WHITMAN McGOWAN started his public vociferating career reading poems for a dollar each in a back alley Pasadena, California coffeehouse called The Espresso Bar, putting poetry on the menu where he worked. His first featured reading was at Skyview Farm in Northfield, Minnesota, where he went to visit artist friend Aung Aung Taik, and his first solo appearance was at Tigh Johnny, an Irish pub on the Rue Montmartre in Paris. Around 1989 he became known for crafting a pagan anthem, “White Folks Was Wild Once, Too,” available on DVD via luminarieswithoutboundaries.wordpress.com. At the first National Poetry Slam in San Francisco in 1990 he had the honor of being employed as the barker outside the front door, luring people in from the Fort Mason parking lot. He’s performed in most of the blue states and some of the red ones and toured Europe four times, often backed by flute player Margery Snyder and/or electronica artist DJ Louka (Lucalyptus). He’s also collaborated with guitarists Bob Log III, Steve Westfield and The Dead Kennedy’s East Bay Ray, cellist Michael Kott and the late Brion Gysin, and has appeared on the same stage as California poet laureate Al Young, San Francisco poet laureate Jack Hirschman, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Maya Angelou, Attila the Stockbroker, Billy Childish and Lydia Lunch. Along the way, this San Francisco spoken word artiste also garnered the title of nightclub wrestling champion of Dresden, Germany! But that's another story.Anthologies including him are Poems for the Retired Nihilist (Fortune Teller Press, London, 2005), Public House (Public House Press, San Francisco, 2004), New American Underground Poetry: Volume 1: The Babarians of San Francisco - Poets from Hell (Trafford Press, Victoria, B.C., 2005) and Chokecherries (S.O.M.O.S., Taos, New Mexico 2006). He’s been published in Salon and a hundred other places. His three spoken word & music CD collections, PO FU (San Francisco: Viridiana, 2000) and CAUGHT IN THE ACT (live performances, Switzerland: Little Records -- http://little.ch/, 2003), and Look What the Cat Dragged in Again (San Francisco: Viridiana 2012) combine storytelling, chant, comedy and talksinging. He is on the Web at luminarieswithoutboundaries.wordpress.com.