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So much is happening now that we finally have warmer weather. It also makes me remember folks from the past who are often forgotten but really deserve a lot more recognition than they get.  

We just had National Poetry Month, and it took a while for Northeast Ohio to recognize one of its own who was getting lots of attention nationwide. His name was d.a. levy, and he wrote his name in lower case. His birth name was Darryl Allen Levy but by 1964 he was better known as d.a. He lived in Ohio City before it was cool.

levy captured the dark side of Cleveland in words that painted a pretty dismal picture.  Before self-publishing was common, levy put out his own books on a mimeograph machine. The city’s emerging counterculture embraced him, but that didn’t win him any fans with the so-called “establishment.”

His bookstore buddy got a free ride downtown to face obscenity charges, and levy eventually just turned himself in. The charges finally got whittled down to a $200 fine. levy, battered but not broken, kept writing and started an underground paper called the Buddhist Third Class Junkmail Oracle which later gave way to the Great Swamp Erie da da Boom. In November 1968, levy died by his own hand after giving away his possessions. He was pretty much forgotten in his hometown until CSU’s Cleveland Memory Project started documenting his life and work.

Another Name to Know

Do you know about Peter Laughner? He’s another person who died way too young, just 24 when he met his end in 1977. Laughner helped bring together two of Cleveland’s better alternative ‘70s rockers, Rocket from the Tombs and Pere Ubu, and wrote extensively in the local and national press about the power of music.

Laughner spent some quality time observing the early to mid-70s New York music scene, was a great fan of Patti Smith and Bruce Springsteen, and drew the wrath of Lou Reed over a negative review.