Alan Kaufman papers

The papers of Alan Kaufman, teacher, writer, poet, editor, performer, artist, and impresario, include drafts of his memoir Jew Boy , his novel Matches , materials related to his editing of the volumes of the Outlaw Bible series and Davka: Jewish Cultural Revolution , an extensive collection of notebooks with draft and unpublished poems, and a large collection of original artwork. The collection also includes correspondence with other writers and material documenting Kaufman’s involvement in the San Francisco Spoken Word poetry movement.

The Alan Kaufman papers are organized into five series that document his work as a writer, artist, and editor. The papers contain a variety of materials including notebooks, sketchbooks, manuscripts, newspaper clippings, photographs, CDs, cassette tapes, original art work by Kaufman and others, magazines and periodicals, book contracts, correspondence, corrected proofs, and drafts of published and unpublished works.

The largest sections of Series I., Works by Kaufman, comprehensively document his memoir Jew Boy and the novel Matches from their earliest drafts to finished page proofs. The Jew Boy subseries contains a working draft with extensive autograph revisions as well as material documenting some of the events of the book. These materials include early works from grade school and high school, the prayer shawl and yarmulke from Kaufman’s Bar Mitzvah, and the marriage certificates (in Hebrew) of relatives from the turn of the twentieth century. A group of photographs from Series V (Box 26) further documents some of the people and places discussed in Jew Boy . The material related to Matches include variant drafts as well as drafts of excluded chapters. Of special interest are two large autograph notebooks dating from Kaufman’s service with the Israel Defense Forces in the 1980s. The subseries I.C., Periodical/Magazine Publications, contains copies of periodicals in which Kaufman’s work appears. Together with the periodicals in the second series, the collection presents a comprehensive, but not complete, picture of Kaufman’s periodical publications.

Series II., Editing and Publishing, is divided between Kaufman’s editorial work on books and periodicals. The bulk of the material devoted to his work on books is contained in the Outlaw Bible subseries. Within the subseries, the largest group of material documents The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry . Of particular interest are several copies of Howl: San Francisco Poetry News containing articles Kaufman wrote about the early 1990s poetry scene. These articles formed the basis of his "Introduction" to the The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry . Also of interest are the Miscellaneous Author Materials files. These materials document Kaufman’s relationship with a large number of authors, some of whom are represented in the Outlaw Bible books.

Of particular importance for the development of the The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry is Kaufman’s correspondence with Ron Kolm. A fixture of the New York poetry scene, Kolm provided Kaufman with a great deal of material about New York’s poetic avant garde, in particular the activities of the Unbearables, a loose group of artists and writers that Kolm helped to found. Kaufman devoted an entire section of The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry to the group. Also of interest is the correspondence from poets Jack Hirschman and Jack Micheline. The Hirschman material includes a large number of autograph letters expressing Hirschman’s opinions on politics, Kaufman’s poetry, recollections of San Francisco, and other matters. The material from Micheline includes a number of self-assembled anthologies of his work that he presented to Kaufman. Extensive correspondence with New Jersey poet Herschel Silverman is also included, much of it touching on the production of a special issue of Long Shot magazine called "It’s the Jews." Kaufman, together with Silverman and Long Shot publisher Danny Shot assembled the material for this issue, an anthology of underground Jewish literature and art. The successful reception of the issue was a partial inspiration for Kaufman’s alternative Jewish culture magazine Davka: Jewish Cultural Revolution . Additional correspondence with Silverman can be found in the Davka: Jewish Cultural Revolution subseries and in series five. The final subseries devoted to Kaufman’s work on books contains a complete record of the assemblage and publication of Viva Ferlinghetti! , a tribute volume to legendary Beat poet and publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Kaufman assembled the volume to commemorate the city of San Francisco naming a street in honor of Ferlinghetti.

The bulk of the material that focuses on Kaufman’s editorial work on periodical publications relates to his work on Davka: Jewish Cultural Revolution . It includes copies of all issues of the magazine, some of the material used in the magazine, rejected submissions, and extensive subscriber information (note: access is restricted to selected materials). There is also material related to Kaufman’s original conception of the magazine (folders 86, 101-103), original corporate documents, internal communications, and correspondence documenting the reaction of the Jewish community to Davka: Jewish Cultural Revolution (folder 86). Other correspondence includes letters from poets Eve Packer and Hal Sirowitz. A notable artifact included with the Davka: Jewish Cultural Revolution material is a custom-made American flag shirt that replaces the five-pointed stars with the Star of David. The shirt was worn by one of the models on the cover of the second issue of Davka: Jewish Cultural Revolution . The second series closes with the subseries Other Periodicals, which consists solely of copies of periodicals with ties to or contributions from Kaufman. Item-level notes for each periodical reflect Kaufman's editorial role or other contribution, as recorded in the masthead, as well as any material that Kaufman published in the issue. No other information about his involvement with these magazines is included in his papers.

Series III., Literary Notebooks and Papers, contains Kaufman’s general autograph notebooks. Except where noted, these working books are undated. The notebooks contain drafts of poetry and prose as well as material relating to Kaufman’s daily life.

Series IV., Art Materials, begins with the Sketchbook subseries. Dates for the majority of sketchbooks, including the ten that Kaufman numbered in sequence, are either approximate or undetermined. The second subseries contains a group of manuscripts arranged by title that Kaufman was potentially intending to illustrate and publish. The ultimate publication status of the manuscripts is undetermined. The remaining subseries collects artworks, organized by media and/or technique, other than those in the sketchbooks and illustrated manuscripts. All the materials in these subseries are housed in oversized containers as listed in the finding aid.

The final series in the collection, Series V., Personal Papers, gathers a diverse array of materials that cover the full scope of Kaufman’s life and work. Some highlights include a typed signed letter from David Mamet that takes a "philological approach" to the question of Superman’s Jewishness, signed letters from Barney Rosset and Fred Jordan (Rosset’s include a photocopied section of his World War II journals), a drawing by writer Neeli Cherkovski, and t-shirts from the 1995 National Poetry Slam Championship and the Wordland reading series that Kaufman ran. Of potential interest are the materials relating to the San Francisco Poets Strike and Kaufman’s Spoken Word tours of Germany and England. Some material related to these events can also be found in Kaufman’s Spoken Word Scrapbook (folder 9), an oversized wirebound notebook containing press clippings documenting some of his early activities in the Spoken Word movement. There is also an audio tape, recorded in 1991, that features Kaufman and other poets associated with the Café Babar performing their works.