Jake Marmer on Billy Woodberry's Bob Kaufman Documentary And When I Die, I Won't Stay Dead

A new documentary by Los Angeles filmmaker Billy Woodberry, And When I Die, I Won't Stay Dead, takes a close look at the mysterious beat poet Bob Kaufman. Of Jewish and Caribbean roots, Kaufman improvised street performances, playfully invented many of the words used in his poetry, and was called, by Amiri Baraka, "a maximum beatnik." More:

Bob Kaufman Alley, in San Francisco’s neighborhood of North Beach, is tiny—narrow and hardly a block in length. Only a smattering of locals and dedicated poetry aficionados around the world remember whom it is named after—the eccentric street poet-prophet, whose personal history remains a mystery to this day. Kaufman’s improvised street performances, his 30 (or more) arrests, Jewish and Caribbean roots, involuntary shock treatment, and decade-long vow of silence are touched on in Billy Woodberry’s And When I Die, I Won’t Stay Dead, a new documentary that honors the poet’s work and life.

Though cleaned up, these streets still bear witness to the pulse of hipness and desperation that inspired Kaufman’s “Heavy Water Blues:”

Consolidated Edison is threatening to cut off my brain,
The postman keeps putting sex in my mailbox,
My mirror died, and & can’t tell if I still reflect,
I put my eyes on a diet, my tears are gaining too
       much weight

Here, a classic blues-styled litany of troubles meets urban imagery, surrealism, wit, playfulness, and puns. Though self-“reflection” is one of poetry’s trademark functions, this poet is no longer so sure he’s capable of reflecting, and in any case, his mirror stares back with Picasso-like enmeshment of the body and polis, violence, humor, and sorrow.

When anthologized, Kaufman’s work tends to appear alongside that of other Beats. And yet, in one of the documentary’s many interviews, Jack Hirschman—Kaufman’s friend and a legendary poet in his own right—points to Kaufman’s status as an outsider, as not really belonging among the Beats. “It wasn’t simply that he was Black, or Jewish … it had more to do with his politics,” a striking comment that sets the mood for the documentary. Given the radical, groundbreaking inclusivity, and counter-cultural politics of the Beats—how could Kaufman have been excluded? Perhaps, for Bob Kaufman and Jack Hirschman “politics” has meant something very different than what it means to many of us. The film doesn’t offer easy answers; it allows the question to unfold.

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