San Francisco Oracle

Cover of the sixth issue, February 1967

The Oracle of the City of San Francisco, also known as the San Francisco Oracle, [1] was an underground newspaper published in 12 issues from September 20, 1966, to February 1968 in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of that city. Allen Cohen (1940–2004), the editor and Michael Bowen, the art director, founded the publication. The Oracle was among the founding members of the Underground Press Syndicate.

The Oracle combined poetry, spirituality, and multicultural interests with psychedelic design, reflecting and shaping the countercultural community as it developed in the Haight-Ashbury. It was arguably the outstanding example of psychedelia within countercultural "underground" press, noted for experimental multicolored design. Oracle contributors included many significant San Francisco-area artists of the time, including Bruce Conner and Rick Griffin. It featured such beat writers as Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Michael McClure.

At its peak, the publication's print run was about 125,000, but its editors estimated that ample pass-around readership brought their circulation above half a million.^[1]

A spin-off in Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Oracle, existed for a short time.

See also

Summer of Love

References

External links

• CD-ROM and book reprints of the Oracle's 12 issues
• Allen Cohen biography and writing
• 25th anniversary issue of the San Francisco Oracle
• Dedicated to Allen Cohen, poet, editor, champion for Peace And Justice; includes his poetry, books, bio and memorial Tributes
• Haight-Ashbury in the 1960s
• Summer of Love: Underground News PBS American Experience documentary companion website
• A Short Biography of Allen Cohen
• "Additional Notes on the S.F. Oracle" by Allen Cohen

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