The negative was almost solid black in that spot but, determined to salvage even the ghostliest image of Janice, I exposed the photo paper for almost five minutes and this is all the evidence that remains of Janice. (Brian Nation)

READ this account at Nation's "Beat the Devil" website.

Moved to 2546 Geary Street, next door to photographer Erik Weber who arranged for Brautigan to take this new apartment. Brautigan lived there until 1975. Weber photographed Brautigan and Meissner together. Additionally, Weber's photographs document Brautigan's Geary Street apartment in August 1972.

Brautigan's Geary Street apartment, a typical turn-of-the-century, high-ceilinged, San Francisco apartment, was to the right at the top of the front stairs. The front door was wooden, ornately carved, with a small window against which Brautigan always kept small things taped. The front door opened to a hallway leading to the back of the apartment. Faded pink curtains and/or parachutes, hiding the peeling paint and falling ceiling plaster, were hung above the hallway. Along the walls Brautigan hung rock concert posters, mimeographed poems, and paste up for his book covers, and announcements for his poetry readings around San Francisco. Following the success of Trout Fishing in America in 1967, Brautigan had a school of his trademark smiling trout painted on the length of the hallway floor (Keith Abbott 59).

Doors opened from the hallway into the rooms of Brautigan's apartment. The front room contained a brass bed, always made and covered, for a period of time, with a buffalo hide. There was a fireplace in the room but it never worked. The built-in cabinet shelves were loaded with books and a collection of intriguing items: keys, rocks, feathers, and Hell's Angels mementos (Keith Abbott 16); a switchblade in the shape of a dragon, stuck open and wrapped in a rosary, a small Bible covered in mink fur, and a small piece of gold lame given by Janis Joplin (Ianthe Brautigan 15, 16). A fishing pole sat in one corner. Another prominent feature of this room was a small stepladder painted black and decorated with pink-pompoms hanging from each step by the artist Bruce Conner (Ianthe Brautigan 15).

Further down the hallway was Brautigan's writing room. It contained a large, dark oak table used as a desk and some overflowing bookshelves. On the table, under a plastic cover, sat Brautigan's tan IBM Selectric electric typewriter. The window was covered with a torn blue bedspread (Ianthe Brautigan 43).

The door to the bathroom had a frosted glass window. The bathroom walls were decorated with a Beatles poster and small leaflets. Above the toilet paper hung

a royalty statement from Grove Press stating that A Confederate General from Big Sur had sold 743 copies. What Richard thought about this was easy to guess from its position. (Keith Abbott 18)

At the back of the apartment was the small kitchen, its linoleum tile worn in places. A porcelain sink with an old-fashioned spigot sat under the window. A white refrigerator, usually sparsely stocked, stood in the corner. In another was the white gas stove. The cupboards contained chili, spaghetti, and sardines, easy to prepare one-can meals, and instant coffee. Furnishings included a round oak table and two chairs, the caning in their seats broken. The cookware was basic; the white tin dishes had pictures of fruit on them. Brautigan may have changed the wall decorations periodically. Keith Abbott said when he first met Brautigan, in March 1966, the only decoration was "a funky, butcher paper and crayon poster for Richard's first reading of Trout Fishing in America (Keith Abbott 17).

The poster was made by poet friend Michael McClure.

I drew it by hand, Richard face-forward with his glasses, hat, and mustache. Across from that I drew his profile, then wrote DIGGER under one and POET under the other. Richard kept that poster up on the wall forever, along with other posters, and good notices. He loved it. Everything got very old on his walls. He'd hang new things but he'd never take anything away or down. The things about him comforted him and got cobwebby. It was like an old museum of himself. (Michael McClure 36-37)

The kitchen walls featured several interesting decorations like,

a pencil drawing of a bus with real Lincoln penny heads as passengers, a few small Fillmore Auditorium posters, and a picture of an ancient Colt pistol (Ianthe Brautigan 16)

The back porch was the repository for copies of the San Francisco Chronicle. Brautigan read the paper daily and archived year's worth of back issues on the porch. A rickety staircase led from the porch to the backyard.

Brautigan participated in a reading at Tressider Lounge, Stanford University, Stanford, California.

Brautigan read the newly-completed manuscript of his novel In Watermelon Sugar at the Buzz Gallery, 1711 Buchanan Street, San Francisco, California. He read the first half the evening of 3 July, the second half 10 July. In Watermelon Sugar was not published until 1968.

Buzz Gallery opened 21 June 1964 and closed following the show by Jack Boyce, 19-20 February 1965. During its short tenure, Buzz provided a gallery where young San Francisco artists could show their work.

Joanne Kyger, in her essay "I Remember Richard Brautigan," writes

I remember Richard reading his newly finished manuscript of In Watermelon Sugar in two parts over at Buzz Gallery on Buchanan Street, Saturday, July 3, and July 10. Tom Parkinson laughed in all the wrong places. The novel was dedicated to Don Allen, Michael McClure, and me. This was during the famous Berkeley Poetry Conference, July 12-24, 1965. It was a great fermenting stew of poets arriving. Richard was not a part of that. (Richard Brautigan: Essays on the Writings and Life. McFarland, 2006. 142.)

The Berkeley Poetry Conference featured Charles Olsen, John Weiners, Gary Snyder, Edward Dorn, Robert Creeley, Robert Duncan, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Spicer, and Warren and Ellen Tallman, among others.

Bill Brodecky Moore, a San Francisco artist and one of the original founders of Buzz Gallery, in a brief history of the gallery, also recalls Brautigan's reading.

Richard Brautigan also packed the place with his reading of In Watermelon Sugar. I complimented him effusively afterward, even though I thought the book less good and more stylized than Trout Fishing in America, which I had thought dry and too deliberately droll when he read it in a Mission District former church (at which [Jack] Spicer, who had been a close adviser, was present, proving that his geographic rules were spotty). [Spicer felt that members of the poetry scene in North Beach never went west of Van Ness or south of California Street].

READ

Moore's full account within Buzz Gallery 1964-1965, a monograph of the gallery published in Big Bridge (Volume 3, Number 1), a webzine of poetry.

READ

the entire Buzz Gallery 1964-1965 monograph online within Big Bridge webzine.

Writer David Kherdian recalls drinking and playing pool with other unknown writers, including Brautigan, at Vesuvio, the bohemian bar facing the alley that separated Discovery Books and City Lights Books. Perhaps, however, Kheridan is confusing Vesuvio, which by all accounts never had a pool table, with Mike's another local bar where writers and others would gather to drink, talk, and play pool. Kheridan was writing Six San Francisco Poets (Fresno, CA: Giligia Press, 1969) and considered including Brautigan

in my book but disqualified him on the basis of his poems, that seemed to me minimal at best—but we had long, involved talks about [William] Saroyan, whose work he admired as much as I did. (Kherdian 269)

Kherdian expressed his feelings further in this poem, "Lately Richard Brautigan Isn't Enough," published in 1969:

In Dundee
     orange marmalade
     comes in a jar
handsome enough to hold
     pencils & letteropeners
     and other nice things.
And I should mention
     Croydom, too, his partner.
They established it in 1797
(David Kherdian. The Sage (12) October 1969: 13)

Brautigan posed with Beat poets and artists for a photograph in front of City Lights Books in San Francisco.

According to photographer Larry Keenan, Lawrence Ferlinghetti wanted to document the 1965 Beat scene in San Francisco in the spirit of early 20th Century photographs of Bohemian artists and writers in Paris. So, he gathered as many as possible in front of his bookstore and Keenan took the photograph titled "The Last Gathering of Beat Poets & Artists, City Lights Books."

The original photograph was horizontal and showed the entire front of City Lights Books and a larger gathering of Beat poets and writers. The image shown here was cropped by Keenan from the original horizontal photograph and does not show all the Beats gathered. Those shown include, front row left to right: Robert LaVigne, Shig Murao, Larry Fagin, Leland Meyezove (lying down), Lew Welch, Peter Orlovsky. Second row: David Meltzer, Michael McClure, Allen Ginsberg, Daniel Langton, Steve (friend of Ginsberg), Richard Brautigan (wearing white hat), Gary Goodrow, Nemi Frost. Back row: Stella Levy, Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

The original photograph was first published on the front cover of City Lights Journal, issue 3 (San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1966). Brautigan made no literary contribution to this issue. The photograph in its original format is rarely seen.

The photograph was republished several times after that. One example is the front cover of Huge Dreams: San Francisco and Beat Poems by Michael McClure (New York: Penguin, 1999).

This book reprints two by McClure long out of print: The New Book and A Book of Torture and Star. These books are considered by some to represent the cornerstones of the Beat movement. Their poems certainly impart a sense of the rich texture and individuality that fueled the San Francisco Beat movement.

VIEW Keenan's photographs at the "Larry Keenan" website.
Brautigan and Michael McClure, circa 1966-1967 in San Francisco.

Brautigan participated in a poetry reading with Andrew Hoyem, Allen Dienstag, and longshoreman poet William Fritsch at the Coffee Gallery, 1353 Grant Street, in San Francisco's North Beach. Fritsch was the husband of poet Lenore Kandel whose The Love Book was tried on obscenity charges in 1967.

VIEW a larger image of the poster advertising this reading.

Brautigan involved himself with the Diggers, a group of civic anarchists active in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district 1966-1968 who tried to achieve social change through street theater, leaderless events, and services to the needy (Keith Abbott 35).

Allegedly, Brautigan attended the meeting of the Artists' Liberation Front where the Diggers were formed (Barney Hoskyns 119). By most accounts, however, the Diggers evolved from the San Francisco Mime Troupe, which was closely associated with the Artists' Liberation Front through their common founder, Ronnie G. Davis.

This photograph shows Brautigan, and Emmett Grogan (left, wearing beads) attending a meeting. Grogan was one of the founders of the Diggers. Brautigan was, until he achieved his own fame as a writer, well-connected with the Diggers and Grogan.

VIEW a larger image of this photograph.

Brautigan admired the services Diggers provided to the needy, like free housing and food. The daily free food program was held in The Panhandle, an extension of Golden Gate State Park, where the Diggers provided donated or stolen produce, meat, and bread to hungry Haight-Ashbury residents. Some of the food was picked up in a 1958 Dodge truck "provided by a rich lady friend of Richard Brautigan" (Gene Anthony 34).

VIEW photographs at Max Grogan's (son of Emmett) "1%free's photos" website.

By some accounts, Brautigan was well-connected with the Diggers—his poem "Death Is A Beautiful Car Only" was written for and dedicated to Emmett Grogan—and often participated in or supported their activities. Once he achieved his own fame and financial success, however, his association with the Diggers became more distant, a fact that some Diggers resented. Perhaps they thought Brautigan no longer needed their support after it had been provided without question for so long before his success. For Brautigan, it is likely that he felt Diggers would think badly of him for making money, or based on their "free" mentality, expect some percentage of his success.

Brautigan participted in Artists' Liberation Front (ALF) Fair held in the Pan Handle of Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, California. This image, taken from a film of the street fair, shows Brautigan standing amid the swirling events.

LEARN more about this film.
Brautigan participated with Gary Snyder, Lenore Kandel, Lew Welch, George Stanley, David Meltzer, Ron Loewinshon, and William Fritsch in "The 1st San Francisco Poet's Benefit for the Diggers" held at Dene and Carlo's, 728 Vallejo, at 8:00 pm. The event was advertised on page five of the January 1967 of the Oracle. The Diggers were a group of civic anarchists who tried to achieve social change through various planned but "leaderless" events. More . . .

Brautigan and San Francisco poet Andrew Hoyem stayed on the California Institute of Technology campus in Pasadena, California, during this ten-day period. They lived in the guest suite at Ricketts House.

LEARN more about Brautigan's teaching experiences.

Brautigan published two poems: "My Nose is Growing Old" and "At the California Institute of Technology" in the May 1967 issue of the school's literary magazine, Totem.

The Invisible Circus, held 24 February 1967 in the Glide Memorial Church, in San Francisco, was "A 72-hour environmental community happening" (a series of events) planned by the Diggers with the Artists' Liberation Front in reaction to the earlier January 14 Human Be-In.

VIEW a larger image of the poster advertising this event.

Brautigan attended the organizational meeting, invited by Peter Coyote who described the "poet and author" as

a tall, mustachioed wraith who wandered the Haight gravely peering at everything through round, frameless glasses. I'd asked him to join us, and now he stood owlishly at the rear of the room, swiveling his head as if he were seeking the sources of sound. (Peter Coyote 78)

Brautigan was placed in charge of an immediate and spontaneous printing effort to encourage attendees to publish whatever they liked. And they did: poems, I Ching readings, artwork, announcements, and transcripts of conversations recorded only moments earlier (Charles Perry 145).

Brautigan named this spontaneous printing printing effort "The John Dillinger Computer Complex." Keith Abbott, in his memoir "Garfish, Chili Dogs, and the Human Torch: Memories of Richard Brautigan and San Francisco, 1966" (Review of Contemporary Fiction 3(3) Fall 1983: 214-219) recounts the event.

READ the full text of this memoir.

LEARN more about this memoir.

Brautigan's involvment in The Invisible Circus stemmed from his involvement with the Communication Company, a community printing and publication business aligned with the Diggers. Michael McClure noted Brautigan's involvement with the Diggers, saying,

One of the things I liked most about Richard was that he was the real poet of the Diggers. He was often on Haight Street passing out papers from the Digger Communications [sic] Company. I liked that activism. Richard was doing it because he believed in it. (Michael McClure 39)

The Communication Company published several of Brautigan's early poems in single sheet and broadside formats and one poetry collection, All Watched over by Machines of Loving Grace, all distributed freely on the streets of San Francisco. This calculated self-promotion brought Brautigan increased distribution of his writing, a larger audience, and heightened notoriety (Keith Abbott 36-38, 40 and Nicholas von Hoffman 129).

Brautigan participated in Bedrock One, "a rockdance-environment happening benefit for the Communication Company in honor of the c. i. a." The happening was held at California Hall, a large building owned by the German-American Association, two blocks from the Civic Center, 625 Polk Street, San Francisco. Brautigan read poetry along with The Caped Crusaders.

VIEW a larger image of a poster advertising Bedrock One.

Gray Line Bus Company began offering "San Francisco Haight-Ashbury District 'Hippie Hop' Tours" which they advertised as "the only foreign tour within the continential limits of the United States." The "Hashberry," as Gray Line called it, was world famous, as were the street theater antics of the people, the hippies, who lived there. The "Hippie Hop" tours were designed to give tourists a look and feel of the place. Monday through Friday, two buses a day followed a two-hour tour route from downtown San Francisco hotels through the Haight-Ashbury district. Tourists were given a "Glossary of Hippie Terms." By April, residents of Haight-Ashbury saw little interest in being subjects of such tours. Buses were met by Diggers and others who turned broken mirrors on the tourists. "Novelist Richard Brautigan ambled about the streets carrying a mirror that he held out before likely looking tourists, exclaiming, 'Know thyself!'" (Gene Anthony 27 [Anthony photographed Brautigan, mirror in hand, confronting tourists]). After five weeks, on May 15, Gray Line cancelled "The Hippie Hop" tour, citing traffic congestion in the Haight-Ashbury area (Charles Perry 171, 178, 193).

Brautigan participated in a Diggers poetry reading for the Spring Mobilization Against the War at the Glide Memorial United Methodist Church, 330 Ellis Street at Taylor in San Francisco, California. The Spring Mobilization, or Spring Mobe, or Angry Arts Week, was part of the nationwide protest against the war in Vietnam.

Participating poets listed on the promotional poster included: Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Lenore Kandel, Lew Welch, Ed Bullins, Richard Brautigan, Andrew Hoyem, Pamels [Pamela] Millward, James Koller, Bill Fritsch, Jeff Sheppard, Patrick Gleason, and Ron Loewinson.

The letter-sized (28 x 22 cm) promotional poster advertising this event was printed in San Francisco by the Communication Company. It was printed one side, black ink on tan/brown paper, and featured an image of a naked man carrying a sheep over his shoulder. The image was taken from a drawing by neo-impressionist painter Georges Seurat (1891-1959). Another Seurat drawing was used on Brautigan's broadside poem "The Beautiful Poem"). Imprint on the poster reads: "Gestetnered by the Communication Company" (Reference to the Gestetner mimeograph machines used to print this and other Communication Company publications).

Brautigan participated in the Joyful Alternative Peace Poet's Dance at California Hall, a large building owned by the German-American Association, two blocks from the Civic Center, 625 Polk Street, San Francisco, where he read poetry with Lew Welch.

Other listed participants included Country Joe & The Fish, Kenneth Patchen, Robert Duncan, Lenore Kandel, and David Meltzer.

A poster for the event featured blue lettering, illustration, and reproduction of book cover art by Patchen on orange-red background. This event was part of the Spring Mobilization Against the [VietNam] War.

Brautigan participated in a Diggers-sponsored event in the Panhandle of Golden Gate State Park. Billed as a "Candle Opera," the event was part of the week-long Spring Mobilization Against the War.

A poster for the event notes that "candles, incense, and love" were featured, along with music by Country Joe and the Fish, New Age, Mad River, All Night Apothecary, Morning Glory, Moebius, and other bands.

Hundreds of candles were distributed to the audience who were encouraged to light and hold them aloft. It seems likely that Brautigan conceived of the events name, "Candle Opera," and possibly read some of his work as well.

Brautigan participated in a Tribute to Kenneth Patchen as part of The Peace Poet's Dance.

Brautigan invited to attend a Reception Honoring Bay Area Writers by Friends of the San Francisco Public Library.

Brautigan participated in a Lenore Kandel reading sponsored by the University of California-Davis English Graduate Students' Club. Kandel read from her Love Book. Also featured, along with Brautigan, was longshoreman, poet, and Hells Angel, William (Bill) Fritsch. The reading was held at 8:00 PM in Room 194 of the New Chemistry Building on the university campus.
A 10" x 13" poster advertising the event, by John Thompson, printed in medium green ink on light green stock, featured a bare-breasted woman with light beams shooting out of her nipples.

VIEW a larger image of this poster.

A columnist who wrote about city walking tours for the San Francisco Chronicle visited "Hippie Hill," a small hill in Golden Gate State Park and a favorite spot to watch the gathering young people. Brautigan acted as her guide and asked her to point out the quiteness and color of the area (Charles Perry 199).

Brautigan read his newly-published Trout Fishing in America in its entirety at the Unicorn Book Shop, 905 Embarcadero del Norte, Goleta, California. Two separate readings were offered. Brautigan read the first half of his novel on Thursday, 19 October and the second half on Friday, 20 October.
The silk screen poster (24" x 18") by Chuck Miller announcing the event printed an illustration of Brautigan and text in black on a blue background. Miller was a noted artist of the period. Miller's work appears in The Art of Rock.

VIEW a larger image of this poster.

The University of Virginia Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library website maintains a multimedia presentation of "Sixties Memorabilia" including this poster and Brautigan's "San Francisco Public Library: A Publishing House."

VIEW the "Sixties Memorabilia" multimedia presentation at the library website.

Trout Fishing in America was the first of three Brautigan novels and one poetry collection published by Donald M. Allen and his nonprofit press, Four Seasons Foundation.

LISTEN to Brautigan read "The Hunchback Trout" from Trout Fishing in America.

Critics hailed Brautigan as a fresh new voice in American literature. He became an overnight success and was welcomed everywhere.

Rap rap on the door and I go to open it to Richard Brautigan who comes in under a soft tan hat, checks out the action, spots Cassandra in the kitchen, decides everything is cool, walks once again through the rooms, tall, slightly stooping like a gentle spider standing up (We are all spiders, or ants, or something, I remember wondering, watching Richard putting his hands in his pockets and taking them out) decides to split. "Be back in a while—need anything?" "No, nothing." out the door he goes. (Kirby Doyle. "The Birth of Digger Batman." The Digger Papers. Ed. Paul Krassner. 10-11). More about Digger Batman . . .

All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace published, first as a broadside then as a pamphlet of thirty-three poems by the Communication Company. Brautigan "gave" this poem to the Diggers. It was included in The Digger Papers. More . . .

Brautigan participated in the Diggers inspired "Death of Money" march. Marchers carried a black coffin marked with dollar signs down Haight Street. When Hairy Henry Kot and Chocolate George (Charles George Hendricks, Jr.), both members of the San Francisco chapter of the Hell's Angels motorcycle gang, were arrested, Brautigan, poet Michael McClure, and another Hell's Angel, Freewheelin' Frank (Frank Reynolds), led a protest march to the Park Street police station. Henry and George were released on bail (Barney Hoskins 121 and Peter Coyote 96). Gene Anthony captured a fine series of photographs of the event, including one of Brautigan standing in front of the police station (Gene Anthony 132-145).
Brautigan was honored with a National Endowment for the Arts grant during 1968-1969.

Brautigan participated in a poetry reading at the University Methodist Church, Isla Vista, California.

Brautigan allegedly participated in a poetry reading as part of "Rolling Renaissance: San Francisco Underground Art Celebration: 1945-1968," although David Meltzer, the event organizer says Brautigan, who was invited, never actually read. The celebration was held throughout the month of June in twenty three San Francisco galleries, museums, theaters, and nightclubs. It featured painting, sculpture, dance, films, poetry, music, drama, lectures, photography, environments, and memorabilia. Included in the list of participating poets were: Richard Brautigan, Robert Duncan, John Weiners, David Meltzer, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Kenneth Patchen, Allen Ginsberg, Lew Welch, Michael McClure, Philip Whalen, Joel Waldman, Allen Cohen, Phyllis Whalen, Patrick Gleason, Kenneth Rexroth, Brother Antoninus [William Everson], Al Young, Laughing Water, Richard Krech, Hillary Fowler, John Simon, and John Thompson. This night was an open-mic night, and Brautigan read poetry along with James Koller, Robert Dawson, Patrick Gleason, Joel Waldman, Michael McClure, and Daniel Moore.

Brautigan participated in "San Francisco Poetry" at the Glide Memorial United Methodist Church, 330 Ellis Street at Taylor. He read poetry along with Keith Abbott, Joanne Kyger, and others.

Possibly in attendance was poet Elizabeth Bishop, who according to biographer Brett C. Millier, visited San Francisco twice in 1968 to give poetry readings.

once at the Museum of Modern Art and once at Glide Memorial, the so-called hippy church, in a benefit for striking teachers at San Francisco State University. Elizabeth said she did the reading out of curiosity rather than political commitment; she had never seen Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Richard Brautigan, Kay Boyle, or any of the other famous San Francisco poets and wanted to know what they were like. She smoked a little marijuana at the reading and decided she liked Brautigan. (Millier, Brett C. Elizabeth Bishop: Life and the Memory of It. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1993. 413.)

Xiaojing, Zhou. "The Oblique, The Indirect Approach": Elizabeth Bishop's "Rainy Season; Sub-Tropics." Chicago Review 40(4) Fall 1994: 75-92.
Reviews Elizabeth Bishop's prose poem "Rainy Season; Sub-Tropics" as the poet's response to the excesses of confessional poetry. Notes Millier's discussion of Bishop's two visits to San Francisco in 1968 (79).

In Watermelon Sugar published by Four Seasons Foundation. It was written four years earlier, between 13 May and 19 July 1964. Several possible inspirations have been advanced. Like his earlier novels, and some that followed, this one featured an unnamed first person narrator who speaks in a colloquial voice not always conscious of being heard and a photograph of Brautigan on the front cover with a young woman. Another common theme was the sense of solitude and incapacity. More . . .

LISTEN

to Brautigan read "The Watermelon Sun," from In Watermelon Sugar.

The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster, a collection of poetry, published by Four Seasons Foundation.

Please Plant This Book published by Graham Mackintosh. Given away free, this "book" was a folder containing eight seed packets, each containing seeds, with poems printed on the sides.

Became involved with Valerie Estes.

This photograph shows V. Vale working at City Lights Books, San Francisco, California, June 1974.

VIEW a larger image of this photograph.

V. Vale (originally Vale Hamanaka) was the organ player for the first iteration of Blue Cheer, a San Francisco rock band of the era. Rock music legend notes that Hamanaka and Blue Cheer parted company when, after seeing Jimi Hendrix perform at the Monterey Pop Festival, band members Leigh Stephens, Dickie Peterson, and his brother, Jerry, decided to move the band toward a heavy power blues sound. Vale founded the magazine Search & Destroy in 1977 with a $200.00 donation from Allen Ginsburg to document the then current punk music subculture. In 1980 he founded RE/Search Publications which has published a variety of magazines and books focusing on modern primatives and other underground topics. Vale currently works as editor and publisher for his RE/Search imprint and frequently contributes to other publications.

LEARN more at the "RE/search Publications" website.

The apartment building Vale describes was located at 1427 (now 1429) Kearny Street. Vale lived in the apartment building with his girlfriend of the time, Thea, an artist who made a couch in the shape of a giant pair of red lips. In addition to Lamantia, the building was also home to Nancy Peters of City Lights and other North Beach notables. The building is noted in The Beat Generation in San Francisco: A Literary Tour (Bill Morgan. City Lights Books, 2003, 16).

Estes says she met Brautigan in the June 1968 (not 1967 as according to Vale) when she interviewed him as a potential participant in an arts program she was organizing. They became involved soon after. She and Brautigan lived together in her Kearny Street apartment off and on until they ended their relationship in 1970. Brautigan kept his Geary Street apartment throughout, and sometimes lived there.

Estes and Brautigan spent a week together in Kirkwood Meadows. Brautigan fished the trout streams while Estes read.

This photograph by Michael Dorrow shows Brautigan and Valerie Estes at Kirkwood Meadows, Highway 89, California, August 1968.
(Photograph © Copyright 2006 by Micheal Dorrow. Used by permission.)

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Valerie Estes recounts a story involving Brautigan, cats, Loren Sears, and Pat Ferraro.

Loren Sears, was Artist In Residence, The Experimental Project, 1967-1968 at KQED-TV, San Francisco. He was one of five artists paid to explore artistic aspects of television in KQED studios. This residency was funded through Rockefeller and National Endowment grants. Later, Sears directed several broadcast shows for KQED, 1968. He produced a museum-wide video installation as part of a performance for the San Francisco Museum of Art, 1969.

Western Connecticut State College maintains a "Loren Sears Biography" webpage.

LEARN more at the "Loren Sears Biography" webpage.
This photograph by John Doss shows Brautigan and Vale celebrating their mutual birthdays, 30 January 1969, in the apartment of Valerie Estes, 1429 Kearny Street, San Francisco, California.
(Photograph © Copyright 2007 by John Doss. Used by permission.)

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Brautigan participated in a poetry reading sponsored by the Unicorn Book Shop at the United Methodist Church.

Brautigan and Valerie Estes traveled together to Albuquerque, New Mexico, Cambridge, Massachusetts, New York, New York, and Washington, DC.

According to Estes, she and Brautigan flew from San Francisco to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where they visited with Robert Creeley and his wife, writer Bobbie Louise Hawkins. Estes and Brautigan borrowed a car and visited the Los Alamos Research Laboratories. The visit inspired Brautigan's poem "The Sister Cities of Los Alamos, New Mexico, and Hiroshima, Japan." Also in New Mexico, Brautigan attempted to present Georgia O'Keeffe with a copy of his poetry collection Please Plant This Book. He and Estes traveled to Abiquiu, New Mexico, where they were directed to an adobe O'Keeffe maintained. Brautigan gave a copy of the book to a woman who answered his knock at the front door. Estes does not believe the woman was O'Keeffe.

Returning to Albuquerque, New Mexico, Brautigan and Estes flew to Boston, Massachusetts, where Brautigan was featured at The Quincy Poetry Forum at Harvard University's Quincy House Dining Hall, 8:30 PM. Admission was $1.00.

The announcement for the reading was printed in black ink on a white, letter-sized piece of paper.

VIEW a larger image of the announcement for The Quincy Poetry Forum.

Brautigan's friend, poet Ron Loewinsohn, arranged the reading, according to Estes. Years later, Loewinsohn recalled the reading for Peter Manso and Michael McClure who coauthored an article in the May 1985 issue of Vanity Fair titled "Brautigan's Wake."

RON LOEWINSOHN: He read at Harvard, and I introduced him at Quincy House [The Quincy Poetry Forum, Quincy House Dining Room, 25 March 1969, 8:30 PM] where he gave a fine, straight reading—poems, stories, chatted a little. Six months, a year later he came back, but by then he was so big, so famous, that there must have been seven hundred people in Lowell Lecture Hall. After reading for about fifteen minutes in a disdainful, contemptuous tone, he just quit. People came up to him for his autograph, and he'd tell them, "Fuck off."

Brautigan's return was, in fact, not a year later, but in November 1969. Jeffrey S. Golden attended the reading Loewinsohn cites, Brautigan's second at Harvard University, on 22 November 1969, and had quite a different reaction. His review appeared in the 26 November 1969 issue of the The Harvard Crimson. More . . .

From Boston, Brautigan and Estes traveled to New York, New York, probably by train according to Estes, where Brautigan met and signed contracts with his new literary agent Helen Brann and his new publisher, Seymour Lawrence. While in New York, Brautigan and Estes stayed at the Chelsea Hotel.

From New York Brautigan and Estes traveled to Washington, D. C., where they visited various monuments, including the Civil War battleground at Manassas, Virginia. From Washington, D. C., they returned to San Francisco.

Brautigan participated in the Spring Renaissance Faire, Isle Vista, California. The "faire" ran from Monday, 7 April-Thursday, 10 April 1969. Brautigan's reading was scheduled for 8:00 pm, Thursday, April 10 in the University Methodist Church, at 892 Camio Del Sur. Other San Francisco poets participating in the "faire" were Lew Welch, David Meltzer, Jack Shoemaker, Gary Snyder, and Brother Antoninus [William Everson]. The handbill announcing the schedule of events and participants was printed in black ink on purple stock.

Brautigan participated in a 3:00 p. m. "Prose and Poetry Reading" in Quantrell Auditorium at The University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois. The letter-sized green cardstock promotional poster announcing the event was illustrated by Scott Stampton. It was titled "To insure domestic tranquility" and was printed on one side in black ink. Brautigan was cited as an "Experimental Prose Writer and Poet." The illustrated letter-sized sheet was printed on one side, black ink on green cardstock. The event was sponsored by FOTA, Zahbel Fund of the English Dep[artment], Chicago Review, and the Roy Gutmann Memorial Fund.

Brautigan participated in the First Commencement Exercises at The Urban School of San Francisco, 2938 Washington Street. The event, held "On the hill, Alta Plaza Park Jackson between Steiner and Scott streets" honored the school's first seventeen graduates. Brautigan, noted as a "poet-author," delivered a reading as the second item on the program. Following the program there were refreshments and touch football.

Brautigan participated in a Poetry Reading Benefit for People's Park at California Hall, a large building owned by the German-American Association, two blocks from the Civic Center, 625 Polk Street, San Francisco.

Brautigan participated in the Creative Arts Conference sponsored by United States International University, San Diego, California. The Conference was a twelve-day series of lectures by ten artists and writers. Brautigan's scheduled appearance was 22 August 1969. Reportedly, Brautigan also conducted classes in creative writing during his campus visit. Prior to 1968 United States International University was known as California Western.

LEARN more about Brautigan's participation at this conference.

Brautigan participated, with Lew Welch, in a reading of their work at the San Quentin prison. In a letter to Terence Cuddy, a prisoner, dated 1 September 1969, Welch wrote: "Richard and I both feel it was one of the warmest and [most] intelligent audiences we've ever had" (Welch 158).

Brautigan was a participating author at the College of Marin Writers' Conference, held at the College of Marin, Marin, California. The College of Marin was a small liberal arts college north of San Francisco. Also scheduled were Kay Boyle, Josephine L. Miles, Herbert Wilner, Jessamyn West, William Dickey, William Stafford, and Carolyn Kizer. The program for the event was a letter-sized sheet sheet of green paper, folded in thirds, printed on both sides in green and white ink.

Brautigan scheduled to appear at a promotional party for the publication of the collection Trout Fishing in America, The Pill versus the Springhill Mine Disaster, In Watermelon Sugar.

Brautigan, fearful of change and thinking earlier success marked a magical formula, insisted that each book faithfully reproduce its earlier edition, including cover art, critical comments, and pagination.

The publication of this first collection by Delacorte Press resulted from a report by Kurt Vonnegut of Brautigan's West Coast popularity. Delacorte negotiated with Four Seasons Foundation to publish these three books. Three hundred thousand copies sold during the first year of publication.

Brautigan's best stories appear throughout the year in Rolling Stone magazine. They were collected later in Revenge of the Lawn: Stories 1962-1970. One employee from Straight Arrow Publishers recounts a night spent with Brautigan.

Brautigan returned to Harvard University for another poetry reading in Lowell Lecture Hall. Jeffrey S. Golden was present and wrote a review for the The Harvard Crimson titled "Richard Brautigan On Saturday Night" (The Crimson Review 26 November 1969: ***?***).

READ this review.

READ Golden's review at The Harvard Crimson website.

John Stickney included a description of this Harvard reading in his essay "Gentle Poet of the Young: A Cult Grows around Richard Brautigan."

Another interesting account is provided by John Barth regarding a "grand declaration" made by Brautigan at the end of a "reading" at SUNY—Buffalo "toward the end of the high 1960s." Barth introduced Brautigan to the crowd.

The author of Trout Fishing in America, The Revenge of the Lawn, and In Watermelon Sugar was at the peak of his literary fame then, a hippie icon warmly received on a campus that prided itself, in those years of antiwar sit-ins and teargassing riot police, on being "the Berkeley of the East." It was a time, too, when Marshall McLuhan, across the Niagara River in Toronto, was warning us "print-oriented bastards" that our medium was moribund in the Electronic Global Village. In that spirit, after my introduction, Brautigan said hello to the packed hall, pushed the Play button on an old reel-to-reel tape recorder beside the lectern, and disappeared into the auditorium's projection booth, from where—as we all sat for a very long three-quarters of an hour listening to our guest's recorded reading—the invisible author projected slides of giant punctuation marks: five or ten minutes each of a comma, a semicolon, a period, entirely without bearing on the taped recitation. Had it been anybody but Brautigan, that audience would never have sat still for it—but still we sat, until, when the eye-glazing hour was done at last, the shaggy, beaming author reappeared from the projection booth, gestured grandly toward the tape machine, and declared, "There you have it, folks: the twentieth century!" Whereat one of my seriously avant-garde graduate students sitting nearby turned to me and muttered, "Yup: about 1913." (20)
(Barth, John. "'All Treees are Oak Trees...': Introductions to Literature." Poets & Writers January/February 2004: 19-26.)