D.A. Levy (October 29, 1942 – November 24, 1968), born Darryl Alfred Levey (later changed to Darryl Allen Levy), was an American poet, artist, and alternative publisher active during the 1960s, based in Cleveland, Ohio. Biography Levy was born to Joseph J. and Carolyn Levey on Cleveland's near West side. Toward the end of his high school years and later, after a short stint in the Navy, Levy decided to read everything and write everything, and lose himself in the search for infinity. He later found a creative outlet in publishing on a small printing press. During this time he also discovered an important spiritual outlet in Buddhism, though Jewish by birth. He published his own and others' works, printed on his hand press, or in mimeographed editions through his Renegade Press and Seven Flowers Press. His intense awareness of the gritty and burgeoning art scene of Cleveland, which included drugs and sex, and his need to express this scene which he felt a way of attaining enlightenment, meant that he was not welcome in the political environment. Obscenity Trial In 1966, he was indicted for distributing obscene poetry to minors. He was arrested again in 1967, and his pressing materials confiscated. In a comment to then Cleveland Plain Dealer reporter Gene I. Maeroff, Levy said "It's absolutely not obscene," he said. "And even if it were I wouldn't care. You can go anywhere in this city and pick up something published by Grove Press or girlie or nudist magazines. The cops aren't bothering them." The case attracted wide attention, and prompted a benefit reading on May 14, 1967, on the Case Institute of Technology campus which featured such figures as Allen Ginsberg, Tuli Kupferberg and the Fugs. The case dragged on for a year, but in 1968 the prosecutor agreed to drop the obscenity charges against Levy and bookseller James Russell Lowell, proprietor of Cleveland's Asphodel bookstore (who had also been charged). Levy's lawyer convinced him to plead no contest to the charges of tending to contribute to the delinquency of minors, and Levy agreed to pay a $200 fine and no longer associate with juveniles or give them his poetry." Levy was a friend of William Fiske, son of Irving Fiske, a co-creator of Quarry Hill Creative Center. Death He died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head on November 24, 1968, at the age of 26.