Allen Cohen Memorial

At 10:30 this morning approximately 150 people who were friends or acquaintances of Allen Cohen met at the corner of Haight and Masonic Streets in San Francisco. Allen died of liver cancer two days earlier.

A poet and philosopher, Allen was perhaps best known for editing and publishing the [San Francisco] Oracle, a psychedelic newspaper published during the heart of the Haight Ashubury Hippie days. He also was the co-editor of Regent Press' An Eye For An Eye [Makes the Whole World Blind], an anthology of poetry on and about 9/11/2001.

The crowd gathered in the neighborhood where I lived as a child and the first three years of High School, and proceeded down to Golden Gate Park, where we made our way to what was once known as "Hippie Hill." Those present (mourners does not seem an appropriate word) joined hands in a circle, and shared spiritual chants, songs, and memories of good times shared during Allen's life.

Two hours later those coming to pay their respects drindled to about fifty or more persons who remained behind to read poems and talk about their personal experiences with Allen.

As Len Fulton said about another fallen warrior (William Wantling [PFAs #97, 98]): "We are the more for his having been here, the less for his departing." However, I don't see it as much as a departing as the moving on to a higher spiritual plain.

A. D. Winans | May 2, 2004 | 2:30 PM

A Short Biography of Allen Cohen