David Melnick

1938 - 2022

David Melnick
Feb. 16, 1938 - Feb. 15, 2022
Former Chronicle copyeditor and avant-garde poet David Melnick died in San Francisco on February 15, the day before his 84th birthday.
Melnick was a true polymath who published several books of poetry, reviews of poetry, opera and other music, and two important studies of 20th century experimental poetry. As one Chronicle editor recalled recently, some colleagues regarded him as "the smartest guy in the room."
His first book of poems, titled "Eclogs," was published by Ithaca House in 1972. That was followed by "PCOET," published in 1975 by the Gay Artists and Writers Kollective, or G.A.W.K., which he founded with a friend, David Greene, in 1973.
Melnick's master work, a homophonic translation of Homer's Iliad, titled "Men in Aida," was originally published in 1983 and republished in expanded form in 2015. The farcical bathhouse scenario presented in his translation suggests underlying homoeroticism in the original text. Michael Davidson, professor emeritus of American Literature at UC San Diego, called "Men in Aida" "a classic work of experimental poetry but also an important document in gay and lesbian poetry."
Melnick was considered a "Language poet" whose works combined made-up words and real words, intended to affect through form, which made them challenging for most readers. In the 1970s, his often dramatic readings at bookstores in the Castro District drew boisterous groups of men, some of whom dressed in drag for the occasion.
His work has been praised by leading poets and scholars. Charles Bernstein, professor emeritus of English at the University of Pennsylvania, called Melnick a "great poet" who was "a key part of the San Francisco Language scene." Ron Silliman, another English professor at the University of Pennsylvania, said Melnick "would have been one of the great scholars of 20th century poetry" had he chosen to pursue such a career.
Melnick, who went by the moniker "Nice" among close friends, had a lifelong passion for the arts, including classical music, opera, literature and especially poetry. He was a serious violinist who studied with Los Angeles concert master Jerome Kasin and at the Interlochen Arts Camp in Michigan.
He and his friends would often attend the San Francisco Opera dressed in outlandish costumes to match the opera. They usually bought standing room tickets but at intermission would sneak into unoccupied seats near the orchestra. "We were always trying to avoid the wrath of the fearsome head usher, Miss Beverly," Greene recalled.
In later years, he spent a good deal of time on an online opera forum, where he was regarded as a respected authority.
His last published poem, "A Pin's Fee," was about his partner David Nelson Doyle's death from AIDS in 1988.
David John Melnick was born on Feb. 16, 1938, in Urbana, IL, and grew up in Los Angeles. His father, Perry, was born in Poland of Ashkenazi Jewish descent and his mother, Esther (née Altabe), was born in Constantinople (today Istanbul) of Sephardic Jewish descent. Perry Melnick was a physician and research pathologist affiliated with UCSF and Veterans Administration hospitals in both the Bay Area and Los Angeles.
Their son's passion for language was manifested at an early age. He invented a private language when he was 6 or 7 years old, and when he was 13 or 14 he and a school friend would converse in a private language they co-invented.
He earned a B.A. in Mathematics at UC Berkeley and then, with a Wilson Fellowship, returned to Chicago to earn an M.A. in Mathematics at the University of Chicago.
But his love for the arts altered his path. He was admitted for doctoral studies at UC Berkeley, where his proposed thesis argued that Shakespeare's endlessly creative and paradoxical play with language was a source for the epochal language experiments of 20th century poets.
Melnick briefly taught poetry at UC Berkeley. He worked as a copyeditor at the Chronicle from 1984 until his retirement in 2000, with a four-year gap in between.
In addition to San Francisco, Berkeley, Los Angeles and Chicago, he also spent time in Paris, Ann Arbor, Monte Rio, the Greek island of Crete and, for a year or so, on a houseboat on San Francisco Bay.
Melnick's poetry-related work will join the permanent collection of the Archive for New Poetry at UC San Diego. His work was included in Ron Silliman's 1986 anthology of Language poetry, "In the American Tree."
He is survived by his brothers Philip of Albuquerque, NM, and Daniel of Cleveland, OH, as well as nieces, nephews, and dozens of cousins from their large extended family.
At his request, there will be no organized memorial service. The mortuary service Tulip Cremation will scatter his ashes on San Francisco Bay.