“to know the tremor of your flesh within my own”

November 5, 2023 1:05 PM

On November 15, 1966, five police officers entered the Psychedelic Shop, in San Francisco, and purchased a thin volume of poetry, “The Love Book,” for a dollar. This sequence of erotic poems celebrating a woman’s sexual pleasure was by the Beat poet Lenore Kandel. As soon as the money exchanged hands, the deputy arrested the clerk for selling obscene material.

–The Forgotten Poet at the Center of San Francisco’s Longest Obscenity Trial by Joy Lanzendorfer. A poem, and another, and some poems and prose. Here are videos of Kandel reading a poem and being interviewed.
posted by Kattullus (8 comments total)

I am a semi-professional furry pornographer and I have seen and drawn a lot of things that are porn to a specific set of people who have sublimated their desires in various ways. And a lot of things that are undeniably porn to pretty much anyone.

I just read the "A poem" link and, yeah, that's pornography. Uplifting and celebratory pornography but definitely pornography. I'm pretty glad that you can produce and share stuff like this without the cops getting involved now.
posted by egypturnash at 2:10 PM on November 5, 2023 [7 favorites]

“Come dance with me across my sparkling nerves”: Lenore Kandel and other Digger poets at the Band’s ‘Last Waltz’ (San Francisco, 1976)
posted by clavdivs at 2:28 PM on November 5, 2023 [2 favorites]

[Reagan] campaigned on a platform to crack down on the burgeoning counterculture, vowing that he would “clean up the mess at Berkeley,” meaning student protests at the university, and warning of “sexual orgies so vile, I cannot describe them to you.”

Much like McCarthy’s list was too secret to share…

Especially since I gather the Reagans had a reputation in Hollywood.
posted by GenjiandProust at 2:41 PM on November 5, 2023 [6 favorites]

I just read the "A poem" link and, yeah, that's pornography. Uplifting and celebratory pornography but definitely pornography. I'm pretty glad that you can produce and share stuff like this without the cops getting involved

I disagree with the first two sentences, and heartily agree with the third.

“When a society is afraid of its poets, it is afraid of itself. A society afraid of itself stands as another definition of hell.” -Lenore Kandel
posted by chavenet at 2:44 PM on November 5, 2023 [7 favorites]

Also: The Love Book,” [Kandel] clarified, was meant to convey human divinity, a state that applied even to police officers. “They too are beautifully divine,” she said, “as you are, Mr. Shaw*, and as I am.”

Nice.

* the Prosecuting assistant district attorney
posted by GenjiandProust at 2:47 PM on November 5, 2023 [8 favorites]

She was immortalized by Kerouac as Romana Swartz, "a big Rumanian monster beauty". The Love Book was only 4 poems in a pamphlet.
posted by Ideefixe at 2:50 PM on November 5, 2023 [2 favorites]

Metafilter: the mindless cuntdeity.
posted by Phanx at 9:29 AM on November 6, 2023

I disagree with the first two sentences

I don't know, it sure reads like porno to me, and there's nothing wrong with that.
posted by Pendragon at 3:07 PM on November 6, 2023