He was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1956 where he was accused of being the head of the Communist Party in North Carolina.
Attempting to begin life anew, he moved to New York City, working in libraries while focusing on writing in his free time.
From 1964 to 1977[citation needed] he edited and published the seminal poetry newsletter Kauri, part of the Mimeo Revolution of the Sixties, where he published the work of Charles Bukowski, Clarence Major, Walter Lowenfels, William Packard, Ron Silliman, John Sinclair.
[3] The title, Kauri, is the Hindi word for the seashell known to English speaking peoples as a cowrie shell.
In 1967 he was appointed Poet-in-Residence at American University, teaching there and at Montgomery College in Rockville, Maryland.