Jack Spicer, nor John Wieners - or - My Dada Moment

Up until last week I didn't know a damn thing about Jack Spicer, nor John Wieners -- which astounds me, flat out astounds me. I appreciate knowing my writers, and I try to be aware about stuff in general, so I am not totally stupid. I had not the faintest inkling of two great and influential poets, Jack Spicer being one of the dynamos, one of the stars, one of the prime movers of "The San Francisco Renaissance", even though he despised publication. Richard Brautigan dedicated "Trout Fishing in America" (one of my favorite books) to Spicer, fer kristsakes! I mean, I know about Ginsburg and Ferlinghetti and Kerouac. I know about the Beats, I love City Lights Bookstore, I got drunk countless times at (and hid Hell Money all over) Vesuvio. I just can't believe I didn't run into the other side of the coin or discover the rest of a world, that universe, that story. I even studied at SF State, in the English Literature Department, in Creative Writing, yet no peep about Jack Spicer, who taught a famous poetry workshop, there. I can't understand that. Possibly people at SF State hated him, I don't know -- SFSU was a weird place full of disconnects. What a huge omission! So I ordered, at Latif Harris' suggestion, Spicer's collected works, and I'm picking up some collected poems of Wieners, and I look forward to reading these books & other poets that studied with Spicer and his cohorts -- including Latif Harris, who has his own collection of poems, "Bodhisattva's Busted Truth: Selected Poems and Dohas of an American Buddhist" out from last year. This all reminds me of a associate who is an artist, a fine artist, yet I discovered he had never heard of Dada & had no notion of it whatsoever. So here's my latest Dada moment, I guess. One of many more, to be sure. I truly do not know what I do not know.