Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker
Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting
During the polar vortex, a pipe froze in a room full of books at my house. Such a chilling prospect gets your mental motor running to thoughts of summer and looking for adventure and whatever comes your way. When bibliomaniacs run wild, they do not riot in the streets or storm the beaches; they get lost in the stacks. So supposing you are a literary obsessive and you have some spare time this summer, forget about channeling your inner Hemingway and running with the bulls in Pamplona or having a drink at Les Deux Magots in Paris. Instead, flip through a copy of Dan Saxon’s Poems from Les Deux Megots at SUNY Buffalo or celebrate the life and legacy of Amiri Baraka in exotic Bloomington, Indiana by digging into the Floating Bear archive at the Lilly. Looking for culture? Skip the Tate, the Pompidou or MOMA and head over to Columbia University and experience the wonders of the Kulchur Foundation / Kulchur Press archives.
The Bibliographic Bunker is excited to provide a literary Baedeker for a dream summer vacation: a list of URLs to library archives relating to the publications of the Mimeo Revolution. Who wants to go to a museum and stand in front of a boring painting or sculpture (so Modern, yet so passé) when you can enter into an archive (the collected past as future)? Collecting, installing, storing and sorting are taking over the museum and gallery anyway. They are striving to be archives. Why not experience an archive firsthand?
As I mentioned in a recent post, the library is fun. Some may say it is a mausoleum for print but I say it is an amusement park. Get lost in the funhouse. In terms of the Mimeo Revolution, the time is ripe for some serious play. Yet unlike contemporary art movements which made archiving and self-documentation part of their practice, I suspect the Mimeo Revolution archives will prove in many cases to be ephemeral and almost non-existent. Many publishers and participants of the Mimeo Revolution cared little for documenting their activities. Despite a strong and financially important tie to private and institutional collectors, they were largely of the moment, merging everyday life with literature, and operating outside the established publishing system, unlike many of the allegedly alternative spaces documented in Gwen Allen’s book on artist’s magazines. Are magazines related to Conceptual art and Minimalism, such as Avalanche, really outside established markets and institutions? Open for debate to be sure. Given the Mimeo Revolution’s relative insouciance towards self-preservation, a researcher will be shifting through fragments and ruins, so the idea of constructing a complete, fully documented history of the Mimeo Revolution is even more of a quixotic quest than usually expected. But the time has come to see what remains have been buried in the archive, since the time for further preservation may have passed archivists by.
In the face of a fragmented and haphazard archive (or one that is merely exceptionally so, since such is the nature of all archives), the resulting history of the Mimeo Revolution may prove to be a speculative or creative one. This is the job, not of academics trained in traditional scholarly practices, but of contemporary poets and artists working with databases, storage devices, and installations. The proper venue for such work would not be an academic journal, but a DIY publication, an alternative art space, or an electronic device. I like that. Personally, I find it exciting to interact with and become a part of the Mimeo Revolution on an everyday basis. To live within a library or archive. Others choose to vacation there. If you happen to be such a traveler and you get a chance, consider some of these Mimeo Revolution getaways. And please send RealityStudio photos and postcards from your journey.
Little Magazine and Small Press Collections
- San Francisco Public Library
- SUNY Buffalo
- University of Arizona
- UCLA
- UCLA (Jake Zeitlin)
- University of Chicago
- University College London
- University of Wisconsin-Madison
0 to 9
Bernadette Mayer
Adventures in Poetry
Larry Fagin
Alcheringa
Jerome Rothenberg
Alternative Press
Ambit
Angel Hair
Anne Waldman
Lewis Warsh
The Ant’s Forefoot
Arif Press
Artists’ Workshop
John Sinclair
Asylum’s Press
Charles Bernstein
Athanor
Auerhahn Press
Big Sky
Bill Berkson
Big Table
Chicago Review
Paul Carroll
Irving Rosenthal
Black Mountain Review
Robert Creeley
Black Sparrow Press
Charles Bukowski
Seamus Cooney
John Martin
Boke Press
Joe Brainard
Broadside Press
Richard Long
Burning Deck
C Press / C Magazine
Ted Berrigan
Camels Coming
Capra Press
Cassiopeia / Ephermis
David Schaff
Caterpillar
Clayton Eshleman
Center
Carol Berge
Cherry Valley Editions
Charles Plymell
City Lights
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Contact Press
Corinth Press
Elias Wilentz
Coyote Journal
James Koller
da levy
The Difficulties
Doones Press
El Corno Emplumado
Evergreen Review / Grove Press
Barney Rosset
Donald Allen
Floating Bear
Diane di Prima
- University of Connecticut
- Syracuse University (Includes original manuscripts submitted to Floating Bear)
- University of North Carolina
- University of Louisville
Amiri Baraka
Folder
Daisy Aldan
Four Seasons Foundation
Donald Allen
Free Lance Press
Russell Atkins
Frontier Press
Fuck You Press
Ed Sanders
Gay Sunshine Press
Goliard Press
Grey Fox Press
Donald Allen
Hawk’s Well Press
Jerome Rothenberg
How(ever)
Kathleen Fraser
Insect Trust Gazette
Intrepid
J
Jack Spicer
Jargon Society
Jonathan Williams
Joglars
Clark Coolidge
Kauri
Will Inman
Kayak
Klactoveedsedsteen
Kulchur
Kulchur Foundation
Kulchur Press
Amiri Baraka
L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E
Charles Bernstein
Lines
Aram Saroyan
Little Caesar
Dennis Cooper
Mag City
Maps
John Taggert
Measure
My Own Mag
Jeff Nuttall
Naked Ear/Suck Egg Mule/Taos
Judson Crews
New Directions
James Laughlin
New Wilderness
Jerome Rothenberg
Niagara Frontier Review
O Books
Lesilie Scalapino
Once – A One-Shot Magazine
Origin
Cid Corman
Corman/Olson
Outburst
Oyez Press
Poems from the Floating World
Jerome Rothenberg
Poor. Old. Tired. Horse.
Ian Hamilton Finlay
Bern Porter
Rocky Ledge
Anne Waldman
San Francisco Earthquake/Nova Broadcast
Jan Herman
Sand Dollar
Semina
Wallace Berman
Shameless Hussy Press
Some/Thing
Jerome Rothenberg
Something Else Press
Dick Higgins
Sulfur
Clayton Eshleman
Sun Moon Press
Telegraph Books
Telephone
Maureen Owen
TISH
Tibor di Nagy
Toothpaste Press/Coffee House Press
Totem Press
Hettie Cohen
Trigram Press
Truck Press
Turtle Island Press
Tuumba Press
Lyn Hejinian
United Artists
Bernadette Mayer
Lewis Warsh
Untide Press
White Dove Review
Ron Padgett
Wild Dog
Yugen
Hettie Cohen
Amiri Baraka
Z Press
Kenward Elmslie
Dear god, who are you, Reality Studio? I’m prepping a college course on the history of zines, and my research on the mimeo movement has been going nowhere for years — I found it impossible to find full texts of anything online, and I’ve rarely had the time to delve into library archives or university papers. This compendium is unparalleled, but I’m sure you’re aware of that. I’m enthralled, addicted, paralyzed by the Floating Bears, the Fuck Yous, the Black Mountains, and the Js. I’ve downloaded more pdfs this weekend than I have in my entire teaching career. I may never leave the hallowed halls of your website.
I’m a fourth wave radical, a DIY zine-queen, an unconventional scholar of all things poetic and published on paper. My future students and I thank you for your mind-blowing curatorial work.