Comments on: Floating Bear Archive

By: Chad Weidner

Chad Weidner — Sun, 17 Mar 2024 09:47:20 +0000

This is a great discussion. Floating Bear Archive is a fantastic early window into the Beat Project, and it definitely deserves more attention. Thanks for the great read.

By: Jed

Jed — Fri, 08 Oct 2021 21:13:20 +0000

Bruce,

Thanks for asking. The excel list was compiled by mapping mailing labels on Floating Bears that I saw for sale on the rare book market and in collections of people I knew. I was into it hot and heavy for a while and kept up on it but I did not give it the full attention and research it deserved. That is my fault and a just criticism. That said it is a good start for a professional academic to work with as a foundation and to use mapping programs to get something out of it. I really hope someone does. That goes for a lot of the stuff on RealityStudio it is a start. Something to get people thinking. The Burroughs Unbound book that is coming out this year has two essays on the C Press Time that take what little I have done to new levels. It is really exciting to see. I hope the same is done with Floating Bear. The mag deserves the full Modernist little mag level treatment. It is as important as transition or any other Modernist mag that has gotten the monograph done on it

By: Bruce Wilkinson

Bruce Wilkinson — Fri, 08 Oct 2021 10:33:50 +0000

Hi, Lots more brilliant work by Reality Studio. Can I just clarify from where your list of Floating Bear subscribers originates? There are several issues in the Dave Cunliffe Archive at the John Rylands Library so either he or Tina Morris would have subscribed but they don’t appear in the list. Just to be clear, this isn’t a criticism but I’m interested for my own research as to why they don’t appear. Could there have been a separate UK/European subscription list perhaps?

By: DB Hobbs

DB Hobbs — Wed, 06 Jan 2021 22:24:41 +0000

hi RS, just a quick note to say: Ezra Pound received most of the issues of Floating Bear in Rapallo (they’re held in his MSS43 and MSS53 collections at Yale’s Beinecke)

By: James Cook

James Cook — Tue, 31 May 2016 20:47:08 +0000

Hi, I love this site, especially the fully downloadable issues of Fuck You and Yugen, etc. I was wondering – is there a chance you could identify the writer of the works on the front cover of the Floating Bear archive? I can recognize a few of them: Olson, Wieners, etc. but many of them I don’t recognize, and the poems are extremely good, so I’d like to check out more of their work, or find the work in its entirety. Thanks. Keep up the great work.

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