Lenore Kandel in 1967.

Lenore Kandel died on October 18, 2009 - she was 77.  Lenore was originally from New York, but found herself in San Francisco during the 1960's. She is considered one of the last of the Beat poet's and Jack Kerouac portrayed her as the character Romana Swartz in his 1962 novel, 'Big Sur'.  She wrote and published 'The Love Book' in 1966 and she soon became one of the shining lights of San Francisco's famous counter-culture.  Her book like Allen Ginsberg's 'Howl' created quite a stir and was soon banned.  Some booksellers like Allen Cohen were arrested for trying to sell it.  It was deemed pornographic and the Psychedelic shop in the Haight was raided by police. Gerry Nicosia said, "The Love Book was extremely graphic sexually and she showed this openness to sexuality, this freedom of life-style. With the 'Love Book' she became a cause celebre. But Lenore was a true lyric poet. Her language was as beautiful as anything being written."

I saw and heard Lenore at the 1967 Human Be-In and the again 4O years later at the Summer of Love's 40th Anniversary. She wrote another book called 'World Alchemy'.  In 1967/68 I managed a San Francisco Rock band called Celestial Hysteria who took their name from a line in Lenore's 'The Love Book', "the lust of comets colliding in Celestial Hysteria."