He attended Black Mountain College as a teenager and completed an apprenticeship as an abstract expressionist painter in San Francisco and New York. Since 1958 in San Francisco he has been involved with poets, producing covers and art for poetry books, including LeRoi Jones’ groundbreaking magazine Yugen. He began to write himself in the 1980’s and now practices both arts daily. His books include mirage: a poem in 22 sections, Warp Spasm, Identity, and 77 Beasts/Basil King’s Beastiary. Two recent chapbooks, In the Field Where Daffodils Grow (Libellum, 2009) and Wild Cards (Cy Gist, 2010) contain excerpts from his on-going work “Learning to Draw/A history.” An exhibition of his paintings, “The Green Man,” was presented at Poets House in New York, March – June, 2010. Pennsound – Basil King page: http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/King-Basil.php