billy little

born on the birthday of eecummings billy cut his wisdom teeth beside Paul Blackburn and Anne Waldman shouting poems to crowds from the back of flatbed trucks in downtown manhattan reborn at St.marks church down the block from Auden's flat Diane Wakoski was his midwife Joel Oppenheimer was his father confessor editor Poets for Peace (with Lyn Banker and Gary Youree) Creeley's student at Buffalo, Duncan's what a class, Butterick, Deloach, Duncan McNaughton, Fred Wah, Al Glover, Michael Davidson, Lewis MacAdams, Robert Hass, John Wieners,studied Blake with Jack Clarke, Dante with Leslie Feidler edited Presence Magazine which featured Ferlinghetti and Creeley beside the first publication of Kathy Acker's edited TENS magazine work by Dorn, Olson, Raworth, Hollo, Gilfillan, Victor Coleman, Penny Chalmers, Robin Blaser and Sharon Thesen, Hilton Obenzinger cofounded Press of The Black Flag raised (with Bob Rose) published Chief Joseph, dhlawrence, and the broadside edition of John Weiners Asylum Poems Took on the moniker Zonko 1971 partly in response to the ingenuousness of certain editors who will accept your work and then expect to be published in your rag in return. an early fan remarked,"your poems make me zonko" provoking the eureka response "my poems make ME Zonko" Duncan told me he'd gotten a postcard from Pound: "which one of you youngsters has the courage to publish your poems anonymously." The pen name proved an ennabler,a form of self permission, the fear of personal rejection falling away. I still publish under three or four names, not to mention my combat plagiarism series. published hundreds of poems, stories, essays, reviews, chapbooks, broadsides. taught creative writing at Emily Carr, SFU, Capilano College, Hundreds of performances at St. Marks, at Buffalo, at Tufts, the Western Front, the Parachute Centre, the Vancouver Art Gallery, Langara College, David Thompson College,in Victoria, in Terrace, in Calgary, in Toronto, in Chase, in Nanaimo, on Sunset Beach, Perform occasionally with the violin player, Jim Munro and the sax genius Bill Smith