WALLACE BERMAN & SEMINA: the lost treasure trove of the Beat Generation

WALLACE BERMAN & SEMINA

the lost treasure trove of the Beat Generation 

Reporter: Henrik Aeshna, Paris, Year of the Dragon

Highlights: the whole of issue 3 is dedicated to Michael McClure’s “Peyote Poem” (actually, it was Berman who introduced McClure to the Mexican sacred drug), and issue 5 is made up of Artaud’s revelations about Mexico (depicting his journey to the heart of the Sierra Tarahumara in search of peyote in the mid 1930s), with loose-leaf poems by Bob Kaufman, Philip Lamantia & John Wieners also evoking their own experiences with the cactus. Interestingly too, it was in Semina that William Burroughs had his first text ever published, the poem prose about the junk-addled character Rose Pantopon, which would later be rearranged into a new section in Naked Lunch. 

"In his first-and-only exhibition, in L.A., in 1957, he was arrested for showcasing a “lewd” peyote-induced drawing of a copulating couple by a friend, Marjorie Cameron Parsons Kimmel, a.k.a. Cameron (1922-1995), an artist, performer and black magic practitioner influenced by Aleister Crowley. The infamous drawing appeared in the first issue of Semina."

Among those who formed Berman’s circle in L.A. & San Francisco, all say he was charismatic but reclusive, a mystery-drenched catalyzer who was totally immersed in his spiritual art (including the ‘bop-kabballah & jazz’ vision which would influence Ginsberg & David Meltzer). Still in his teens, he had already a mauvaise reputation as a trouble boy, having been expelled from school for gambling & other délits. In his first-and-only exhibition, in L.A., in 1957, he was arrested for showcasing a “lewd” peyote-induced drawing of a copulating couple by a friend, Marjorie Cameron Parsons Kimmel, a.k.a. Cameron (1922-1995), an artist, performer and black magic practitioner influenced by Aleister Crowley. The infamous drawing appeared in the first issue of Semina. Following such a revolting incident, where he was found guilty & fined $150, he moved with his wife to San Francisco, announcing: "I will continue to print Semina from locations other than this city of degenerate angels." After that, I wonder how he made it to the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s album cover….!!!

Also worthy of interest is Berman’s silent short film Aleph (1955-1956), a meditation on life, death, mysticism, politics, and pop culture, which includes stills of collages created with a Verifax machine.

And another demi-phantasmagorical anedocte around Kerouac’s jazz daîmon angel muse Charlie Parker : “Wallace Berman designed the cover for this 1947 78rpm record set on the Dial label that showcased the emergence of bebop jazz. Berman and his friend Robert Alexander were in the studio when a drug-addled and increasingly erratic Charlie Parker made this notorious recording of “ Loverman .” On this hot and rainy night, as Alexander recalls in a 1988 interview, Parker stormed off shirtless down Sunset Boulevard with his saxophone around his neck. »

"Art is Love is God" ("Untitled" by Wallace Berman, also published in The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry, edited by Alan Kaufman)