Poetic Obituaries: Ali [Akbar], who was known as Horace Pittman

until his ca. 1990 conversion to Islam, was a galvanizing figure in Knoxville's musical and artistic fringe, though it may be hard to explain, to people who didn't know him, exactly what he did.

First a painter of large, boldly colorful and often erotic pieces that he called Gorilla Art--his Gorilla Gala on the otherwise dark and silent Market Square, ca. 1983, was especially memorable--then a performance poet of the freer edge of the Beat school, he befriended a generation or two of Fort Sanders bohemians.

from The Daily Pulse: Ali Akbar, 1945-2009

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