My Vocabulary Did This to Me: The Collected Poetry of Jack Spicer

CHRONOLOGY

CHRONOLOGY 1925: Born, January 30, John Lester Spicer in Los Angeles, California. 1941: Attends Fairfax High School in Los Angeles. High school friends include future folk-song parodist Allan Sherman and the screenplay guru Syd Field; he publishes poems in school literary magazine “Colonial Voices.” 1943–44: Corresponds with novelist and critic Aldous Huxley. Graduates from Fairfax High. Attends the University of Redlands, where he befriends future Secretary of State Warren Christopher, with whom he serves on the debate team. Declared 4-F in draft status. Spicer’s odd jobs include working in a defense plant and toiling in Hollywood studios as an “extra.” Spicer can be spotted briefly in the opening scene in a football stadium in 20th Century Fox’s biopic Wilson. 1945: After two years at Redlands, moves to Berkeley from Los Angeles to continue work on a B.A. degree at the University of California. Meets Idaho-born poet Robin Blaser. Practices as a private detective. 1946: Frequents the anarchist/art/music/poetry circle of Kenneth Rexroth in San Francisco. First encounter with California-born Robert Duncan, already twenty-seven. The “Berkeley Renaissance” begins. Spicer studies with Ernst Kantorowicz, initiating an important apprenticeship . With Josephine Fredman, Hugh O’Neill, and Robert Duncan, writes a “Canto for Ezra Pound” and mails it to him at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Washington, DC. Spicer compiles a booklet of “Collected Poems 1945– 6” as a Christmas gift for his teacher, Josephine Miles. 1947: Joins Duncan’s roundtable at 2029 Hearst Street. In April, visits Big Sur coast of California with Hugh O’Neill, meets folklorist Jaime de Angulo . Receives bachelor’s degree from UC Berkeley; continues studies Spicer: My Vocabulary Did This to Me page 429 Chronology 429 towards a Ph.D. June 20, mob hit of Bugsy Siegel in Los Angeles; Spicer claimed to be peripherally involved in the investigation. In autumn, Charles Olson visits Berkeley and meets the poets of the Berkeley Renaissance (except Spicer). Duncan publishes his first book, Heavenly City, Earthly City. Spicer lives at 2018 McKinley St., a boarding house in Berkeley , where his fellow tenants include poets Philip Lamantia, Gerald Ackerman , George Haimsohn, Robert Duncan, and the teenaged prodigy Philip K. Dick, later a noted science fiction novelist and visionary. 1948: Duncan writes The Venice Poem. Spicer begins work on his “Imaginary Elegies.” Spicer’s work as a graduate student expands to include research for English Department staff: with Robin Blaser, he researches early interactions between Native American and colonial settlers for Roy Harvey Pearce (they are thanked in Pearce’s study The Savages of America: A Study of the Indian and the Idea of Civilization). On his own Spicer prepares a large bibliography of D. H. Lawrence for Professor Mark Schorer. 1949: In the spring Spicer has a troubled romantic affair with writer and heiress Catherine Mulholland, enters psychotherapy at UC Cowell Hospital Annex, and writes “Psychoanalysis: An Elegy.” Hosts a folk music show at KPFA, Berkeley; connects with archivist/artist Harry Smith and participates in the record hunts that would result in the Smithsonian release of Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music (1952). Studies with David Reed, soon to become his mentor in Linguistics. Writes “The Scrollwork on the Casket.” 1950: Receives M.A. degree. Loyalty Oath controversy at UC Berkeley; Spicer’s refusal to sign propels him out of the Ph.D. program and into Minnesota, where no Loyalty Oath was required of graduate students or professors. With David Reed, Spicer attends December convention of the Language Society of America in Manhattan (his first trip to the East Coast). Three of the “Imaginary Elegies” are completed. 1951: Duncan and Spicer debate the Berkeley Renaissance in letters. With David Reed, he publishes article on “Correlation Methods of Spicer: My Vocabulary Did This to Me page 430 430 Chronology Comparing Ideolects in a Transition Area,” in Language: Journal of the Linguistic Society of America. In the summer, Spicer’s father dies in Los Angeles. Arthur Kloth introduces Spicer to Gary Bottone, with whom he conducts a long distance romance. While in Minnesota, writes poems for Bottone (“Sonnet for the Beginning of Winter,” “Train Song for Gary,” and so forth). 1952: Returns to Berkeley from Minnesota. Social life revolves around two gay bars: the Black Cat in San Francisco and the White Horse in Berkeley. 1953: Lives in Berkeley, working as a teaching assistant for Thomas Parkinson’s large...