Zoo Chow

Jim Thurber arrived in San Francisco in the early 1960s during the height of the San Francisco Renaissance and enrolled at San Francisco State. He described it as "a spontaneous gathering of poets from all over America who were writing a kind of new poetry--rebellious, wild, and original." In 1964 he co-founded an underground magazine and wrote improvised poetry for people on the streets of North Beach. Jim first read his poetry at the landmark Berkeley Poetry Conference in 1965.The themes of Jim's poetry move in several directions. One current celebrates nature, the environment, and wilderness. A poem such as "Yosemite Weekend" is of this type. A second, darker flow reveals a self-destructive and sinister current. See the poem dedicated to Lew Welch, "Walk Away From It," and "Why Aren't We Happy?" The third current is the acid-inspired joyous silliness of poems such as "Lecture on Modern Poetry" and "Peyote the Kid." Sometimes several themes come together, as in the powerful "Radio R.A.G.E."