Puffer Volpe

Puffer Volpe was a beat poet. His poetry has appeared in magazines, but he has never published a book of poetry. His brief notoriety in 1961 centered around his claim to have had a brief homosexual encounter with Allen Ginsberg.

Capitalizing on this minor success, he later claimed, with less veracity, to have had a long-term relationship with William S. Burroughs. This culminated in a famous series of letters to Rolling Stone in which Burroughs denied the allegation and Volpe retaliated by criticizing Burroughs's spelling of the word "jism", which Burroughs insisted on writing "jissom". Quoth Volpe, "Well, then, why not 'jisholme' if we're going to just spell it however we like? Lame, man. Lame."