JOHN CURL

“I simply want to tell the story of my numerous experiments with truth.” ~ Mahatma Ghandi

Indigenous Culture

John’s articles, books and poetry dealing with native culture and rights.

Social Justice

Videos, books and poetry created and produced by John, exploring the theme of social justice in America.

Welcome to my Room

From as far back as I can remember, my inspiration as writer, poet, and activist has been social and environmental justice. To be successful in this world you need to understand how it works, and at an early age I learned to experiment and study history.

Today my life seems like a series of those experiments and studies, which have deepened my understanding of our road to mutual success on this beautiful little planet or to our mutual destruction.

 

Here in my room, you’ll find my archives and my desk. Some of my life too, since work and life are not separate. Poetry, fiction, history, memoir, articles on issues I feel passionately about. Back in 1968 at Drop City, where we truly believed that the Revolution was now and here, I built an early solar heater onto the back of my dome. After a year on the Navajo reservation in 1970, I learned woodworking, worked for over forty years in a coop woodshop in the Bay Area, helped to stop rapid gentrification in the arts & crafts industrial zone as an author of the West Berkeley Plan, and later as a planning commissioner.

I was one of the founders of Indigenous Peoples Day; I studied indigenous languages and translated classical poetry from ancient Native America. I was an activist in the cooperative movement and wrote a history of when early labor unions tried to transform America into a Cooperative Commonwealth through worker cooperatives. I became a street poet, editor and publisher. Welcome into my room.

WRITER

Poet, translator, fiction and non-fiction writer on social justice and historical perspectives.

ACTIVIST

Exploring worker collectives and the rise of the cooperative movement in the 21st Century.

HISTORIAN

Celebrating the accomplishments of native cultures and the works of ancient American poets.

Latest posts

Rainbow Weather

Press Release announcing the publication of...

My new article Dystopia Nepal Express in Geo zine

My new article DYSTOPIA NEPAL EXPRESS  in GEO,...

Borders of the MInd

My New Video Poem A poem about limit,...

HIKING ON SINAI

my new poetry video I tore myself away from the...

My InterCollective Memoirs on FoundSF

FoundSF, the online San Francisco Digital...

Mahnaz Badihian & John Curl at the Clarion

I recently read with Mahnaz Badihian at the...

My Reading at Sacred Grounds

This is a video of my poetry reading at...

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Explore the work

What readers say

“Among the foremost revolutionary American poets since the end of WW2.” Jack Hirschman

What readers say

“Indeed inspiring.” Howard Zinn, about For All The People.

What readers say

“Highly crafted and brilliant.” Ishmael Reed, about Memories of Drop City.

What readers say

“This book is a treasure.” Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, about Indigenous Peoples Day.

What readers say

“Pages of truth.” Dennis Banks, about Columbus in the Bay of Pigs.

John Curl -Arizona

How I became a poet

Since my grandpa was a communist, you’d think we’d have subversive literature all around the house, but the main reading was the New York Daily News and an occasional Reader’s Digest. Also an illustrated Webster’s Dictionary, full of interesting drawings and information, which I sometimes leafed through. A Bible which went unread. And Elbert Hubbard’s Scrapbook, which my mother occasionally opened. That is where I first encountered poetry, including working class poetry, some with a radical slant.

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