Miles Payne poetry collection
Finding aid created by San Francisco History Center staff using RecordEXPRESS
San Francisco Public Library. San Francisco History Center
2021
San Francisco Public Library
100 Larkin Street
San Francisco, California 94102
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Title: Miles Payne poetry collection
Dates: 1958-1965
Collection Number: SFH 650
Creator/Collector:
Payne, Miles
Extent: 2 folders
Repository:
San Francisco Public Library. San Francisco History Center
San Francisco, California 94102
Abstract: Issues of Payne's little magazine The Light Year, and his The Lovable Cable Car: Free Poems Among Friends.
Language of Material: English
The collection is open for research.
All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the City Archivist. Permission
for publication is given on behalf of the San Francisco Public Library as the owner of the physical items.
Miles Payne poetry collection. San Francisco Public Library. San Francisco History Center
Gift
Biography/Administrative History
Miles Martin Payne, Jr. was born in San Diego, California in 1923. As early as 1944 he was described as an "editor." Payne
was a member of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography's Capricorn expedition, measuring the intensity of the earth's magnetic
force in the south Pacific Ocean, 1952-1953. Payne published The Light Year in Spring Valley (San Diego County) beginning
Autumn 1958 and continuing through 1962. He moved to San Francisco that year, and printed as The Light Year Press. The premier
issue of City Lights Journal (1963) identifies Payne as an editorial assistant. Payne read poetry with Lewis Welch and John
Montgomery at venues that included San Francisco State College in 1964. As "Miles," he published The Lovable Cable Car, 1965.
Payne later moved to Santa Cruz, and died there in 1993.
Scope and Content of Collection
One folder includes issues of Payne's little magazine The Light Year, autumn 1958 through 1962 (116 leaves.) The Light Year
is chiefly poetry by Payne, but especially in early issues, is published correspondence between many significant Beat poets
and Payne, as well as responses by Payne. Poets include Charles Bukowski, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Allen Ginsberg, and Sheri
Martinelli, and some original poetry by these correspondents is published here. Included in various issues of The Light Year
are full page illustrations by Wesley Rusnell and other artists. A second folder holds Payne's The Lovable Cable Car: Free
Poems Among Friends, "hand made at the Light Year Press" San Francisco in 1965.
American poetry--20th century--Periodicals
Beat poetry, American--20th century
Rusnell, Wesley
Little magazines--United States