You may have read Michael Cooke’s story about evidence of Jazz great Thelonious Monk being opened in Subud. (https://sica-usa.org/news/thelonious-monk-opened-in-subud/)

Recently the New York Times published a review of: “Two Poets With Alert and Nimble Eyes on American Life.”

An excerpt from the article:

“I am writing the Great American Suicide Note,” Bob Kaufman (1925-1986) once declared. He was a street poet, an African-American surrealist and one of the original Beats — he founded a magazine with Allen Ginsberg. Kaufman had a natural aptitude for subversion and distinctive utterance. He was arrested umpteen times in San Francisco on disorderly charges, and spent time in psychiatric institutions. He appeared before the world as if in angry comic dishabille. In a poem titled “Suicide,” he wrote: “The first man was an idealist, but he died, / he couldn’t survive the first truth.”

A poem from Kaufman in a new collection published by City Lights:

Did you know Bob Kaufman? The Subud scene must have been pretty potent in San Francisco in the late 50s, early 60s. How was it that Subud attracted artists like Bob Kaufman and Thelonious Monk? What are we missing today that Subud had in San Francisco back them? Kaufman wrote: “Subud can lock you in strange rooms with vocal balms.” What is YOUR one line of poetry about what Subud can do? (Enter in comments.)

There is also a new film about his life: