OPEN CITY No. 6, June 9–16, 1967 — Bukowski on Poetry and the Underground, Phil Ochs, Frank Sinatra, Simon & Garfunkel

An issue of the Los Angeles underground weekly, featuring Charles Bukowski's "Notes of a Dirty Old Man." Opening with a domestic scene, the column pivots into a defense of the underground poetry world Bukowski inhabited — naming Steve Richmond, his close Los Angeles associate and fellow "Meat School" poet; Doug Blazek, editor of Olé magazine and one of the key figures of the Mimeo Revolution who published Bukowski from the outset; Al Purdy, the working-class Canadian poet who wrote in the rhythms of vernacular speech; Brown Miller, a fellow small press figure; and Harold Norse, the Beat-adjacent literary renegade who had lived with Burroughs and Ginsberg in Paris and later settled in Venice, California. Far from attacking the establishment, Bukowski is defending his own people against the academic poetry machine and its well-funded mediocrity.

The front cover leads with John Bryan's allegorical account of the California Community Alert Patrol and the conditions building toward a second Watts uprising. The back cover calendar includes Frank Sinatra at UCLA Royce Hall, Simon and Garfunkel at the Lighthouse, and Hugh Masekela. The mailing label on the back cover carries the personal note "Love you. Hope to see you soon." Large tabloid format, 17" x 11", black and white throughout.

Provenance: Pink mailing label on back cover addressed to John Bryan Sr., Financial Editor, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Cleveland, Ohio — the editor's father at his place of work, with a handwritten personal note.

This copy is in rough shape with chips and splits to the spine, some brown spots on the horizontal fold, an uneven fold resulting in the pages sticking out on the right and bottom.