Kirby Doyle (November 27, 1932 – April 5, 2003), born Stanton Doyle, was an American poet. He was featured in the ''

New American Poetry New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created. New or NEW may refer to: Music * New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz Albums and EPs * ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013 * ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator, ...

'' anthology, with the so-called "third generation" of American

modernist Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...

poets. He was one of the

San Francisco Renaissance The term San Francisco Renaissance is used as a global designation for a range of poetic activity centered on San Francisco, which brought it to prominence as a hub of the American poetry avant-garde in the 1950s. However, others (e.g., Alan Watt ...

poets who laid the groundwork for

Beat Beat, beats or beating may refer to: Common uses * Patrol, or beat, a group of personnel assigned to monitor a specific area ** Beat (police), the territory that a police officer patrols ** Gay beat, an area frequented by gay men * Battery ...

poetry in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

. Doyle also wrote novels.

Life and literary work

Doyle was born in

, California. A

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land warfare, land military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight Uniformed services of the United States, U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army o ...

veteran, Doyle was pursuing art and culinary studies at

San Francisco State University San Francisco State University (commonly referred to as San Francisco State, SF State and SFSU) is a public research university in San Francisco. As part of the 23-campus California State University system, the university offers 118 different b ...

when he published several poems in the school's literary magazine. This led to his association with Robert Duncan,

Lew Welch Lewis Barrett Welch Jr. (August 16, 1926 – May 1971?) was an American poet associated with the Beat generation literary movement. Welch published and performed widely during the 1960s. He taught a poetry workshop as part of the University of ...

, and

Kenneth Rexroth Kenneth Charles Marion Rexroth (1905–1982) was an American poet, translator, and critical essayist. He is regarded as a central figure in the San Francisco Renaissance, and paved the groundwork for the movement. Although he did not consider ...

. But Doyle stressed the directness of the spoken word over formal poetry. In the late 1950s, Doyle wrote ''Sapphobones'', 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. His work appeared alongside that of

Jack Kerouac Jean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac (; March 12, 1922 – October 21, 1969), known as Jack Kerouac, was an American novelist and poet who, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, was a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Of French-Canadian anc ...

Lawrence Ferlinghetti Lawrence Monsanto Ferlinghetti (March 24, 1919 – February 22, 2021) was an American poet, painter, social activist, and co-founder of City Lights Booksellers & Publishers. The author of poetry, translations, fiction, theatre, art criticism, an ...

, and

Allen Ginsberg Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Genera ...

in the Spring, 1958 issue of ''Chicago 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 the

Diggers The Diggers were a group of religious and political dissidents in England, associated with agrarian socialism. Gerrard Winstanley and William Everard, amongst many others, were known as True Levellers in 1649, in reference to their split from ...

. 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 of

John Keats John Keats (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821) was an English poet of the second generation of Romantic poets, with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. His poems had been in publication for less than four years when he died of tuberculo ...

Emily Dickinson Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (December 10, 1830 – May 15, 1886) was an American poet. Little-known during her life, she has since been regarded as one of the most important figures in American poetry. Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massac ...

and the great 'projective verse' of

Charles Olson Charles Olson (27 December 1910 – 10 January 1970) was a second generation modern American poet who was a link between earlier figures such as Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams and the New American poets, which includes the New Yor ...

. Doyle was a mainstay of the North 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 on

commune A commune is an alternative term for an intentional community. Commune or comună or comune or other derivations may also refer to: Administrative-territorial entities * Commune (administrative division), a municipality or township ** Communes of ...

s near

Mount Tamalpais Mount Tamalpais (; ; Miwok: ''Támal Pájiṣ''), known locally as Mount Tam, is a peak in Marin County, California, United States, often considered symbolic of Marin County. Much of Mount Tamalpais is protected within public lands such as Moun ...

. The poet

Michael McClure Michael McClure (October 20, 1932 – May 4, 2020) was an American poet, playwright, songwriter, and novelist. After moving to San Francisco as a young man, he found fame as one of the five poets (including Allen Ginsberg) who read at the famous ...

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. He was one of the few writers of the San Francisco Renaissance who were both born and died in the city.

Publications

*''Sapphobones'' (Poets Press, 1966) *''Ode to John Garfield'' (Communication Company, 1967) *''Angel Faint'' (Communication Company, 1968; Deep Forest,1991) *''Happiness Bastard'' (Essex House, 1968; a novel). (''Happiness Bastard'', like Kerouac's ''On the Road'', was produced on one continuous scroll of paper run through a typewriter, and the sole copy is in the Kirby Doyle Archive in the possession of Tisa Walden which also includes the unpublished Opus ''Pre American Ode'', and other handwritten papers. *''The Collected Poems of Kirby Doyle'' (Greenlight Press,1983) *''After Olson'' (Deep Forest,1984) *''The Questlock: Gymnopaean of A. Dianaei O'Tamal'' (Deep Forest,1987) *''Lyric Poems'' (City Lights, 1988) *''Crime, Justice & Tragedy and Das Erde Profundus'' (Deep Forest,1989) *''Pre American Ode'' (unpublished) *''White Flesh'' (unpublished; novel) ''NEWS FLASH: the Doyle papers were acquired by The Mandeville Special Collections Library at San Diego in 2012; and the scroll of ''Happiness Bastard'' was acquired by Harvard University in 2014. Tisa Walden

Recordings

*Howls, Raps & Roars: Recordings from the San Francisco poetry renaissance (compilation) (Universal Music Group, 1963; Fantasy Records 1993). Clic
HERE
to listen to Doyle read ''Angel Faint'' from this compilation (you must have

Windows Media Player Windows Media Player (WMP) is the first media player and media library application that was developed by Microsoft for playing audio, video and viewing images on personal computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system, as well as ...

References

External links

*
The Birth of Digger Batman
a prose poem Doyle wrote on the occasion of the birth of Billy "Batman" Jahrmarkt, the son of Billy Batman, a member of the

Friday memorial for Kirby Doyle -- Beat writer, poet
an obituary in the ''

San Francisco Chronicle The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and Michael H. de Young. The pap ...

''
Kirby Doyle and the Snows of Yesteryear
remembrances of Doyle by

in the magazin
Cento

by

Peter Coyote Peter Coyote (born Robert Peter Cohon; October 10, 1941) is an American actor, director, screenwriter, author and narrator of films, theatre, television, and audiobooks. He worked on films such as ''E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial'' (1982), '' Cro ...

,Tisa Walden, Philomene Long and John Thomas, and Claude Hayward.
Kirby Doyle (1932-2003)
remembrance of Doyle by Jack Foley
Ode to John Garfield
a Doyle poem published by the

Photo of Doyle (on right) with Billy Batman
MSS 0757

UC San Diego Library. {{DEFAULTSORT:Doyle, Kirby 1932 births 2003 deaths 20th-century American novelists Beat Generation writers Poets from California Diggers (theater) Writers from the San Francisco Bay Area 20th-century American poets American male novelists American male poets 20th-century American male writers

Life and literary work

Publications

Recordings

Further reading

References

External links