Background
Bremser was born in Jersey City, New Jersey.
Bremser was born in Jersey City, New Jersey.
When he was 17 he went AWOL from the United States Air Force and was briefly imprisoned. The next year he was sent to Bordenstown Reformatory for 6 years for armed robbery. He began writing poetry there and sent copies to Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso and LeRoi Jones (Imamu Amear Baraka), who published his poems in "Yugen" and threw a big party for him when he got out of jail in 1958.
Ronna Johnson"s entry in BookForum: ".
Two years later, they were on the lam in Mexico with their baby, Rachel, fugitives from the New Jersey prison authorities, which were pursuing Ray for violating parole. This flight, the manifest subject of Troia, is recounted in the daily two-page letters Bonnie Bremser wrote to Ray from March to November 1963, during his second incarceration.
Ray and Bonnie"s lives were interwined and strong for life. Ray Bremser read poetry in The Gaslight Cafe in the Greenwich Village neighborhood.
He had five books of his poetry published and was featured in the 1987 film The Beat Generation: An American Dream.
He died in 1998 of lung cancer.