Lionel Ziprin

Lionel Ziprin was born in 1924 in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York. He was a poet who spent most of his life attempting to find a large record label to distribute a 15-LP set of Jewish liturgical music performed by his grandfather Nuftali Zvi Margolies Abulafia. He became a beatnik symbol of the Lower East Side, attracting a loose collective to his apartment to speak and exchange ideas which included Robert Frank, Thelonious Monk, and Bob Dylan. Ziprin passed away in 2009.

Excerpted from the first issue of “The Nightjar Review” in November 2005.

Lionel Ziprin is featured in Edition: Guest Editor, Bryan Leitgeb