Jack Hirschman

Career

At 19 years old, Hirschman sent a story to Ernest Hemingway, who responded: "I can't help you, kid. You write better than I did when I was 19. But the hell of it is, you write like me. That is no sin. But you won't get anywhere with it." Hirschman left a copy of the letter with the Associated Press, and when Hemingway killed himself in 1961, the "Letter to a Young Writer" was distributed by the wire service and published all over the world.

In the 1950s and 1960s, Hirschman taught at Dartmouth College and the University of California, Los Angeles. During his tenure at UCLA, one of the students enrolled in his class was Jim Morrison, later to be a cofounder and lead vocalist of the American band The Doors. The Vietnam War, however, put an end to Hirschman's academic career; he was fired from UCLA after encouraging his students to resist the draft. His marriage disintegrated, and he moved to San Francisco in 1973.

For a quarter century, Hirschman roamed San Francisco streets, cafes (including Caffe Trieste, where he was a regular patron), and readings, becoming an active street poet and a peripatetic activist. Hirschman was also a painter and collagist.

A fellow San Francisco writer that Hirschman greatly admired was Kenneth Rexroth. Hirschman told American Legends website: "Rexroth was a magnificent poet. In a real sense, he was the father of all these guys. He was the man who wrote the first major political poem after the Second World War, outside of the communists who were writing poems against McCarthyism published in newspapers. Rexroth's poem, on the death of Dylan Thomas, was one of the great lyrical poems by a North American poet. People in other countries know that Kenneth Rexroth was the father of the Beats, and, if you ask Lawrence Ferlinghetti, he'll tell you, too."

Death

Hirschman died from coronavirus-related causes at his home in San Francisco, on August 22, 2021, at the age of 87. He was remembered by the San Francisco Chronicle as, "a scholar and translator in nine languages who threw over a career as a college professor for the life of a proletarian North Beach poet."

Poetry

His first volume of poetry, A Correspondence of Americans, published in 1960 by Indiana University Press, included an introduction by Karl Shapiro: "What a relief to find a poet who is not afraid of the vulgar or the sentimental, who can burst out laughing or cry his head off in poetry – who can make love to language, or kick it in the pants." Among his many volumes of poetry are A Correspondence of Americans (Indiana University Press, 1960), Black Alephs (Trigram Press, 1969), Lyripol (City Lights, 1976), The Bottom Line (Curbstone, 1988), and Endless Threshold (Curbstone, 1992). He also translated over two dozen books into English from languages including Hebrew, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Persian, Russian, Albanian, and Greek.

In 2006, Hirschman released his most extensive collection of poems yet, The Arcanes. Published in Salerno, Italy by Multimedia Edizioni, The Arcanes comprises 126 long poems spanning 34 years.

Also in 2006, Hirschman was appointed Poet Laureate of San Francisco by Mayor Gavin Newsom. In his Poet Laureate inaugural address, Hirschman envisioned creating an International Poetry Festival in San Francisco, reprising a great tradition from the city's literary past.

In July 2007, Friends of the San Francisco Public Library, Mayor Gavin Newsom, Hirschman, and the San Francisco Public Library presented their first San Francisco International Poetry Festival.

Hirschman was named Poet-in-Residence with Friends of the San Francisco Public Library in 2009. Hirschman continued his work supporting the literary community and was the key organizer for the now biennial San Francisco International Poetry Festival.

From 2007 Festival on, Hirschman, in partnership with Friends of the San Francisco Public Library and the San Francisco Public Library, have presented smaller poetry festivals in a variety of languages, including the Latino Poetry Festival, the Vietnamese Poetry Festival, and the Iranian Arts Poetry Festival.

Hirschman curated the Poets 11 Anthology, which collected poetry from each of the city's 11 districts.

Hirschman was a long time mentor to author and actress Amber Tamblyn.

Political views

Hirschman supported the anti-war movement, the Black Panther Party, and advocated for the rights of homeless people.

According to a 2006 book review, Hirschman was a Stalinist. Hirschman translated the youthful poems of Joseph Stalin into English (Joey: The Poems of Joseph Stalin; Deliriodendron Press, 2001). He was an assistant editor at the left-wing literary journal Left Curve and was a correspondent for The People's Tribune. He was active with the Revolutionary Poets Brigade. Hirschman is profiled in the 2009 documentary Red Poet in which he identifies as a Marxist-Leninist. He stated in an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, “The most important thing as a poet is that I worked for the Communist movement for 45 years, and the new class of impoverished and homeless people.”

Personal life

In 1954, Hirschman married Ruth Epstein, whom he'd met and dated when they were students at CCNY. Following graduation, Ruth became a program director for KPFK and eventually general manager of Santa Monica public radio station KCRW. The couple had two children, David and Celia, before divorcing in 1973. His son, David, died of lymphoma in 1982, at age 25. His daughter Celia Hirschman is a music business consultant and is the host of the "On the Beat" program on KCRW.