Long Beach State s Gerald Locklin, Bukowski s drinking pal, left a lasting mark on writing — and writers
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The night L A rocker Dave Alvin was an English professor
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Gerald Locklin, Long Beach poet and defining West Coast literary voice, dies
Gerald Locklin, 79, of Long Beach
(Family photo)
March 3, 2021 1:38 PM PT
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Known by many as the preeminent poet of Long Beach, Gerald Locklin was perhaps even more esteemed among those who knew him as Professor.
Over half a century, Locklin was a defining literary voice on the West Coast and beyond as a writer of poetry, fiction and essays, tracing an evolution from hard-drinking, bear-like bacchanalian to gray, slender, sober and ever free-spirited elder statesman of letters. Poet Charles Bukowski’s long-ago praise of him as “one of the great undiscovered talents of our time” has been eclipsed by the years: Locklin published some 150 books and thousands of poems, many in translation and studied and admired around the world.