And When I Die, I Won't Stay Dead plot
"Bob Kaufman, poet"
With detailed, personal anecdotes, rare archive material and poems, director Billy Woodberry creates a complex portrait of Bob Kaufman (1925-1986), a relatively unknown black American poet of the Beat Generation in this jazzy documentary. Myths and legends about Kaufman are central. By handing down stories, people live long past the day they breathe their last. So recalling the myths and legends surrounding Kaufman is almost like recalling Kaufman himself. His story is the story of an evolving American counterculture: of jazz, folk and poetry, but also of drugs, arrests and institutional racism.