Bana Witt was born in the sunstroked Central Valley of California where she grew up eating grapes, riding horses and swimming. She went with her San Francisco-born father to the larger art exhibits in the City from the time she could walk. Knowing she was too weird for the valley, she moved to San Francisco in 1974. There she fell into the sex and drug culture and made short art films with the Mitchell Brothers.
Bana’s music teacher & mentor, Jef Raskin, was impressed by Bana’s poetry, intelligence and humor. He brought her on as his assistant at Apple Computer in 1978. Raskin went on to become the father of the original Macintosh computer.
She’s been called ‘Boswell to the generation of the damned’ and ‘Poet Laureate of the Sex Positive Feminist Movement.’ She thrived in the wild open mike scene at Cafe Babar, expressing her rage and existential angst, and was San Francisco Poetry Slam Champion in 1994. During this time she double dated with pornographer Artie Mitchell, writer and editor Melani Chickering, and gonzo journalist Hunter Thompson.
In 2000, spirit still twisted but body exhausted, she went back to live in the San Joaquin Valley where rent is cheap and there aren’t as many stairs. Bana passed away after an illness 2-4-21.