Bob Kaufman:

Total Recall

Abstract

This paper is an interpretative reading of the poem “Sullen Bakeries of Total Recall”, by Bob Kaufman, one of the most important but least read poets of the beat generation. Kaufman is also the focus point of the research I develop in my doctorate, in which this paper is a part of, as well as the result of the paper presented at the I International Congress on Holocaust Teaching and Human Rights Education, to which this dossier is dedicated. As it is part of the scope of ongoing research, the analysis developed here corresponds to a preliminary and partial cut, but still relevant to the understanding of some aspects of Bob Kaufman's poetics, such as his relations with his ancestry, historical period of production and the social movements with which his work dialogues.