A Poet's Guide to the Bars

Sonny was fifteen when he met Jack Kerouac at Murphy's Bar in his hometown of Northport, Long Island in 1964. Later, he hitchhiked and jumped boxcars across thousands of miles of America. At the end of the rainbow in California, Doug Weston hired him to tend bar at the Troubadour, where he hosted musician barflies such as Tom Waits, Rickie Lee Jones, David Lee Roth, Gene Clark, and Glenn Frey. Nights off he drank and traded poetry with Charles Bukowski at the No Name Bar on Yucca and Vine. Kenneth Sonny Donato lives in Hollywood. Dedicated To: Harry Dean Stanton and Mario Maglieri "The Pope Of Sunset Strip" “ 'A Poet’s Guide To The Bars' has a strut and clarity of image and language which is a welcome vacation...A double shot of imagery with a water back in the face.” – Michael Ironside