Michael John Fles
| Michael John Fles | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
November 11, 1936 London, England |
| Occupation | poet, editor, musician, film personality |
| Nationality | American |
| Period | 1959-1995 |
| Genre | poetry, fiction, nonfiction |
| Notable works | Beyond the Beat Generation |
| Relatives | Barthold Fles, George Fles, Louis Fles, Bart Berman, Helen Berman, Thijs Berman, Giorgio van Straten |
Michael John Fles (born November 11, 1936), known both as John Fles and Michael Fles, is an American poet, editor, musician and film personality. Professor David James referred to him as "the single most important promoter of underground film" in Los Angeles, California.
Michael John Fles was born to a Dutch father, George Fles, and a British mother, Pearl Rimel. As conscious communists, his parents had moved to the Soviet Union, where his father fell victim to Joseph Stalin's Great Purge. The mother, pregnant with Michael John, left the Soviet Union to give birth in London. Mother and son later emigrated to the United States, where Pearl Rimel found employment in the aircraft industry. Michael John grew up in Los Angeles and Ojai, California, where he graduated from the Ojai Valley School in 1951.
Fles studied at the University of Chicago, but did not graduate. While a student, he became the managing editor of the Chicago Review. In 1959 Fles was involved in the founding of the influential literary magazine Big Table. Later he was the editor of The Trembling Lamb, a one shot literary magazine that published Antonin Artaud's "Van Gogh: The Man Suicided by Society", LeRoi Jones's "The System of Dante's Inferno", and Carl Solomon's "Danish Impasse". In 1960 and 1961 he was a managing and contributing editor of Kulchur. During all these years he published his poetry far and wide.
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