Author, Poet. Born in Germany, he was a prolific underground writer who used poetry and prose to depict the depravity of urban life in American society. He came to the United States with his parents at the age of two and detailed his coming of age in the autobiographical novel, “Ham on Rye” (1982). He did not begin his professional writing career until age thirty-five, when he started publishing columns in underground newspapers such as “Open City” and the “L.A. Free Press”. Over the course of his career, he wrote more than forty books of poetry, prose and novels, to include “Flower, Fist, and Bestial Wail” (1959), “It Catches My Heart in Its Hands” (1963), “Post Office” (1971), “Hot Water Music” (1983) and “Hollywood” (1989). He died of leukemia at age 73 in San Pedro, California. (bio by: John “J-Cat” Griffith)