Collection context
Summary
- Title:
- Ben Pleasants papers
- Dates:
- 1959-2013, bulk 1970-1985
- Creators:
- Pleasants, Ben and Pleasants , Paula
- Abstract:
- This collection documents the activities, writings, and political opinions of Ben Pleasants. Pleasants was a Los Angeles-based writer, as well as a close friend of both Charles Bukowski and Steve Richmond, seminal figures in the Los Angeles "Meat School." He published works on John Fante, Kenneth Rexroth, James Laughlin, Kate Braverman, Marge Piercy, Budd Schulberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and others. This collection spans from 1959 to 2013, and chronicles Pleasants' time in California as a poet, playwright, interviewer, and novelist.
- Extent:
- 4 linear feet (4 boxes, 2 half-size boxes, 1 record carton, 5 shoeboxes), 0.5 linear feet (1 flat box), and 10 audiovisual carriers (10 unprocessed audiocassettes)
- Language:
- Materials are in English.
- Preferred citation:
-
[Identification of item], Ben Pleasants Papers (Collection 2303). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles.
Background
- Scope and content:
-
This collection documents the writings, publishing attempts, and political opinions of Ben Pleasants, as well as his relationship with Steve Richmond and Charles Bukowski, seminal figures in the "Meat School" of the Los Angeles poetry scene.
The collection spans from 1960 to 2010, with the bulk of materials coming from 1970 to 1985, and is organized by subject or name, having no original order. In addition to manuscripts and correspondence, the collection contains a large number of publications featuring Pleasants' writing and interviews conducted by Pleasants.
Some of the significant organizations and topics represented in these files are: Charles Bukowski and the Meat School, the broader Los Angeles literary and drama scene, mimeograph publishing, John Fante and the Hollywood Ten, Nazi sympathies in America, and Stalin's atrocities as leader of the USSR. The collection documents Pleasants' provocative nature, anarchist sympathies, dismissal of PC culture, and free speech advocacy.
Materials are largely textual, comprising publications and personal and professional correspondence, as well as a large number of audio cassettes. Among other formats are photographs, CDs and DVDs.
- Biographical / historical:
-
Ben Pleasants was a Los Angeles-based writer. He was born on August 6, 1940 in Long Island, New York, and graduated from Hofstra University in 1962 before moving to California with his first wife. He began graduate studies in English at the University of California, Los Angeles in 1964.
While at UCLA, Pleasants became close friends with Steve Richmond and Charles Bukowski, seminal figures in the Los Angeles "Meat School" of poetry. Pleasants then joined the mimeograph revolution of the 1960s and 1970s. He was published in The Wormwood Review alongside contributors like Bertolt Brecht and Henry Miller, and was praised for his poetry collection, Airmail from Oblivion (1975).
Pleasants began working at the Los Angeles Times in 1967. His reputation as a reviewer led to his work being published by the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, the Los Angeles Free Press, and other Southern California periodicals. From 1978 to 1983, he conducted a series of interviews with John Fante, later collected by Beat Scene and 3:AM Magazine. His lauding of Fante helped spur a resurgence in the author's popularity, and cemented his semi-autobiographical novel Ask the Dust (1939) as a seminal work of Los Angeles literature.
In 1984, Pleasants left the LA Times over his attempt to review The Fateful Triangle, Noam Chomsky's book on US involvement in Middle East politics. Pleasants continued to write, publishing in periodicals such as the L.A. Free Press, L.A. Vanguard, L.A. Reader, Los Angeles Magazine, and Malibu Magazine. He also worked as a teacher for the Los Angeles United School District for thirty years.
Pleasants was also a noted playwright. His plays include Winter in Mongolia (1975), The Hemingway/Dos Passos Wars (1998), and Contentious Minds: The Mary McCarthy/Lillian Hellman Affair (2001). Late in life, Pleasants also turned to novels, publishing the sexually explicit tragicomedy Spearmint Leaves (2010) and The Victory of Defeat (2011), a thinly disguised account of Bukowski's activites during World War II.
In 2004, Pleasants published the memoir Visceral Bukowski: A Walk Through the Sniper Landscape of American Letters. Although critically praised, the book became controversial due to Pleasants' claims that Charles Bukowski harbored Nazi sympathies. Pleasants died of a heart attack on April 30, 2013 at age 72.
- Acquisition information:
- Gift of Paula Pleasants, 2016.
- Processing information:
-
Processed by Melanie Jones in the Center for Primary Research and Training (CFPRT) under the supervision of Courtney Dean, April 25, 2016.
Collections are processed to a variety of levels depending on the work necessary to make them usable, their perceived user interest and research value, availability of staff and resources, and competing priorities. Library Special Collections provides a standard level of preservation and access for all collections and, when time and resources permit, conducts more intensive processing. These materials have been arranged and described according to national and local standards and best practices.
We are committed to providing ethical, inclusive, and anti-racist description of the materials we steward, and to remediating existing description of our materials that contains language that may be offensive or cause harm. We invite you to submit feedback about how our collections are described, and how they could be described more accurately, by filling out the form located on our website: Report Problematic Content and Description in UCLA's Library Collections and Archives.
- Arrangement:
-
This collection has been arranged in the following series:
- Series 1: Manuscripts (1961-2012)
- Series 2: Interviews (1975-2013)
- Series 3: Publications and Promotional Materials (1966-2013)
- Series 4: Correspondence (1959-2010)
- Series 5: Photos and Media (1961-2010)
- Series 6: Biographical Materials (1966-2013)
No original order existed for this collection. Materials have been organized alphabetically by name or subject.
- Physical / technical requirements:
-
CONTAINS AUDIOVISUAL MATERIALS: This collection contains both processed and unprocessed audiovisual materials. For information about the access status of the material that you are looking for, refer to the Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements note at the series and file levels. All requests to access processed audiovisual materials must be made in advance using the request button located on this page.
- Physical location:
- Stored off-site. Advance notice is required for access to the collection. All requests to access special collections material must be made in advance using the request button located on this page.
- Rules or conventions:
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Indexed terms
About this collection guide
- Date Encoded:
- This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace on 2024-06-26 13:40:45 -0700 .
Access and use
- Restrictions:
-
Open for research. All requests to access special collections materials must be made in advance using the request button located on this page.
- Terms of access:
-
Copyright to portions of this collection has been assigned to the UCLA Library Special Collections. The library can grant permission to publish for materials to which it holds the copyright. All requests for permission to publish must be submitted in writing to Library Special Collections. Credit shall be given as follows: The Regents of the University of California on behalf of the UCLA Library Special Collections.
- Preferred citation:
-
[Identification of item], Ben Pleasants Papers (Collection 2303). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles.
- Location of this collection:
-
A1713 Charles E. Young Research LibraryBox 951575Los Angeles, CA 90095-1575, US
- Contact:
- (310) 825-4988