Gerald Locklin

Gerald Locklin (1941-2021) was born in Rochester, NY. A prolific writer of both poetry and prose, he published over a hundred books in his lifetime, including The Firebird Poems (Event Horizon Press), Go West, Young Toad (Water Row Books), Charles Bukowski: A Sure Bet (Water Row Books), and Down and Out (Event Horizon Press). The Oxford Companion to Twentieth Century Literature in the English Language calls him "a central figure in the vitality of Los Angeles writing." From 1965-2007, he was professor of English at California State University, Long Beach. He lived in Long Beach, CA.

"Gerald Locklin hat als literarischer Mitstreiter ein intimes Portrait seines Freundes Charles Bukowski vorgelegt, aber das Buch ist gleichzeitig ein ausgezeichnetes Beispiel für Locklins eigenes Können, den Bukowski einmal nicht zu Unrecht eins der großen unentdeckten Talente unserer Zeit genannt hat." David Newman

This is the second of two volumes of Gerald Locklin's poetry that was published in Coagula Art Journal in the late 1990s thru the Aughts of the 21st century. Countering the entire critical establishment in the visual arts, this self-proclaimed "Anti-Expert" uses artworks as points of departure to discuss life in all of its beauty, foibles and complexities. Volume One began with ancient art and continued chronologically thru the classics up to the middle of the 20th century. This volume presents art and themes loosely associated with the visual arts from 1960 up until the recent past with special sections on the art of David Hockney and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Other chapters present Pop Art and other meta-approaches and strategies adopted by the leading artists of the author's times - always filtered thru Locklin's cynical wit and inimitable economy of language.