Lew Welch
Lewis Barrett Welch, Jr. (
August 16,
1926-May
1971?) was a poet associated with the
Beats. He also wrote advertising copy and was responsible for the classic slogan
Raid Kills Bugs Dead .
Welch was born in
Phoenix,
Arizona, but moved with his mother and sister to
California in
1929. He enlisted in the
Army Air Corps in
1944 but never saw active service. He worked for a period before joining
Stockton Junior College, where he developed an interest in the works of
Gertrude Stein.
In
1948, Welch moved to Portland, Oregon to attend
Reed College, where he roomed with
Gary Snyder and
Philip Whalen. Here he wrote his thesis on Stein and published poems in student magazines.
William Carlos Williams visited the college and met the three poets. He admired Welch's early poems and tried to get his Stein thesis published.
After college, Welch moved to New York, but he started to display emotional and mental problems and went to
Florida to take a course of
therapy. He then went to the
University of Chicago, where he studied
philosophy and English. In
Chicago, he joined the advertising department of
Montgomery Ward, where he came up with the famous Raid slogan "Raid Kills Bugs Dead." He was working here at the time of the famous
poetry reading at the Six Gallery in
San Francisco that launched what was to become known as the
San Francisco Renaissance.
Wanting to get back to poetry, Welch applied for a transfer to Montgomery Ward's
Oakland headquarters and started to get involved in the
San Francisco literary scene. He soon gave up advertising and earned a living driving a yellow cab while devoting more of his time to writing. He became an active participant in Beat culture, living at various times with Snyder and
Lawrence Ferlinghetti and appearing as the character, Dave Wain in
Jack Kerouac's novel,
Big Sur.
Welch published and performed widely during the 1960s, and taught a poetry workshop as part of the
University of California Extension in San Francisco from
1965 to
1970. On
May 23rd 1971, he walked out of Snyder's house in the mountains carrying his 30-30 rifle. His body was never found.
*Lew Welch:
Ring of Bone: Collected Poems 1950-1970 has a preface by the poet and a useful chronology, not to mention 200+ pages of poetry.
Note: Before committing suicide in 1971, Lew Welch left a note naming Donald Allen his literary executor. Donald Allen published much of Welch's work posthumously via
Grey Fox Press.
How I Work as a Poet (1973) (
ISBN: 0912516062)
Selected Poems, with a preface by Gary Snyder (1976) (
ISBN: 0912516208)
On Bread and Poetry: A Panel Discussion Between Gary Snyder, Lew Welch and Philip Whalen (1977) (
ISBN: 0912516275)
Ring of Bone: Collected Poems (1979) (
ISBN: 0912516038)
I Remain - The Letters of Lew Welch & the Correspondance of His Friends (Volume 1: 1949-1960) (1980) (
ISBN: 0912516089)
I Remain - The Letters of Lew Welch & the Correspondance of His Friends (Volume 2: 1960-1971) (1980) (
ISBN: 0912516429)
How I Read Gertrude Stein (1995, originally written late-1940's) (
ISBN: 0912516232)
*
Lew Welch at The Beat Page*
Lew Welch at Beat Museum*
Poems and Directory
