WordTemple host Katherine Hastings pays tribute to David Meltzer who died on December 31, 2016. Meltzer was, as Diane DiPrima put it, “one of the secret treasures on our planet. Great poet, musician, comic; mystic unsurpassed, performer with few peers.” On today’s program you’ll hear part of a reading Meltzer gave at the Beat Museum in San Francisco in February 2007 where, “Beats,” he said, “hang on the walls like wombats," an interview Hastings conducted with him at his home in March 2007, music performed by David with is late wife, Tina, and more. There is no better way to celebrate the gifts David Meltzer left the world than by listening to the man himself. Tune in and enjoy.

When I was a Poet

Everything was Possible

there wasn’t Anything

that wasn’t Poetry

— from “When I Was a Poet”, David Meltzer