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# Poet honored Friday through prose
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/poet-honored-friday-through-prose/
- Published: 2005-02-17T16:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T06:07:06.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: local, Ocean Park, #archive-import

*By Daily Press staff*

Joseph Hansen, co-founder with John Harris of The Venice Poetry Workshop at Beyond Baroque in 1969, died in November at 81\. Los Angeles poets will honor him on Friday, Feb. 18 at 7:30 p.m. during a memorial reading at Beyond Baroque.

Hansen’s matchless verse is little known because though a first-rate poet who put his life and dreams into stanzas, his poetry was not widely published, his friends say. His energy went into many other areas like music, activism, fiction and biography. He is best known for his ground-breaking mystery series in which insurance investigator Dave Brandstetter became the first openly homosexual protagonist to appear in a mainstream novel published by a major New York publisher.

The memorial reading costs $7 and is co-sponsored by the Church in Ocean Park with his friends, poets John Harris and francEyE. Taxpayers affected by disaster get relief from IRS

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on February 17, 2005.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/021705.pdf?ref=smdp.com)