David Lerner

David Lerner (November 23, 1951 – July 1, 1997) was an American outlaw poet[1][2] who helped lead the influential poetry group the Babarians at Cafe Babar in San Francisco.

Lerner later moved to San Francisco and worked as a journalist, but left that career to live a bohemian life[4] because journalism interfered with his poetry.

[5] In the mid-Eighties he became involved with poetry readings at Cafe Babar in San Francisco's Mission District,[6] with the group of poets there being called the Babarians.

"[4] According to Julia Vinograd, the Cafe Babar readings died off in the mid-1990s when Isaacson moved to New York City to study with Allen Ginsberg.

[15] Robinson Jeffers, Bob Dylan and Charles Bukowski have been cited as influences on Lerner's poetry, which Alan Kaufman described as a "tightly controlled eruption of paradoxes, visions, emotions and wit.

[22] In 2006 Trafford Publishing released the anthology New American Underground Poetry, Vol 1: The Babarians of San Francisco, edited by Lerner, Vinograd and Alan Allen.