Editing Richard Hell (section)

===Early life and career===
Richard Lester Meyers was born in [[Lexington, Kentucky]], in 1949.<ref name="Larkinindie">{{cite book|title=[[Encyclopedia of Popular Music|The Guinness Who's Who of Indie and New Wave Music]]|editor=[[Colin Larkin (writer)|Colin Larkin]]|publisher=[[Guinness Publishing]]|date=1992|edition=First|isbn=0-85112-579-4|page=135}}</ref> His father, a secular Jew,<ref>{{cite book|title=The Heebie-Jeebies at CBGB's: A Secret History of Jewish Punk|year=2007|publisher=Chicago Review Press|isbn=9781569762288|page=136|author=Steven Lee Lee Beeber|quote=Richard Hell: "My father was born a Jew but he didn't believe in that. He didn't have anything to do with religion....[he] raised me as a communist and atheist."}}</ref><ref>Turley, Richard. [http://www.orbmagazine.com/the-orbiter/exclusive-punk-rocker-richard-hell-asks-himself-am-i-a-jew-what-is-a-jew/ "Punk Rocker Richard Hell Asks Himself: "Am I a Jew? What Is a Jew?"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160905090514/http://www.orbmagazine.com/the-orbiter/exclusive-punk-rocker-richard-hell-asks-himself-am-i-a-jew-what-is-a-jew/ |date=September 5, 2016}}, ''Orb Magazine'', July 9, 2015.</ref> was an [[Experimental psychology|experimental psychologist]], researching [[ethology|animal behavior]]. He died when Hell was seven years old. Hell was then raised by his mother, [[Carolyn H. Rhodes]], who came from Methodists of Welsh and English ancestry.<ref>Family records, Richard Hell Papers, Fales Library, NYU</ref> After her husband's death, she returned to school and became a professor.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Olander |first=Renee |date=March 2021 |title=Still in Play: Reflecting on the Work and Life of Carolyn H. Rhodes for Women's History Month |url=http://www.odu.edu/facultydevelopment/news/2021/3/still_in_play |access-date=2024-07-04 |website=Old Dominion University |language=en-us}}</ref>

Hell attended the [[Sanford School]] in [[Delaware]] for one year, where he became friends with Tom Miller, who later changed his name to [[Tom Verlaine]].<ref>"We'd met at a little school right outside of Wilmington. It was a mediocre boarding school, co-ed, called Sanford Prep. I'd been sent there because I'd been getting in trouble in school since I was fourteen, and things were looking pretty dire ... I arrived a little after the start of the school year of 1965–1966, when I was in the 11th grade." 
 – Richard Hell (describing how he and Tom Verlaine met) in the first chapter of Hell's autobiography-in-progress, as published in ''Vanitas'' No. 2, 2006, p. 153.</ref> They ran away from school together and a short time later were arrested in Alabama for arson and vandalism.

Hell never finished high school, instead moving to New York City to make his way as a poet. In New York he met fellow young poet David Giannini, and moved to [[Santa Fe, New Mexico]], for several months, where Giannini and Meyers co-founded ''Genesis:Grasp''. They used an AM VariTyper with changeable fonts to publish the magazine.<ref>{{Cite magazine|url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/02/05/richard-hells-obsessive-fan|title=Richard Hell's Obsessive Fan|last=Seabrook|first=John|magazine=The New Yorker|date=2018-01-29|access-date=2019-12-13|language=en|issn=0028-792X}}</ref> They began publishing books and magazines, but decided to go their separate ways in 1971, after which Hell created and published Dot Books.

Before he was 21, his own poems were published in numerous periodicals, ranging from ''Rolling Stone'' to the [[New Directions Publishing|New Directions]] ''Annual''s. In 1971, along with Verlaine, Hell also published under the pseudonym Theresa Stern, a fictional poet whose photo was actually a combination of both his and Verlaine's faces in [[Drag (clothing)|drag]], superimposed over one another to create a new identity.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/01/garden/at-home-with-richard-hell-punk-for-posterity.html|title=AT HOME WITH: RICHARD HELL; Punk For Posterity|first=John|last=Leland|date=January 1, 2004|website=[[The New York Times]]|access-date=2019-10-10}}</ref> A book of poems credited to "Stern", ''Wanna Go Out?'', was released by Dot in 1973.<ref name="fales">{{Cite web|url=http://dlib.nyu.edu/findingaids/html/fales/hell/bioghist.html|title=Guide to the Richard Hell Papers, 1944-2010 (Bulk 1969–2003) MSS.140|website=Dlib.nyu.edu|access-date=2019-10-10|archive-date=August 2, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160802180920/http://dlib.nyu.edu/findingaids/html/fales/hell/bioghist.html|url-status=dead}}</ref>