Gerald Locklin (Gerald Ivan Locklin) Biography

American poet, short-story and novella writer, born in Rochester, New York, educated at the University of Arizona. In 1965 he took up an academic post at California State University, Long Beach, where he became a Professor of English. Among the best-known of his early works are The Toad Poems (1970), Poop and Other Poems (1972), and The Criminal Mentality (1976); with a characteristic anecdotal ease and playfulness, facetious literary and filmic references are blended into an unpretentious language. A substantial collection, The Firebird Poems, was published in 1992. Like his friend and mentor Charles Bukowski, Locklin offers candid reports on relations between the sexes, usually (though not always) deflating chauvinism by self-deprecating humour. He adopts a casual, discursive manner in ranging over West Coast mores and urban perils; sex, fatherhood, and domestic skirmishes; teaching, drinking, and the pursuit of all the essential human appetites. Notable among other works are The Case of the Missing Blue Volkswagen (1984), a spoof detective genre novella, and The Gold Rush (1989), a substantial collection of stories. The prolificness of his verse and prose, frequent live readings, and above all his encouragement of younger talents, have made him a central figure in the vitality of Los Angeles writing through the 1980s.