CLIFF FYMAN was born March 3, 1954 in St. Vincent’s Hospital in Greenwich Village and grew up in Brooklyn, semi-rural eastern Long Island, and South Jamaica, Queens. Leaving school, he found his way to Berkeley in 1975 where he self-educated relying on the used bookstores on Telegraph Avenue. In 1977 he attended the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics (Naropa Institute). He attended several workshops over the years at The Poetry Project, where his mimeographed chapbook Stormy Heaven was published by Misty Terrace Press in 1981.
He studied drawing and artistic anatomy in 1978 and 1982 with Robert Beverly Hale at the Art Students League, and later he studied oil painting with Sharon Sprung at the Art Students League and The National Academy of Design where he was her monitor. In the summer of 1995 he was admitted to the human gross anatomy course at NYU’s medical school. His travel sketch books earned one semester’s credits at Empire State College. His drawings have appeared in Lungfull! and Blue Collar Review. His recent drawings are planned to be shown at the Ninth Street Espresso from Oct. 21-Dec. He has lived in the East Village since 1979 by holding on tight to a rent stabilized lease and working as a busboy, waiter, bar back, bartender, cab driver, and host at Top of the Rock the observation deck at Rockefeller Center. David Haas photo.