Legendary beat, Lester Blackiston, dies

  Lester Blackiston, poet, inventor, art collector and cantankerous cuss died Sunday. From Bill McKelway’s obituary: A gravel-voiced, two-fisted Bohemian, Mr. Blackiston was as comfortable in the boxing ring with novelist Norman Mailer as he was living on a houseboat 40 years ago on the Kanawha Canal in Shockoe Bottom or reciting his own poetry in […]

October 30, 2007; 11:23 AM • by FTRea

 

Lester Blackiston, poet, inventor, art collector and cantankerous 

cuss died Sunday. From Bill McKelway’s obituary: 

A gravel-voiced, two-fisted Bohemian, Mr. Blackiston was as comfortable in the boxing ring with novelist Norman Mailer as he was living on a houseboat 40 years ago on the Kanawha Canal in Shockoe Bottom or reciting his own poetry in coffee houses from New York to Atlanta.

 

This note came in from Roy Scherer:

Lester Blackiston has left us. He was a quirky SOB, and a vital part of the Village [Restaurant] scene back in (what I considered) its glory days. No details yet on services. Not mentioned in the news report is the fact that he was at one time Poet In Residence at the Library of Congress. Details are on p. B-5 of today’s Times-Dispatch, and online [here].

October 30, 2007 11:23 AM 0