Richard Denner, March 6, 2007; photograph by Nancy Dougherty
Born
November 21, 1941
Santa Clara, CA
Occupation(s)
poet, publisher
Richard Denner (born November 21, 1941) is an American poet associated with the Berkeley Street Poets and the Poets of the Pacific Northwest.[1] He is the founder and operator of dPress, which has published over two hundred titles, mostly of poetry and most in chapbook format.
Denner was born in Santa Clara, California and raised in the Oakland Hills. In 1959, he enrolled in the University of California, Berkeley but dropped out the following year, initially working in Moe's Books and for The Berkeley Barb. "I was trying to be like a street poet," he recalled later, "using magic markers to write on napkins at Cafe Med for espressos, on girls’ arms and feet."[2] Soon after, he founded the one-man printing operation, dPress, the backlists of which now contain some two hundred titles.
The former proprietor of the Four Winds Bookstore in Ellensburg, Washington, Denner took up the practice of Vajrayana Buddhism.[1] His most recent major work is a long series of cantos in collaboration with David Bromige.[4]
