D. A. Levy facts for kids
d.a. levy (October 29, 1942 – November 24, 1968), born Darryl Alfred Levey (later changed to Darryl Allen Levy), was an American poet, artist, and alternative publisher active during the 1960s, based in Cleveland, Ohio. He consistently signed his work with lower-case letters.
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Biography
Levy was born to Joseph J. and Carolyn Levey on Cleveland's near West side. Toward the end of his high school years and later, after a short stint in the Navy, Levy decided to read everything and write everything, and lose himself in the search for infinity. He later found a creative outlet in publishing on a small printing press. During this time he also discovered an important spiritual outlet in Buddhism, though Jewish by birth.
He published his own and others' works, printed on his hand press, or in mimeographed editions through his Renegade Press and Seven Flowers Press. His intense awareness of the gritty and burgeoning art scene of Cleveland and his need to express this scene which he felt a way of attaining enlightenment, meant that he was not welcome in the political environment.
Trial
In 1966, he was indicted for distributing obscene poetry to minors. He was arrested again in 1967, and his pressing materials confiscated. The case attracted wide attention, and prompted a benefit reading on May 14, 1967, on the Case Institute of Technology campus which featured such figures as Allen Ginsberg, Tuli Kupferberg and the Fugs.
The case dragged on for a year, but in 1968 the prosecutor agreed to drop the charges against Levy and bookseller James Russell Lowell, proprietor of Cleveland's Asphodel bookstore (who had also been charged). Levy's lawyer convinced him to plead no contest to the charges of tending to contribute to the delinquency of minors, and Levy agreed to pay a $200 fine and no longer associate with juveniles or give them his poetry." Levy was a friend of William Fiske, son of Irving Fiske, a co-creator of Quarry Hill Creative Center.
Death
He died on November 24, 1968, at the age of 26. He was cremated, and half his ashes are buried in Whitehaven Memorial Park in Mayfield Heights, Ohio. Some ashes remain in the charge of Cleveland Heights artist George Fitzpatrick, who intends to work them into a calligraphic painting of Levy's words.
Published works
Levy is most known for The North American Book of the Dead, Cleveland Undercovers, and Suburban Monastery Death Poem, and in the last years of the 20th century his Tombstone as a Lonely Charm found a new following.
During 1967 and 1968, Levy published Cleveland's first underground newspaper, the Buddhist Third-Class Junkmail Oracle.
His earliest poems were almost all in lowercase, and would appear to some to be lacking in focus. In his mimeographs of his writings (which could be considered an early form of zine), the poetry is sometimes misspelled. This could be style, error or perhaps it boils down to mimeo method, as correcting the stencils was laborious.
Levy also explored concrete poetry. In works such as "The Tibetan Stroboscope" he used the low fidelity copies produced by the mimeograph to create images of distorted and illegible text, combining these with collaged images of Buddhist artworks and cut-up phrases from commercial magazines such as "NIBBANA IS NOT AN Air-conditioned Salesroom."
As Levy got more involved in both Buddhism and Cleveland, his poems got more playful at times, used spelling "mistakes" and syntax "errors" carrying multiple meanings, and other effects, and did not shy away from long lines of capital letters.
In 2011, 43 years after his death, two of Levy's poems were translated to Hebrew and were published in Maayan, Israeli magazine of poetry [1].
