BARRY MCKINNON INTERVIEWS GEORGE STANLEY Barry McKinnon: I was thinking this morning that there is a point where a young person becomes a writer or calls himself a poet . Do you remember when that happened with you? George Stanley: I can remember when I started writing poetry, but I cannot remember when I started calling myself a poet . I'm not really sure if I call myself a poet now, but to go back to that--sixteen years old I had an English teacher who required everyone in the class to--this is third year high school--to write poetry, and his name is in San Francisco's Gone, Edward Dermott 'Ned' Doyle. B: Yes, and, "for Gerald, much love ..." G: That's my brother. B: The complete dedication reads, "and the memory of Edward Dermott 'Ned' Doyle who taught me poetry and gave me reason to travel north of California Street". G: California Street when I was growing up was the farthest north in the city that anyone in our family would have any reason to go. B: Was it like a boundary line? G: It was kind of like the experience of a boundary line. It runs over Nob Hill and it isn't higher ground all the way through the city--it was a cable car line that ran at one point all the way from Market Street to Presidio Avenue which is about two thirds the way across the city and on California Street, or just south of it ,were doctor's offices, big hospitals-- and that was one reason you might want to go to California Street was to visit a doctor but no other reason and I think this probably has to do with ethnic background;that is, my family is Irish and north of California Street would be either rich people of English descent or it was Chinatown and North Beach, so going north of California Street--Doyle as I said, gave me reasons, two reasons: one was that when I eventually came back from the army in 1956 I went up to North Beach which is north of California street and that's where the poets were. And the other was that Doyle was gay, so that appealed to me too-- anything that was oppositional or contrary to accepted morality was also happening in North Beach. So that's really what I meant, but to get back to writing poetry when I was sixteen--and all wrote poetry and he told three of us later on that we had some talent for writing poetry. Now one of the three was my friend Manuel Teles and the other was a boy named John Tsimis. Manuel was writing John T's poems for him for money [laughter] so we can leave John out of it . But Manuel and I had some talent. I lost track of Manuel many many years ago. I don't know if he's still writing poetry. B: So literally, your first writing came out of an assignment in high school? G: Came out of an assignment, in literature, in English class. So then I wrote poetry that year and then I stopped and then I wrote some poems again when I was at university in Salt Lake City and again stopped and then I wrote some poems as a matter of fact--now that's not quite right because in betweenhigh school and going to Salt Lake City I was one year at the university of San Francisco and I know I wrote there because they were published in the University of San Francisco literary magazine, and then at Salt Lake City I was at the University of Utah and it's interesting that--this is before North Beach--this is 1952 so it's before the beatnik era began and so going to Salt Lake City--which is one of the most repressive cities in America, from San Francisco which is one of the most liberal--that when I got to Salt Lake City I found myself in the counter culture for the first time because