Bob Kaufman: Black Beat

Elaine Equi, one of our great contemporary voices, recommended to me Cranial Guitar, the selected poems of Bob Kaufman. No one knows about the black beats. Perhaps because such behavior is shunned in the black community. Lyrical, political, subversive, unhinged, profound, prophetic--ever in search of truth.

Bob Kaufman posted a controversial poem in the window of a San Francisco cafe. A cop came in, pulled it down and got in Kaufman's face. As the cop stands there, Kaufman whips out his johnson and pisses on the cop's leg.