Comments on: Floating Bear Archive

By: jed

jed — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 12:44:36 +0000

Luke,

I just saw this comment. Go to Abebooks.com and search for Floating Bear and the number of the issues you want.

By: Luke

Luke — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 02:31:33 +0000

hi there, is there any way to get copies of the floating bear issues? my grandfathers name (bobby driscoll) was mentioned in a few of them and i would love to see them personally

By: Jed

Jed — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 05:46:30 +0000

There is an Ed Sanders exhibit at The Arm in Brooklyn. Details: http://thearmnyc.com/news/2009/06/ed_sanders_show_at_the_arm

I hear there are paste-ups of the various Fuck You, a magazine of the arts issues as well as rare and virtually unseen ephemerial items. The opening in on July 10th.

By: jed

jed — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 14:03:56 +0000

Duncan’s Night Scenes appeared in Issue 19 of FB. You can see the first few stanzas in the archive. Duncan also appeared in Fuck You, the 5/7 issue that also included William Burroughs and in Robert Kelly’s Matter so he was in other NY mimeos but you were more likely to see him in West Coast mimeos like J (a classic mimeo that you almost never see copies of), Wild Dog, and Sum. Fred Wah (of Tish) edited Sum when he was a grad student at the University of New Mexico when Robert Creeley was a lecturer there. Given Wah and Creeley’s presence in NM you can see why Duncan read there in 1964.

By: jed

jed — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 11:48:25 +0000

Here is a brief introduction by Robert Duncan from a reading in New Mexico in 1964. He mentions Floating Bear and particularly its status as a New York magazine and what it meant for a SF poet to appear there. This highlights Di Prima and Jones’ willingness to tear down borders and publish anything that was considered new writing. It also foreshadows the Bear’s shift to SF in the later issues when Di Prima moved there. Also note that the parochialism of the SF writers would be a big source of tension in the SF Renaissance period when the East Coast Beats blew into town and brought loads of media attention.

http://media.sas.upenn.edu/pennsound/authors/Duncan/Albuquerque-64/Duncan-Robert_04_Introducting-Night-Scene_Albuquerque_02-29-64.mp3

By: Ellen Pearlman

Ellen Pearlman — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 22:25:02 +0000

thank you so much for doing this. Are the covers copyrighted? I would like to use one of them for a book I am writing for Wesleyan University Press on the influence of Buddhism on the NY avant garde.
Thanks,
Ellen