Book of Hats: Poems [Paperback]

Allen Cohen (Author), Ann Cohen (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 20, 2003

The poems in the Book of Hats were written while the author was working at the Shlock Shop on Grant Avenue in the North Beach district of San Francisco. Old Indian baskets, whales’ teeth, antique dentist tools, sock monkey dolls, political and labor buttons from the thirties, old beer cans, Eskimo knitting tools and hundreds of other old relics are clogged into the many glass cabinets and cases that line the walls and floor space. Hats are everywhere — stacked on shelves, swinging on dummies’ heads from the rafters and hanging on nails from the walls. These poems are transcriptions of his interactions with people who came into the dark shadows of the Shlock Shop and left some part of their being there. The poems reveal the humor and poignancy of the human person that we so often forget to notice in the techno-electro speed of contemporary life.

Editorial Reviews

Review

. . . accessible and heartwarming . . . luminous representations of a voice that has matured with humor and compassion. -- Neeli Cherkovski

. . . poems of truest compassion for endlessly bedeviled humanity rendered in the crisp bell tones of a tenor horn . . . -- Gerald Nicosia (author of Memory Babe, A Biography of Jack Kerouac)

About the Author

ALLEN COHEN was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1940. Moving to San Francisco in the early 60s, he founded and edited the legendary San Francisco Oracle, the psychedelic, rainbow hued underground newspaper published in the Haight-Ashbury. He also helped originate rites of passage like the Human-Be-In in the Haight. He has published two books of poetry, Childbirth Is Ecstasy and The Reagan Poems. In 1991 he worked with Regent Press in Oakland, Ca. to publish a commemorative Facsimile Edition of the complete San Francisco Oracle in order to preserve it for posterity.

Since the early 80s he has been presenting his multi-image slide show The Rise and Fall of the Haight-Ashbury in the 60s in theaters and universities. In 1995 he authored a CD-ROM, The Haight Ashbury in the 60s. He has performed his poetry at music concerts, colleges, museums and coffeehouses.

Now he is working on a political book that takes a shot at reconstructing American politics. In 2001 he consulted with the San Diego Museum of Art on High Societies a sixties rock poster show, and produced a symposium on the Sixties for the show. In 2001 he edited Peace News, an emergency newspaper exploring alternatives to war. In 2002 he edited (with Clive Matson) An Eye For An Eye Makes The Whole World Blind: Poets on 9/11 which won the 2003 PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award for outstanding writing.

ANN COHEN was born in LA in 1947, and has lived in Walnut Creek, Ca. for the last 23 years. She has been teaching art and music in Walnut Creek elementary schools and her own in-home preschool since 1980. She has produced art and music events for children in Walnut Creek, and is a composer of children’s songs. She has been active in her local arts community designing wigs for the Regional Arts Center in Walnut Creek for 20 years. She has been playing standup bass accompanying Allen Cohen’s poetry since 1987, and has been performing her original environmental-folk music around the Bay Area. Her art is in many private collections and has appeared in Beatitude magazine, Relix magazine and Split Shift.

Product Details

• Paperback: 71 pages
• Publisher: Regent Pr (December 20, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1587900629
• ISBN-13: 978-1587900624
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,608,525 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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