New paintings · Washington, DC · October 2026

Game Changers (Poets)

Two new paintings by Matt Sesow: the same nine poets, painted twice. Eight of them are the writers Linda King sculpted from life (or, for Robinson Jeffers, from photographs) — Bukowski and the San Francisco circle around him. The ninth head is Linda herself. The heads are not likenesses; each name is an assignment. Below, the real people behind every name.

Matt Sesow · October 2026 · 18 × 24 in · on paper · Washington, DC

Game Changers (Poets) 1

Nine poets on a red ground, boxed in black. Read left to right: Bukowski, Ferlinghetti, Hirschman; Micheline, Norse, Winans; Cherkovski, Jeffers, King.

Game Changers (Poets) 1, painting by Matt Sesow, October 2026: nine grinning heads in a black grid on red, each labeled with a poet’s namecharles bukowski.lawrence ferlinghetti.jack hirschman.jack micheline.harold norse.a.d. winans.neeli cherkovski.robinson jeffers.linda king.

Tap a head to meet who it stands for.

Portrait of Charles Bukowski
Photo: Richard Robinson, c. 1973 · public domain

charles bukowski.

Charles Bukowski

1920–1994 · Poet, novelist

Born in Andernach, Germany, raised in Los Angeles, Bukowski sorted mail for more than a decade before a small publisher paid him to quit at 49. Post Office, Women, Ham on Rye and thousands of raw, funny, bar-stool poems followed. He loved Linda King for five stormy years in the early 1970s; she is Lydia Vance in Women. His gravestone says: “Don’t Try.”

Linda King’s sculpture of Charles Bukowski

Linda King & Bukowski Linda sculpted his head from life in 1970. The little bronze he made in her house one drunk night in 1971 now stands guard in Sesow’s studio — read that story at golem.sesow.com.

WikipediaThe golem storyRow 1, head 1

Portrait of Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Photo: Elsa Dorfman · CC BY-SA 3.0

lawrence ferlinghetti.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

1919–2021 · Poet, painter, publisher

In 1953 Ferlinghetti co-founded City Lights in San Francisco, the first all-paperback bookstore in the country. Its press published Allen Ginsberg’s Howl in 1956 — and won the obscenity trial that followed. His own A Coney Island of the Mind (1958) has sold more than a million copies. He became San Francisco’s first poet laureate and lived to 101.

Linda King’s sculpture of Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Linda King & Ferlinghetti Linda King made a bronze head of him. It was shown in Los Angeles at her June 2026 tribute.

WikipediaRow 1, head 2

Portrait of Jack Hirschman
Photo: Christopher Michel · CC BY-SA 4.0

jack hirschman.

Jack Hirschman

1933–2021 · Poet, translator, street activist

A New Yorker with a PhD, Hirschman lost his teaching job at UCLA in the 1960s for encouraging students to resist the Vietnam draft. In 1973 he moved to San Francisco’s North Beach and became its street poet for nearly half a century, writing more than 100 books, translating from nine languages and serving as the city’s poet laureate from 2006. His masterwork, The Arcanes, runs to 126 long poems.

Linda King’s sculpture of Jack Hirschman

Linda King & Hirschman Linda King’s head of Hirschman was unveiled at The Beat Museum in San Francisco in 2010.

WikipediaRow 1, head 3

Portrait of Jack Micheline
Photo via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.5

jack micheline.

Jack Micheline

1929–1998 · Street poet, painter

Born Harvey Martin Silver in the Bronx, Micheline was one of San Francisco’s original Beat poets — a reader on street corners and in bars, never in classrooms. Jack Kerouac wrote the introduction to his first book, River of Red Wine (1958). He painted as fiercely as he wrote.

Linda King & Micheline Micheline once simply showed up at Linda’s door in Phoenix. Her head of him is displayed at The Beat Museum.

WikipediaRow 2, head 1

Portrait of Harold Norse
Harold Norse with Linda King’s clay head of him, Abandoned Planet Bookstore, San Francisco · from Linda King

harold norse.

Harold Norse

1916–2009 · Poet, Beat Hotel expatriate

Born Harold Rosen in Brooklyn, Norse ran with W.H. Auden’s circle, was praised by William Carlos Williams, and spent 1959–63 at the Beat Hotel in Paris cutting up words with Burroughs, Ginsberg and Corso. Carnivorous Saint (1977) made him a leading poet of gay liberation. In Venice, California, he mentored Bukowski; they shared Penguin Modern Poets 13 (1969) and wrote to each other for twenty years.

Linda King’s sculpture of Harold Norse

Linda King & Norse “I sculpted Hal in the back of the Abandoned Planet Bookstore. He told many wonderful stories. I wished I had a recording.” — Linda King

WikipediaRow 2, head 2

Portrait of A.D. Winans
Photo: Gary Stevens, at the Harold Norse memorial reading · CC BY 2.0

a.d. winans.

A.D. Winans

born 1936 · Poet, editor, publisher

A San Francisco native, Winans came home from three years of military service in Panama and threw himself into the city’s poetry. For seventeen years (1972–1989) he edited Second Coming, a small magazine and press that published Bukowski among many others. He told that story in Holy Grail: Charles Bukowski & the Second Coming Revolution (2002).

Linda King’s sculpture of A.D. Winans

Linda King & Winans Winans sat for Linda in the back room of the Abandoned Planet Bookstore. Her head of him stands at The Beat Museum with Micheline and Norse.

WikipediaRow 2, head 3

Portrait of Neeli Cherkovski
Photo: San Francisco Public Library · CC BY 3.0

neeli cherkovski.

Neeli Cherkovski

1945–2024 · Poet, biographer

Bukowski’s young friend and co-editor: in 1969 the two put out the mimeographed magazine Laugh Literary and Man the Humping Guns. Cherkovski later wrote the first full biography of him, Hank: The Life of Charles Bukowski (1991), and a biography of Ferlinghetti (1979). He lived in San Francisco from 1975, taught at New College and helped start the city’s first poetry festival.

Linda King & Cherkovski Linda King sculpted him too — one more head from the circle.

WikipediaRow 3, head 1

Portrait of Robinson Jeffers
Photo via Wikimedia Commons · public domain

robinson jeffers.

Robinson Jeffers

1887–1962 · Poet of the California coast

Above the sea at Carmel, Jeffers hauled granite boulders up from the shore and built a stone tower — and much of his house — with his own hands. He wrote long, unsentimental poems about hawks, rock, ocean and the smallness of human worry — a philosophy he called “inhumanism.” He is now counted a pioneer of ecopoetry. Bukowski admired him deeply.

Linda King’s sculpture of Robinson Jeffers

Linda King & Jeffers “I fell in love with the poetry of Robinson Jeffers after Bukowski introduced me to his writing … I think I dreamed of writing poetry about the beautiful area I was raised in around Boulder, Utah in a similar way.” — Linda King, who modeled his head from photographs.

WikipediaRow 3, head 2

Portrait of Linda King
Photo from lindakingarts.com

linda king.

Linda King

born 1940 · Sculptor, poet, playwright

Raised in Boulder, Utah, King came to Los Angeles, published the magazine Purr, and set out to model the heads of poets from life. In 1970 she asked to sculpt Charles Bukowski — and fell into five turbulent years with him. She has written poetry collections including Sweet and Dirty and Bukowski Undigested (illustrated by Sesow), and a memoir, Loving and Hating Charles Bukowski.

Linda King’s sculpture of Linda King

Linda King & her heads Every other face on this canvas is someone she sculpted. She is the ninth head — the one who made all the others.

lindakingarts.comWikipediaThe golem storyRow 3, head 3

Matt Sesow · October 2026 · 18 × 24 in · on paper · Washington, DC

Game Changers (Poets) 2

The second take: same nine names, same grid, a different hand. Tap a head — it jumps to the same poet above.

Game Changers (Poets) 2, painting by Matt Sesow, October 2026: nine grinning heads in a black grid on red, each labeled with a poet’s namecharles bukowski.lawrence ferlinghetti.jack hirschman.jack micheline.harold norse.a.d. winans.neeli cherkovski.robinson jeffers.linda king.

Tap a head to meet who it stands for.

same nine, second take.

Who’s on it

  1. Charles Bukowski
  2. Lawrence Ferlinghetti
  3. Jack Hirschman
  4. Jack Micheline
  5. Harold Norse
  6. A.D. Winans
  7. Neeli Cherkovski
  8. Robinson Jeffers
  9. Linda King

Both paintings: October 2026 · 18 × 24 in · on paper · Washington, DC.

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Contact Matt Sesow

Interested in one of these paintings, or something new? Write or call — Matt answers himself. Visitors to Washington, DC are welcome at the studio by appointment.

Email Mattsesow@sesow.com Call202.737.6161 · voice, no texts Visit the studio916 G St NW, Washington, DC · by appointment

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Archive · September 2026

Earlier Game Changers sold

The first two Game Changers paintings — 36 heads, 36 names — have both found homes. Their full pages, with every name and biography, are kept in the archive.

Game Changers, September 2026: twenty pink grinning heads on blue and greenSOLDGame Changers20 heads · September 2026 · Blake to Voltaire More Game Changers, September 2026: sixteen gold grinning heads on pale blueSOLDMore Game Changers16 heads · September 2026 · Baldwin to Latimer