Scott Wannberg Biography
by S.A. Griffin

Scott David Wannberg arrived February 20, 1953, at Santa Monica, California, the youngest of three boys, to Ernest and Mary Wannberg. Although he spent much of his youth in the San Fernando Valley, Scott graduated from Venice High School in 1971, and received his Master’s Degree from San Francisco State University in 1977.

The true genius of our crowd, Scott’s genius lie not only in words, but in an irrepressible heart. A political junkie and avid student of history, Scott’s work was always born in the immediacy of the “ongoing moment” in which he lived and wrote, propelled forward by his compassion for the human condition and the state of the world in which he lived. His voice was uniquely his own– humorous, surreal, playful, ironic and unequivocally grounded in his empathetic experience of life. A truly compassionate man, he cared deeply about his fellow human beings, the state of the nation and our world, and did not understand how people just aren’t—aren’t good to one another, aren’t good to the world and everything within it.

Scott liked nothing better than being on the road, and like King of the Road Jack Kerouac, Scott had a driver’s license but didn’t drive, depending upon the bus or friends to get him wherever he was going.

A voracious reader, Scott worked the main room at Dutton’s Bookstore in Brentwood, California as a clerk and book buyer most all of his adult life, always keeping a stash of doggie treats behind the counter for his canine customers. A great letter writer, one of the best, Scott maintained a steady correspondence with actors, musicians, poets, writers and historians, including author and historian Page Smith and a lifelong correspondence with his college mentor, poet Daniel Langton of San Francisco.

A world class cinephile, Scott loved film, and according to the big man himself, “Instead of playing little league baseball on weekends, I usually was sitting in my neighborhood movie theater, munching on popcorn.” Without question, his favorite film was The Wild Bunch, his favorite actor, Strother Martin. Scott also loved television and was a huge fan of many popular shows including Combat!, Have Gun Will Travel, Homicide Life on the Street, Seinfeld, Wired, Jeopardy!, SCTV and Mystery Science Theatre 3000. Among many other things, we talked film, politics, poetry and process almost daily with great joy. He often called to read aloud whatever it was he was devouring at the time, or to share something fresh off the keyboard, or to hash over current events or the editorial musings of Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow or Bill Maher and called every day with his Final Jeopardy! answer to see which one of us would get it right first.

Sometime in his early 50s while he was still living with his dad Ernie, Scott was adopted by a neighbor’s cat Bob who appears in many of his poems, like the hilarious, satirical and politically savvy Emily Dickinson in Iraq. Scott related to animals as if they were fellow humans, treating them much the same in his poems by imbuing them with human characteristics and voices. Scott’s wise and wisecracking canine alter ego Sparky first appeared in his poem Outlaws in the Sun (August 26, 2004), and was published in Harvey Keitel, Harvey Keitel, Harvey Keitel (Rose of Sharon Press, 2005).

He worked the typewriter and computer like a piano keyboard with virtuoso speed and grace, always attempting to keep up with his unceasing stream of consciousness. I would guess that Scott easily clocked in at about 100-120 wpm. He almost always wrote while listening to music, many of his musical choices listed at the end of his poems, something he began to note in the last decade or so. During his lifetime he wrote thousands of poems, rarely editing any of his work. However, the last few years he was alive he began to edit some of his earlier work, posting the results on Facebook for the 4,000 or so that were following Scott and his work those last three years.

Scott died of congestive heart failure at 58 in Florence, Oregon on August 19, 2011. His ashes were scattered variously in Florence, Oregon, Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center in Venice, California, Red Rocks Canyon in Las Vegas, Nevada and at the Walt Whitman State Historic Site in South Huntington, New York. His ashes are also interred within Elsie the Poetry Bomb, an art object of mass discussion.

Scott’s first book, Mr. Mumps (Ouija Madness), was published in 1982 by his college pal poet David Smith (1955-2016). I was privileged to publish Scott’s second book, The Electric Yes Indeed (Shelf Life Press, 1989) and edit The Official Language of Yes! published posthumously by another close friend of Scott’s, Viggo Mortensen, on his Perceval Press imprint in 2015. His second book with Perceval Press, Tomorrow is Another Song edited by Henry Mortensen, was released within weeks of his death. Since his passing in 2011, Scott has continued in print in various periodicals and anthologies, appearing in every issue of Maintenant Magazine (Three Rooms Press) edited by Kat Georges and Peter Carlaftes in New York City, and Moon & Sun Review, published and edited by Richard Modiano in Venice, California. He is very prominently featured in Daniel Yaryan’s Sparring with Beatnik Ghosts Omnibus, Volume 1 (Mystic Boxing Commission), released in January 2022. Posthumous titles include All Your Misplaced Utopias (Bottle of Smoke Press, 2011), The Man from Now (Rose of Sharon Press E-Book, 2015), Scott Wannberg, the Lummox Years 1996-2006 (Lummox Press, 2016) and Dog Book (Red River Book #1, 2020) published and edited by John Dorsey and Victor Clevenger out of Missouri. In 2020 a series of amazing collages based on Scott’s work were created by artist Ray Swaney and published on Facebook.

Celebrated with a screening of 7 Men from Now starring Randolph Scott, one of Scott’s favorite films, accompanied by fresh popcorn in the lobby, on February 12, 2012, the bookstore at Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center in Venice was renamed the Scott Wannberg Bookstore and Reading Room in his honor. As you enter the bookstore and look up at the facing wall, you’ll be greeted by a painting of Scott as rendered by Los Angeles artist Louis Metz. In the painting are Scott’s cat Dixie (in the doorway of the house), his cat friend Bob (the Orange Tabby), his alter ego Sparky (the dog), the Carma Bums’ 1959 Cadillac Farther at the ready, a dependable red wheelbarrow for William Carlos Williams and blank pages raining down all around Scott representing process, and all the poems yet to be written.

As I write this, war is raging in Ukraine as Putin destroys everything except the indestructible Ukrainian spirit. Here at home, partisan conflict rages within our political process as we face the midterm elections and President Biden faces unprecedented leadership challenges both foreign and domestic. An historic new Supreme Court Justice is about to be elevated to the bench in spite of the shameful juvenile dog and pony show hearings, as another Supreme Court judge is making history based on his questionable integrity. At the pump, gas prices are at an all-time high and product is disappearing on grocery store shelves. COVID remains the unmasked viral elephant in the room as March Madness distracts the masses, as the wisteria is in full bloom, as the first golden poppies of spring have begun to appear, as the violet rush of Jacarandas anxiously await to celebrate the season, and if you talked to anyone who knew Scott, or knows his poetry, they would all say the same thing, Man, if only Scott was here to write about all of this...

Nobody did it better, because like his favorite band the Grateful Dead, he may not have been the best at what he did, but he was the only one.


S.A. Griffin
Los Angeles, CA
March 27, 2022