John Wieners – RealityStudio

Auerhahn Press Archive

RealityStudio — Sun, 29 Jan 2017 01:55:02 +0000

Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker

Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting

Reps at Batman

Paul Reps
Picture-Poems
Batman Gallery announcement

Here is another Batman Gallery announcement; this time for Paul Reps. Reps is who initially got Haselwood and Hoyem together, as Hoyem wanted to publish a book by Reps. Reps is a haiku pioneer in the United States. The resulting book was Gold/Fish Signatures: Poems. It is with this book of Zen poetry that Eastern influences come into the Auerhahn aesthetic.

The Ostentation of Peacocks

John Wieners
The Hotel Wentley Poems
1965
Dave Haselwood edition

John Wieners
The Hotel Wentley Poems
1965
Auerhahn Press edition

I call on Kane’s Book, which is a Book of Daniel, not Trocchi, as a reference to the self-consciousness and sense of display that enters into Dave Haselwood Books as opposed to the early Auerhahn titles. The two editions of The Hotel Wentley Poems capture this shift. In the 1965 Haselwood edition, the mysterious Jerry Burchard cover photograph has been framed by what can be interpreted as feathers. It looks like an opening credit to a James Bond film.

Personally I prefer the gritty, early covers. Maybe that is the Berman influence. I do not know but the later Dave Haselwood titles run the danger of turning the Auerhahn look into a preening peacock.

Chinoiserie

John Wieners
Chinoiserie
Dave Haselwood Books

One of 100 copies, Chinoiserie by John Wieners was an early offering by Dave Haselwood Books. I see quite a bit of what has been presented as the Hoyem look carrying over into the post-Auerhahn publications of Dave Haselwood Books, particularly the affinity for Asian artistic styles and papers. Chinoiserie indeed.

The Book Art of Dave Haselwood

Bruce Conner and Michael McClure
Mandalas
1966

Here is our first publication by Dave Haselwood Books, an announcement for a collaboration by Bruce Conner and Michael McClure. Published in 1966, “1200 copies on 65 pound beige cover stock, saddle-stitched into 130 lb cover; text in 12pt Clarendon, versos printed with Ben Day dot screen (Johnston).” Give an assist to Haselwood as book designer, as this is an artists’ book with text by McClure and mandalas by Conner.

Not to be confused with Lobe Key Stilled Lionman Laced Winged April Raphael Dance Wiry, which was also a collaboration by Conner and McClure, “11.1 X 14.2 Ultima laid envelope; Bruce Conner 1966 Michael McClure (on gummed flap); contains 24 cards 5 X 5 with 12 pt Joanna capitals; four words per card, bled mandalas on verso (the announcement for the next book) (Johnston).”

Seemingly similar publications but if you try to purchase them at a bookshop or online you will not confuse them due to a major difference: Mandalas is around $75; Lobe Key $1500.

A Writer Scorned

William S. Burroughs & Brion Gysin
The Exterminator
Announcement

Alastair Johnston’s bibliography is the best place to go to get information on William Burroughs’ interaction with Auerhahn Press. The second volume of Burroughs’s letters has just come out and it includes a handful of correspondence between Burroughs and Haselwood.

The relationship of the two men deteriorated when Haselwood balked at publishing The Exterminator II. One dose of the cut-ups was enough for Haselwood. The cut-ups were tough medicine. At one point Burroughs wrote five increasingly irate letters to Haselwood to get information on future publication and royalities. Here is the fifth letter which was mentioned but not included in Johnston. It is a rare instance of a pissed off Burroughs.

Feb 24, 1961
9 Rue Git Le Coeur
Paris 6, France

Dear Dave Haselwood:

You seem to be running a mighty loose ship. This is the fifth letter I have sent you to inquire about a manuscript sent six months ago. Now I hear through J. Montgomery that you do not intend to publish Exterminator II. I consider your behavior discourteous. sloppy business practice, dishonest, and down right stupid. Is that clear enough or shall I make it even clearer? Will you please return my manuscript right now like today.

Best
William Burroughs

Haselwood responded to this letter and sent Burroughs a royalty check. The beast was calmed to a certain extent, even admiting to Haselwood “[j]ust as well I think the other material was not published in that form.”

The Book to Come

Robert Duncan
A Book of Resemblances
Announcement

Auerhahn Press
Books in Print

This list of publications is interesting in the fact that it includes A Book of Resemblances by Robert Duncan as “In Preparation.” The project (spectacularly) fell through and was never done by Haselwood.

The Batman Gallery

Robert La Vigne
Announcement for exhibit at the Batman Gallery
1964

This is more job work by Auerhahn: an announcement for an exhibition of Robert La Vigne at The Batman Gallery. I have read quite a bit and there is quite a bit written on the Ferus Gallery but I find myself drawn to The Batman Gallery. I really do not know much about it; Jason Davis recommends Jack Foley’s O Her Blackness Sparkles as a place to start. Mental note made and soon to be acted upon.

Billy Jahrmarkt started the Gallery on November 3, 1960 with his father’s money. It was in large part a measure to keep Billy occupied and out of trouble. The gallery was sold in 1962 to Michael Argon, who ran it until 1965. This above announcement is late in the game for Batman: 1964.

The Gallery was located at 2222 Fillmore, next door to the International Music Hall and down the street from the McClure’s residence from 1958 to 1961. Michael McClure figures in huge in the Gallery; he suggested the name (after Billy’s obsession with Batman); he persuaded Billy’s father to release the money; and he provided content by putting on The Feast there soon after the opening. The space was a defunct dress shop located by Bruce Conner, and he designed the Gallery. Conner was the subject of the Gallery’s first show.

Jahrmarkt is one of the doomed figures of the Berman Circle, who played careless with his talents and interests. Given Jahrmarkt’s addictions and wandering interest, the Gallery opened when it happened to open; mounted shows on an irregular schedule; and in some cases even sold some art. I would suspect the sale to Agron marked a shift in operating procedure and standardized things a bit. In a characteristic gesture, Jahrmarkt gave Berman his Verifax machine after Billy had grown bored with it. Berman put it to good use.

On Jahrmarkt, McClure states, “Nobody expected Billy to live very long.” He did not. Jahrmarkt moved to Afghanistan because heroin and guns were legal and freely obtainable there. In 1973, he dropped a gun and accidentally shot himself in the stomach. Not realizing the direness of the situation, he did nothing to address the wound and bled to death by the morning.

I have to admit that figures like Jahrmarkt fascinate me. And there are several like him in the Berman Circle. The carelessness, the wastefulness, the insouciance. The disrespect shown to one’s own abilities and one’s artistic output. The opportunity, the possibility, the inheritance, the promise squandered. It is the same reason I am drawn to the philosophies of Bataille. All this was reflected in the creation and day-to-day operations of the Batman Gallery. With Jahrmarkt it is a miracle that anything was accomplished, that any of it survived, and that any of it mattered. In my eyes they definitely did.

A Night at the Theatre

Program for a performance at the San Francisco Actor’s Workshop
King Lear
1961

I hope all you lovebirds are enjoying your Ghirardelli chocolates and sparkling wines from Napa and Sonoma. Remember the words of France: Love is not love / When it is mingled with regards that stand / Aloof from the entire point. Will you have her? / She is herself a dowry.

The program for a performance of King Lear by the San Francisco Actor’s Workshop from 1961. Here we have an example of Auerhahn working hard for the money. So you better treat her right. Robert La Vigne did the costume and set design. There is a very nice write up on Big Bridge with images of the performance.

It is the advertisements that make this program: for Auerhahn, the Batman Gallery, and, yes, The Curtain Call (“where the fourth act begins”). I hope everybody had a drink at The Curtain Call tonight, and I leave you to your fifth and final acts??

But before I do, let’s remember to tip our servers and that means a shout out to Jason Davis, who has been serving up some remarkable Auerhahn material. Thanks so much.

From Auerhahn with Love

Auerhahn Valentine

Valentine’s Day the Auerhahn way.

Hugs and Kisses,

A Pre-Valentine’s Day Present

Micheal McClure
Dark Brown
Announcement

What you need on Valentine’s Day is “A Long Poem of Spiritual Revolution and Sexuality.” But I have a lot of shit to do tonight so all you get is a little bit of Dark Brown, i.e., the announcement of publication. As I mentioned before this is the first title with Andrew Hoyem’s name on it. Haselwood on Dark Brown: “That is one where [Hoyem] really hit it.” At $3.00 it is one of the more expensive offerings of the early partnership, but on Valentine’s Day money is no object for that which you love.

A Man’s Gotta Eat

Auerhahn Press Call for Work

And feed the press. The press is hungry. Haselwood and Hoyem churned out a bunch of job work on top all the books, broadsides, and ephemera under their own imprint. The piece above is pure Auerhahn and a beautiful piece of work. Call for work/exemplar of that work. Auerhahn: Killing two birds with one stone.

The Show Must Go On

Auerhahn Press
Books in Print
1966

After Auerhahn Press fell apart, Haselwood began printing under his own imprint, Dave Haselwood books. This broadside / catalogue features all three imprints: Auerhahn Press, Auerhahn Society and Dave Haselwood. Haselwood’s HQ moved to 1403 Gough Street, which is a legendary address in San Francisco counterculture. Robert La Vigne lived here in the mid-1950s and it was here that Ginsberg saw a La Vigne painting of Peter Orlovsky and fell in love. Ginsberg soon moved in. From that point on, one writer / artist after another rested their weary little heads at 1403 Gough Street. Haselwood was there by at least 1963, along with Charles Plymell, who like Haselwood was from Kansas. Michael McClure (Kansas again) was there; Neal Cassady lived there with Anne Murphy. Ginsberg made this his crash pad once again upon his return from Japan and India in 1963. Beat Scene Press published Plymell’s account of Neal and Anne’s time there in Number 14 Kevin Ring’s Pocket Book Series. Not sure if copies are still available.

A Summing Up

Auerhahn Press
Books in Print
August 1964

Not quite the production of the 1962 Catalogue, but this list of books in print from August 1964 is a very nice piece of ephemera in its own right. This is near the end of the first run of Auerhahn Press, when Hoyem and Haselwood would part company and go their separate ways.

The Exterminator and The Invisible Man

William S. Burroughs
The Exterminator
Announcement by the Auerhahn Press

That’s all that’s left behind . . . the skies
And a sweet caress
The skies, the sights
And a sweet caress
He’s the Invisible Man
Catch him if you can

As this announcement card shows, Brion Gysin was the real “el hombre invisible.” As often happened with Gysin and his work, erased from memory by Haselwood, which is really strange given that Haselwood felt the Gysin drawings were the strongest element of the entire publication.

“The center of the tornado”

Jack Spicer
The Heads of the Town Up to the Aether
Announcement

“This is an ode to John Wieners and Auerhahn Press
Who have driven me away from poetry like a fast car”

The Auerhahn bibliography states that The Heads of the Town Up to the Aether is arguably “Auerhahn’s main contribution to literature.” But as Johnston details, the publication of the book blew up a shit storm throughout the Spicer Circle proving once again that all poets are a pain in the ass. Robert Duncan blasted Auerhahn Press in the Valentine Issue of Open Space (not a love letter to be sure): “With the exception that the typography is abominable (titles crammed into the text; explanatory notes for ‘homage to creeley’ shoved to the bottom of the page, etc) and that the lithographs [by Fran Herndon] lose in reproduction, from these poems and these illustrations I draw increasing sense of what poetry can mean.”

When The Heads of the Town Up to the Aether failed to deliver commercially, Jack Spicer accused Hoyem and Haselwood of not promoting the book properly. Citing “[e]vidence of Auerhahn’s attempts to promote Heads’ sale” in the press files, Ellingham and Killian clear Auerhahn Press of all charges. This publication announcement could be considered Exhibit A.

Putting Spicer on the stand and having him explain why he prevented City Lights from distributing the book and why the Discovery Bookstore was similarly attacked by the Spicer Circle would provide valuable testimony for why the book failed as well. Or you could have Spicer give a reading of the book to a jury, not of his Circle, but of Joe and Jan Public of San Francisco. The blank stares would further acquit Auerhahn. Spicer is an acquired taste. The general reader is busy reading Playboy and the Sunday New York Times, not Spicer. Actually, he was little read outside of a small circle of friends.

Off the Grid

Paul Magistretti
Notes of What I Can’t Be; Of What I Am
announcement

This is a commissoned publication by Auerhahn Press. I’ll be damned if I can find any information the book at all. Nothingon New Gnu Press. Nothing on Abebooks. Nothing on Paul Magistretti. I am going to guess that Tram Combs ran New Gnu Press, but that is pure speculation. This broadside is listed in Johnston but details of the actual publication seem to be undocumented.

Auerhahn Journals

Auerhahn Journals
Announcement

This is the flipside of the Wieners Journal written at 707 Scott. Auerhahn designed blank journals for sale in a limited edition of 40 copies. I wonder who bought them and what use was made of them. It would make an interesting exhibition of gathering a collection of these journals.

The Death Warrant

Auerhahn Press business card

In an earlier post, I suggested the presence of a shift in aesthetic at Auerhahn Press once Jay McIlroy sold his part of the business to Andrew Hoyem. Here is Haselwood from the Johnston interview on this shift: “But suddenly it was all done in a very different way. The Reps book was printed in Japan by collotype and it is beautiful. You can’t tell that these are not original sumi ink drawings because the collotype will do that. It’s the only way you can do it. But it was done in Japan and it’s this elegant book. Has anyone ever seen one? It’s fairly rare. It was boxed and very fancy. Now I had done limited hardcover editions of some of these books I had done so far to help pay for the rest of the edition. You did a few hard-cover editions signed by the author, so these paid for the rest of the books, so you could sell them for $1 and everyone could have one. That was the idea. But suddenly we began getting into these ‘exquiste’ productions. I think Andy is a great printer. I dont really want to get nasty about this, because it was just that he really wanted to go in a different direction than I did and he’s done an incredible body of work, but that;s not what I wanted to do, so from the very beginning, it was the beginning of the end. When we formed this partnership, it became this tug immediately.”

The above business card epitomizes the “beginning of the end” of Auerhahn Press. The “Made in Italy” in the lower left corner. The card as “very fancy,” “exquiste” and “elegant.”

Also of interest is the role of the collector in the Auerhahn business plan. Haselwood states in the Johnston interview that he did not want the collectible book at all and it is implied that Hoyem brought that business model into Auerhahn. That is not really the case. As the above quote shows, the collector always had a role in the Press, but it was a question of degree. For Haselwood, collectors subsidized “the rest of the books,” which were designed for “everyone.” Under the Hoyem model, all the books were “exquiste productions” specifically designed with the collector or connoisseur in mind.

According to Secret Location, “[s]ome of Haselwood’s later titles were considered outrageously overpriced when they were first offered for sale at $10 each.” Note this is the later titles; the one’s after Hoyem’s arrival and influence. Yet what is remarkable about Auerhahn Press titles on today’s market is how affordable they are. The most expensive Auerhahn title on Abebooks is the signed limited of McClure’s Dark Brown, printed on Alexandra Japan paper, handbound in full leather at the Schuberth Bindery, for $1450. This is the first book printed under the new partnership but largely of Haselwood’s vision and design. Almost half the Auerhahn titles currently available are $40 or under. The Arion Press Ulysses with etchings by Robert Motherwell is almost $50,000.

It Speaks for Itself

Mad Monster Mammoth Poetry Reading
1959

A shout-out to Jason Davis for providing the Mad Monster Mammoth Poetry Reading press release. He has also provided me with a ton of announcements and other goodies that I will be posting until I run out of material. Possibly a couple weeks.

Where the Magick Happens

John Wieners
The Hotel Wentley Poems
announcement

Foster’s Cafeteria

Dave Haselwood designed The Hotel Wentley Poems but he did not print it. East Wind Printers did the honors and according to Haselwood they botched it. Haselwood’s “vision of what the book should look like was not completely carried through. That made me decide that in the future I would not only design but personally print any book the Press decided to do.” The above announcement card definitely does not have that Auerhahn feel to it and handling this announcement vs. the Auerhahn business cards reveals a clear difference in print quality.

From what I can tell, Auerhahn called 1605 Laguna home and then moved to 1334 Franklin. By the time of Andrew Hoyem’s arrival in 1961, the print shop was at 1334 Franklin. Glenn Todd remembers the two men printing in a small room there. The Hotel Wentley was on 1214 Polk and Haselwood had a small room on rent that he loaned to John Wieners for a week, during which Wieners banged out his slim first collection of poems. Foster’s Cafeteria was on the first floor of the Wentley Building. Foster’s is long gone, but, in February of 2009, the Bed Bug Registry reported a complaint for an apartment at this address. Good to see things have not totally changed.

A Walk in the Neighborhood

Wallace Berman
The Way-Out Walk of Poets
Photograph

John Wieners
707 Scott Street

The Ampersand’s Beat: A Dead Horse

Wallace Berman
Jay Defeo before The Eyes

Philip Lamantia
Narcotica
Announcement

Alastair Johnston sent me “The Way-Out Walk of Poets” photograph above to go with the post on the Mad Mammoth Monster Poetry Reading. Wallace Berman took the shot of Bruce Conner and Beth Branaman (behind mask) who both designed the costumes for the Walk. Alastair used the photograph on the cover of The Ampersand’s Beat: A Dead Horse issue. Alastair edited the Quarterly Journal of the Pacific Center for the Book Arts and it is worth hunting down old copies if you can find them. I have a few and there are great interviews and images relating to the alternative press in California. Unfortunately, I can find only one issue of The Ampersand on Abebooks.

The reference to 707 Scott Street on the upper left hand corner of the photograph caught my eye. The address is on Alamo Square, “one of the most photographed places in San Francisco” (see Morgan). Wallace Berman lived there in the late 1950s and took a famous shot of Jay DeFeo at her studio standing in front of her painting The Eyes. The photograph was exhibited in 1959 at 707 Scott Street. I assume that the Way-Out Walk photo was exhibited at the same time. Berman would provide Auerhahn Press with cover images at this time, including the iconic ones of Philip Lamantia injecting himself for Narcotica.

Joanna and Michael McClure lived at 707 Scott Street as well. As did Larry Jordan. Ark II, Moby I, a key little magazine of the San Francisco Renaissance, was printed in the basement. John Wieners lived at 707 Scott and kept a journal throughout 1959, before he suffered a nervous breakdown in the months after the Mad Mammoth Reading and retreated to Boston to recuperate. The journal (pictured above) was published in 1996 by Sun & Moon Press.

Stop the Presses!!!

Robert Duncan
A Book of Resemblances
Cancellation Notice

According to Johnston, the production cost for the 1500 copies was $1476. Nothing cheerful about that.

Poetry Reading as Fund Raiser

Mad Monster Mammoth Poetry Reading
announcement card

I have two friends of mine who are currently running for political office. At the top of their “To Do” list is not stop crime or create jobs, but to raise money for their campaigns. Seemingly every other day the streets of Washington DC are shutdown while the President walks down the street to the ATM that is the Jefferson Hotel for a fund raising event.

I find all this distasteful of course and then I get the announcement card for Auerhahn Press’s Mad Monster Mammoth Poetry Reading and I realize that running a press is no different than running for office. Priority number one is securing funding.

Alastair Johnston covers the Mad Monster Mammoth reading in detail and provides images of the Auerhahn press release for the reading and an article on the reading by Lewis Lapham. For God’s sakes please order a copy of all three of Johnston’s bibliographies. They are ESSENTIAL. That said he does not provide an image of the annoucement card (horrors!!!!). You have to come to the Mimeo Mimeo blog for that. The blog is ESSENTIAL. (I don’t know what it is with the CAPS and the !!! this morning. Must be the Super Bowl atmosphere: Hype is in the air. All these “FANTASTIC EVENT[S]”. “North Beach Spectacle!!!”).

The BBC televised parts of the reading, and years later the reading was made available on the Howls, Raps and Roars CD, which you can order from your local bookseller or from Amazon if you are a soulless consumer who corporate farms (and destroys) the fragile garden of literary delights. Auerhahn books were on display at the reading and I hope the beatniks bought their copies of The Hotel Wentley Poems at the reading and did not walk up Broadway to 261 Columbus Avenue to purchase them. Jack Spicer would not approve.

Twelve poets read that night in 1959: Bruce Boyd, Ray Bremser, Kirby Doyle, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Bob Kaufman, Philip Lamantia, Ron Lowensohn, Christopher MacLaine, Michael McClure, David Meltzer, John Wieners, and Philip Whalen. From the press release: “Two young San Francisco painters, Bruce Conner and Robert LaVine, are staging a spectacle of the Objects, made for the Event, that shall accompany a WayOut WALK OF POETS starting about 8PM.” “Go! Poetry! Go!”

Earlier that same summer Allen Ginsberg (along with Jack Spicer, Robert Duncan and James Broughton) read at Garibaldi Hall for another fund raising event: a monster reading in support of John Wieners’ Measure. One of the highlights was Ginsberg reading a draft of Kaddish.

Both of these reading were great successes. Auerhahn, coffers replenished, reinvested that capital back into the business with new books by Whalen and Lamantia. By the way, Lamantia organized the Auerhahn reading, so maybe we should get the Federal Election Committee to look into some type of conflict of interest here.

To me, the Auerhahn and Measure fund raisers (at a $1 per head) are simply time and money better spent than $45,000 per plate for a “roundtable discussion” and some chicken breast at the Jefferson. Although Sara Bareilles did perform. Charming I’m sure.

Judge for yourself: “Love Song” vs. “A Poem for Cocksuckers”

In nearby Virginia Beach in 2011, Pat Robertson appeared at a Mitt Romney fundraiser. Now that is what I call entertainment.

Lost in the Shuffle

James McIlroy
Business Card

Before there was Andrew Hoyem at Auerhahn Press, there was Jay McIlroy. Hoyem bought out McIlroy in 1961 to become a partner in the press. McIlroy was a printer who helped Dave Haselwood out in the print room and became a partner. It should be remembered that at the start of Auerhahn Haselwood had only a “high school knowledge of printing” (from Printing from the Edge). McIlroy showed Haselwood the ropes and got those early books, like Self Portrait, From Another Direction (handset and printed on a Hartford letterpress in 1959), out into the world.

Haselwood makes this clear in his interview with Alastair Johnston (available from Cuneiform Press in Hanging Quotes): “[McIlroy] really knew how to print and taught me how to print . . . He was an extremely fine person and really was heavily responsible for the good things that happened at Auerhahn and he’s never given any credit . . . He was a typical South Side of Philadelphia, not educated beyond high school, talked with a wonderful working-class Philadelphia accent, no pretensions, but just loved this poetry, and wanted to work on it. Quite a strange thing actually. He really was the one who got it off the ground. I don’t think I could have ever printed this. For instance in Ekstasis there are all these shaped poems.”

“[N]o pretensions, but just loved this poetry, and wanted to work with it.” Compare this with Andrew Hoyem, which was about “exquisite productions.” How much was the early aesthetic of Auerhahn influenced by Jay McIlroy and his simple sense of style?

In the interview, Haselwood acknowledges that he lost track of McIlroy and I can find little on him at all. The above business card locks him into place in the day-to-day activities of Auerhahn as a business partner and into its history.

Before McIlroy, Haselwood states that there was “[a] man who’s name I don’t even remember, who worked as a ship’s printer on Lurline, obtained some type for me that they were selling off the ship and then showed me how to set type and operate the Hartford letterpress. He just volunteered and came in and helped.” There is no business card for this Man from Portlock who altered the course of Auerhahn. He is lost to history. For example in the introduction to Printing from the Edge Exhibit on California broadsides, this unknown man is merged into the person of McIlroy.

Ephemera matters.

“An interior/personal piece”

Michael McClure
Dark Brown
1961

This is from an unsewn sheet of Michael McClure’s Dark Brown, published by Auerhahn in 1961. McClure submitted the poems to Olympia Press for consideration but Dave Haselwood got there first. “A Long Poem of Spiritual Revolution and Sexuality” of which Ginsberg wrote in Big Table, “I don’t know anyone else who has gone so far & I think the McClure poem is a landmark . . . It is the moment of breakthru for him and anyone after him.” Kerouac writes gushingly of “Pat McLear” in Big Sur and has similar praise for Dark Brown.

Diva

Robert Duncan
A Book of Resemblances
cancellation notice

This project with Robert Duncan was on again and off again. This publication is from when it was a go. There could be a documentary about the trials and tribulations about publishing Duncan.

Auerhahn X 4

Auerhahn Auerhahn Auerhahn Auerhahn

It’s round midnight and I have had a few Pabst Blue Ribbons but I do not see Auerhahn Auerhahn Auerhahn Auerhahn in the Johnston bibliography. It is probably in there. Sue me. I still have my wits about me enough to realize that this is quite the item. A piece like this is why ephemera is where it is at. And flipping through the bibliography there is a ton of ephemera in the Auerhahn catalog. It is with these small details that the history of Auerhahn was written.

The Business of the Alternative Press

Dave Haselwood
Business Card

Auerhahn Invoice

Auerhahn Letterhead

When it comes to the Mimeo Revolution, I am naive and romantic. This is art for art’s sake, creation of a community, life as art, and all that crap, but alternative publishing was also a commercial enterprise. The intertwining of capitalism, entrepeneurial spirit, and the counterculture is so in-your-face in something like the Ed Sanders/Peace Eye catalogs that it cannot be ignored.

That is why it is important to study the alternative press as a business model. How does the alternative press market itself, how does it distribute its product, how does it advertise, how does it interact with customers? I have become interested in this in part because of my experiences with putting out and distributing Mimeo Mimeo and because of my relationships with small presses as a collector. Publishing Mimeo Mimeo, I have been forced to realize what I always knew but suppressed. The design and contents of the little magazines that I see as pure in some artistic or creative way are often dictated by a brutally mundane monetary bottom lines. Let’s face it people used the mimeograph because it was cheap not out of some higher calling.

For whatever reason, Auerhahn Press provides an opportunity to collect great examples of the everyday activities of a working press. Business cards, invoices, letterhead, prospectuses, annoucements, catalogs. Sooner or later all this material will come under scholarly attention in order to get a fuller picture of how the alternative press worked on a day by day basis and how the works they produced came to the light of day.

That said, take a look at the Dave Haselwood business card. It is all business, but that essence of Auerhahn design shows through. This business card symbolizes the interplay of creativity and economic bottom line that dictated not only the output and aesthetic of Auerhahn Press, but all the presses of the Mimeo Revolution.

The Auerhahn Menu

Auerhahn Press
Catalogue
1962

The Auerhahn when cooked tastes like turpentine. Dave Haselwood never published the cooked, only the raw. Here is the menu to the Auerhahn Press buffet from 1962. These selections are three-star Michelin (“exceptional cuisine, worth a special journey”) all the way.

“A yellow book by a diabolical devout”

Edward Marshall
Hellan, Hellan
Announcement

It has become a commonplace that Edward Marshall is a forgotten poet. Canonized in Don Allen’s New American Poetry anthology with the printing of the single longest poem included, “Leave the Word Alone,” which was earlier published in Black Mountain Review, Marshall was then cast out in The Postmoderns: The New American Poetry Revised). Marshall has generally been left alone, fading out of view since the heady days of the 1960 anthology, and now remembered primarily because the poet and his work have slipped out of memory.

His Nowhere Man status may be because he was seemingly everywhere. At the time of his inclusion in the Allen anthology, Marshall had ties with the Boston Renaissance, the San Francisco Renaissance, the Beats (Ginsberg stated he relied on “Leave the Word Alone” as a source for the structure of “Kaddish”) the New York scene, and Black Mountain. He is included in the catch-all fifth category in the anthology with those poets of “no geographical defintion.” One of the easiest ways to get yourself lost in the shuffle is to be tough to label and pin down. Marshall is a mercurial poet in that sense.

Hellan Hellan, Marshall’s first slim book of nine poems, links Marshall with yet another geographical hotspot: Kansas. Robert Ronnie Branaman did the cover art. The poem on the Auerhahn flyer does not appear in the collection, so the flyer is a separate publication as well as an announcement.

A must for Edward Marshall collectors. There is not much to collect. Marshall appeared sporadically in periodicals: Black Mountain Review, Measure, Yugen, and The Great Society. Seven poems appeared in Mulch in 1971, which was his last appearence in print according to George Butterick’s biography of Marshall in 1983. Marshall read with Michael Rumaker at the Poetry Project at St. Mark’s in 1975. Jargon 31 includes Marshall in a collection of 14 poets and 1 artist from 1958.

A second book of poems, Transit Glory, appeared in 1967 from Carp & Whitefish. This was a short-lived printing venture by Irving Rosenthal, who edited Buroughs in Chicago Review and wrote Sheeper. The only other book of the Press is Philip Whalen’s Invention of the Letter. Here is Rosenthal: “The Marshall book was a fancy little contraption with a drawstring that pulled the pages up from a pocket. It was to sell for a dollar, and I was hoping to distribute fifty or a hundred copies to each of the half-dozen or so bookstores in New York City that specialized in modern poetry. As I was planning to move to San Francisco, either temporarily or permanently, I was eager to unload as many books as possible in the East before I left. But the first (supposedly hip) bookstore I approached placed so miniscule an order, that I resolved to sell the book on the streets myself, and bought a two-dollar City of New York Peddler’s License. But I was too busy collating and binding the Whalen book to sell the Marshall book.” Marshall’s second book has completed disappeared. No copies on Abebooks. The usual suspects like Buffalo, of course have a copy. Charles Olson possessed a copy in his library (Maud calls it Transit Gloria). Olson greatly admired “Leave the Word Alone,” particularly its form. The Pequod Press reissued “Leave the Word Alone” in 1979, with an introduction by Ginsberg.

Hellan, Hellan is a good starter for an Auerhahn collection. Mainly because it is one of the cheapest of the entire Press, but again, like Marshall, Hellan Hellan is a bit out of place. The book has that early Auerhahn feel, but Branaman’s comix cover art is a bit ahead of its time. To my mind, that alone makes the book visually interesting but it is not a defining or classic Auerhahn design, maybe in part because Branaman’s infernos were printed in the purgatory marking the transition from the McIlroy to the Hoyem period of the Press.

Marshall is a religious poet, a man of “psychoreligious fervor,” as described by Butterick. Butterick continues on “Leave the Word Alone, “In structure and style, the poem itself is like preaching on Boston Commons.” Marshall from that poem: “Leave the Bible alone it is dangerous.”

An Ending and a Beginning

Bill Deemer
Poems
Announcement

This first book of poems by Bill Deemer happens to be the last book of the Haselwood/Hoyem partnership. I must admit that I am fascinated by this book if for no other reason than Deemer was only 19 years old when the book came out. I can not get over teenagers making accomplished literary statements. Rimbaud is the Dark Prince in this regard. Absolutely amazing, his sophistication at such an early age. At that age, I was briefly and tangentially involved with a college literary magazine entitled Queen’s Head and Artichoke, named after two pubs in London. To be honest, I was spending more time drinking the sweet nectar that was Kappy’s beer than the crisp waters from the Hippocrene Spring. Visionary that he was, Rimbaud, perhaps taking a page from Baudelaire (Get drunk! Stay drunk! On wine, virtue, poetry, whatever!), merged these two activities: poetic inspiration as a prolonged derangement of the senses. Strangely when I am confronted with the work of young poets like Deemer and Rimbaud, I am always sobered and left wondering what I did with my misspent youth. Certainly not profitably wasting all my free time on literary pursuits.

Taking Care of Business

Nexus Catalog
1964-1965

In “this economy” sometimes you just have to pay the bills and leave out the frills. Here is another Auerhahn commission. In this case a bookseller’s catalog for a dealer out of La Jolla.

Fly By Night to Flying High

Philip Whalen
T/O
1967

Here is another Dave Haselwood production from 1967: Philip Whalen’s T/O. Paper cut outs on the cover; only 80 copies sewn into wrappers. Like Wieners’ Chinoiserie (100 copies), T/O has a straight to the archive feel to it. This book was designed for book collectors and bibliophiles, not your everyday readers of poetry.

Haselwood talks about wanting to go in a different direction than Hoyem. For Auerhahn Press, it was about selling books for a $1 so “everyone could have one.” Beautifully produced and designed books but at low cost and at 750 to 1000 copies, truly available to everyone. Titles like T/O reveal that when Haselwood parted with Hoyem and started the Haselwood imprint he did not leave Hoyem and his business model behind.

For collectors, publications like T/O are irresistable. Flies drawn to the spider’s web. Today, copies are rather high end at around $500.

Media Blitz

Andrew Hoyem
The Wake
Announcement

The Auerhahn equivalent of carpet bombing the reading and collecting public with advertising. Hoyem’s The Wake highlights Auerhahn Press’s split personality. The 750 trade copies were designed for the “everyone” that Haselwood sees as the Auerhahn audience. You can get a copy of one of these for around $15 right now. Not bad at all. Very democratic. The limited edition on Hammer & Anvil, handbound at the Schuberth bindery with quarter Oasis leather and Japanese Cloud paper over boards is another story. Ars Hoyem, this edition was immediately snatched up by collectors as evidenced by the increased limited run. This is fine press nonsense at its best.

It is Suede not Coarse

Lew Welch
Courses

Haselwood Books doing Lew Welch. Now there is a back story to this that I am only dimly aware of involving a suppressed edition, a Clifford Burke reprint, and a secret stash of goodies. I just got off the phone with Jason Davis and he could no doubt fill me in, but it is dinner time. I’ll check in with him tomorrow. In the meantime enjoy the brown suede covers because it is quite simply suede and who the fuck by Dave Haselwood Books does that.

Mark My Words

Auerhahn Press Bookmark

For my money, this could be one of the cooler pieces of Auerhahn ephemera: a simple bookmark. Maybe it is just that bookmarks are on my mind give that in each issue of Mimeo Mimeo #6 there is a Cracker Jack prize or two to be found including Manufact Hologram: A Notesbook by Robert Strong, printed letterpress by Ugly Duckling Presse. My Mom plans on heading out to the University of South Florida to engage in the process and read the work in progress.

The Ugly Spirit

Charles Olson
Human Universe
Announcement

In the interim between Auerhahn Press and Dave Haselwood Books, there was Auerhahn Society. Hoyem went all out with Olson’s Human Universe, “parchment spine and elaborate colored linoleum prints for the front and back papers.” I think the above is the announcement for the book. Apparently there was a dispute between Hoyem and Oyez Press about issuing this publication. The Johnston interview discusses this as the end of Auerhahn as a viable commercial press and Haselwood disses the Grove reprint as “pretty much a rip-off of it, done ugly style.”

I have to agree with that. I have never been that impressed with the look of the Grove Press books. For example, the run of Burroughs titles from Naked Lunch through the cut-up trilogy are definitely ugly style. The Olympia Press titles are much better and paperback to boot, which is nice. Both Minutes to Go and The Exterminator are great. The Yage Letters not so much. Personally I love Calder’s Dead Fingers Talk. But enough of that, we can talk Burroughs all day and this is Olson’s Universe.

Wait There’s More

Ronald Johnson
Assorted Jungles
1966

This is from Dave Haselwood Books circa 1966, limited for sure at around 100 copies. I am going to go out on a limb and say this is a tough one. No copies on Abebooks right now. From what I can gather this is a companion piece to Jonathan Williams’ Paean To Dvorak, Deemer & McClure, which again is another toughie to get.

This isn’t really to my taste but I have to admit that I like the colors. I might have to qualify my initial take that collecting Auerhahn press is a bargain. That may be true for early Auerhahn titles but the later Haselwood stuff shades into book art and it just plain rare to boot. In my opinion the expense is worth it and the challenge of finding the material makes it worthwhile.

And This Is How You Repay Me?

Diane Di Prima
The New Handbook of Heaven
1963

In 1963, Auerhahn printed Diane Di Prima’s The New Handbook of Heaven. Haselwood got burned on the printing costs, and then further burned when Di Prima bootlegged the book on her own Poets Press imprint. Nice.

There were a 1000 copies of the Auerhahn soft cover and those are floating about online, but Haselwood also had Schuberth bookbindery do a hardcover edition of 30 copies on Arches (see above) and these copies are tough as hell to get a hold of.

Requiem for a Dream

Six Auerhahn Poets Reading
November 26, 1963

The Auerhahn Six Poets Reading occurred just days after the Kennedy assassination. As such the reading eulogizes the death of a young Sixties in the process of being born. To be sure one of the great myths of the Kennedy Era was that it was a peaceful, hopeful time. The Cuban Missile Crisis, the bombing of Birmingham Church, the Feminine Mystique, to list three events symptomatic of the simmering violence and despair associated with the Cold War, Civil Rights and the Women’s Movement, suggest the opposite. Yet for many, the events in Dallas signaled a decisive shift.

Allen Ginsberg’s poem Nov. 23, 1963: Alone, written at 1403 Gough Street in San Francisco, highlights this belief. Again a naive view. On October 28, 1963, Madame Nhu arrived in San Francisco and faced a protest demonstration, the first Ginsberg ever attended. Camelot was doomed before Kennedy died. Despite this fact, looking at Alone as marking yet another traumatic shift for Ginsberg, The Change: Kyoto-Tokyo Express was written just four months earlier, and for the nation in general has become a standard reading. For me this reading rings true but for different reasons. The poem is one of the best documents of the pre-hype (read pre-hippie) San Francisco scene that I know of. A series of Robert Frank-style snapshots. As such it marks a dramatic shift. Likewise the Six Poets Reading was the highwater mark of Auerhahn Press; it would be on the path to destruction soon after, with the Press dissolving roughly a year later with the publication of Bill Deemer’s Poems.

The Reading took place at the International Music Hall at 2226A Fillmore. On November 26, 1963, for a buck you could hear six poets read from the backlist of the Auerhahn Press. The location, like Ginsberg’s poem, captured the spirit of the Auerhahn Press and head San Francisco. The Batman Gallery was next door. 1403 Gough Street was in the neighborhood, as was the Hotel Wentley (1214 Polk), Foster’s Cafeteria (1200 Polk), one time apartments of Robert Duncan and Jess (1350 Franklin) and the McClures (2324 Fillmore). The East-West House (2273 California) offered a space for quiet contemplation. A few years later, if you wanted a little more action, sister venues to the International Music Hall, the Avalon Ballroom (1268 Sutter), the Fillmore (1805-1807 Geary), and the Winterland (1725 Steiner), sprung up nearby.

For more on this moment in time.

Written by Jed Birmingham and published by RealityStudio on 29 January 2017. First published on Jed’s Mimeo Mimeo blog.

William S. Burroughs and John Wieners’ Measure

RealityStudio — Sat, 15 Oct 2016 19:29:49 +0000

Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker

Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting

I’m that type of guy that gets lost in the footnotes. So ridiculous, but more often than not there is a ton of cool information to be found in there. Read beneath the lines because many times the real story lies buried at the bottom of the page or in the back of the book. Yet sometimes a footnote can lead you astray and send you on a wild goose chase. Such was the case recently in connection with John Wieners‘ seminal little mag Measure. Luckily at the end of the day this wild goose produced some golden eggs.

Here is the footnote in question:

William S Burroughs (1914-1997) was a central figure in the Beat movement and the larger American avant-garde, known for surreal gritty novels like Junky and Queer. Before challenging censorship laws in Boston and Los Angeles in 1962, Naked Lunch was published in excerpts in the Chicago Review, the Black Mountain Review, and Measure, where it appeared under the pseudonym William Lee.

The footnote comes from “the sea under the house”: The Selected Correspondence of John Wieners and Charles Olson Part I, edited by Michael Seth Stewart, and published as part of CUNY’s Lost and Found Series. I have raved about the Lost and Found Series before and Stewart’s chapbook is no exception. The Wieners/Olson letters are yet another great collection recovered from the archives. Again if you have not already sampled these nuggets, give yourself a treat and get the Lost and Found chapbooks. They are really special.

This footnote — number 70 on page 44 — is of interest to Burroughs fans and one to mull over a bit. Like the question: What is Burroughs really known for? Is he a literary figure or a cultural figure? Is he really read or just referenced and named-checked? If read, what mark did he leave on literary history? What books to people “know?” Is it really Junky and Queer? Junkie seems a good bet. But Queer? Strange choice to be sure. Also are those books surreal and gritty? Debatable. Again that is what makes it an interesting footnote, it opens up discussion and gets you thinking. How would I describe Burroughs’ legacy? Well, I would probably focus a little further down in the footnote with Naked Lunch, censorship, and little mags. That is where my attention is and, in this case, where my attention was drawn.

I was particularly excited and confused by the suggestion that an excerpt of Naked Lunch appeared in John Wieners’ Measure. I knew that it could not be true. There is absolutely no way that Maynard & Miles, and then Shoaf and Schottlaender, would have missed a Burroughs appearance in a magazine as important and celebrated as Measure. No fucking way.

But you know what, I drank the Kool-Aid, quite simply because I wanted it to be true. In my world, My Burroughs would have been published in Measure. His bibliography would be a more interesting, more fascinating place because of such an appearance, just like Burroughs appearing in Jack Spicer’s J would alter the boundaries of Burroughs’ bibliography. So I did what any Burroughs collector would do, I bought Measure No. 2 in the futile hope that everybody missed something and that Burroughs was tucked in there somewhere. It is the Magic issue after all and finding Burroughs within its pages would be like pulling a White Rabbit out of a fedora. Reading Burroughs alongside Creeley, Olson, Stephen Jonas, and Robin Blaser would be quite juxtaposition. Such is the alchemy of the little mag. What Burroughs collector would not search for this philosopher’s stone, the elusive unrecorded Burroughs item? That is a lot of woulds. But what it all comes down to is: Wouldn’t You?

So Measure #2 arrived and of course Burroughs was nowhere to be found. Natch. Then I did what any Burroughs collector would do, I doubled (maybe I should say tripled, quadrupled??) down and bought all three issues of Measure as well as a poster announcing a benefit reading held to raise funds for Issue 3 and the accompanying press release, possibly a draft, typed on carbon paper with some slight hand corrections. Now this is perfectly natural, because for a true Burroughs obsessive even where Burroughs does not appear his presence is felt. Burroughs’ absence is fascinating and worthy of note. Right? Well, maybe not, but I could not help getting the complete Measure because of this incorrect footnote.

You have to go back to the body of page 44 to get a sense of where I am coming from. In a letter from Wieners to Olson, dated August 19, 1957, Wieners lays out the plan of action for Measure‘s future: “I think I gave you contents of II before, it is III now that has all kinds of excitements potential.” And there in the list of potential contributions to what became Measure 2 and 3 is this tidbit: “Then long prose FRAGMENT OF A BLUE MOVIE by someone who has to write under pseudonym of William Lee.” Let’s chew on this for a minute. Let’s savor it. How fucking cool and mysterious is that?

August 19, 1957. Burroughs is in Copenhagen. Ginsberg and Kerouac had been in Tangier in the Spring and early Summer and, with the help of Alan Ansen, the collation and composition of Naked Lunch was going full steam ahead. “FRAGMENT OF A BLUE MOVIE” appears to be a version of what became the A.J.’s Annual Party section of the published novel, which opens:

A.J. turns to the guests. “Cunts, pricks, fence straddlers, tonight I give you — that international-known impresario of blue movies and short-wave TV, the one, the only, The Great Slashtubitch.”

The Ohio State University archive possesses the original manuscript and a note by James Grauerholz confirms that this section made it into the published version of Naked Lunch. Well, in the Summer 1957, Burroughs is hot to trot to get Naked Lunch into print:

I wish someone would take five minutes to send along the MS. — leaving “Word” aside for the moment and ending MS. with “Market” section. After all, it takes long enough to locate a publisher without unnecessary delays. (Letter to Alan Ansen, July 18, 1957).

Olympia Press, New Directions, New Writing were in the mix, but as Burroughs pointed out such publishers were slow to act. In fact they, along with Lawrence Ferlinghetti of City Lights, were steadfast against publication. What to do? Turn to the tradition of the little magazine, naturally.

And it is at this point that you have to close the book of Burroughs’ letters and open up the letters of Ginsberg. The importance of Ginsberg is often compared to T.S. Eliot. “Howl” is considered “The Waste Land” of the post-WWII era, a work that altered the poetic landscape from the moment of its arrival. True, but I think of Ginsberg’s primary influence as Poundian in nature. The Pound of the Teens, the Pound associated with Poetry and The Little Review. Ginsberg was a mover and a shaker through his poetry to be sure, but I am more interested in his role as a promotor and cheerleader of the work of others. Pound did this throughout the Teens and Twenties with Eliot, James Joyce, and others. Particularly with Joyce, Pound got the unpublishable into print. Pound’s network of contacts was as important as his Cantos.

Same with Ginsberg’s legendary address book. The period of 1957-1963 is parallel to the period of 1913-1922 when Modernism found its voice in little mags. The mags of 1957 to 1963 represents the talkie era that emerged out of the silent era of the Mimeograph Revolution that began at Waldport conscientious objector camp with Untide Press. The publication of “Howl” and On the Road in 1957 announced that a young generation of writers had something new and revolutionary to say and Ginzy, like Ez before him, was that generation’s spokesman. The letters of Ginsberg from this period provide an amazing record of just how hard he networked to get writers like Kerouac, Gregory Corso, and Gary Snyder into print — all while dealing with the obscenity trial relating to “Howl.” Ginsberg learned how to network not from his job in advertising, so much as from following the example of Pound. Pound’s concept of the little mag provided the blueprint for the Mimeo Revolution. Pound’s Blast was the shot heard round the underground. The Big Bang if you will and nobody benefited from Ginsberg’s putting Pound into practice as much as Burroughs.

The first mention of Measure in Ginsberg’s published letters is in a letter to painter Robert LaVigne from June 8, 1957:

New poetry magazine from one John Wieners, Boston, should be the great one, he’s trying to draw all threads together and is good poet himself, sort of an east coast Creeley-Olson axis but more humane digs [Jonathan] Williams and Kerouac and Gregory. Write him subscribe if you have loot or tell him you have none and ask for free copy — MEASURE magazine.

Ginsberg wrote this letter from Tangier while working with Burroughs on Naked Lunch. Wieners sent Ginsberg a letter asking for a submission. Ginsberg was too busy working on Burroughs’ manuscripts to have any of his own, so between June and August, Ginsberg sent Wieners the Burroughs manuscript for potential publication along with other material he had at hand such as Peter Orlovsky’s first poem. Over the years, Ginsberg continued to have high hopes for Wieners and Measure, which never became a true “great one,” like Black Mountain Review. Black Mountain Review was a model for Measure, which is not surprising given that Wieners attended the experimental college and studied with Creeley and Olson, whose concept of the little mag Wieners adopted. Again Creeley and Olson learned from Pound’s example.

Wieners’ financial, drug, and mental problems would eventually destroy Measure‘s potential, but in the summer of 1957 anything seemed possible. The first issue of Measure came out featuring poems and work from Charles Olson, Edward Marshall, Robin Blaser, Edward Dorn, Larry Eigner, Frank O’Hara, Fielding Dawson, Stephen Jonas, Michael Rumaker, Gavin Douglas, Jack Spicer, Jonathan Williams, and Robert Duncan. The “axis” of the magazine was Boston Renaissance (Olson, Blaser, Spicer, Jonas) and Black Mountain (Olson, Dorn, Dawson, Rumaker, Williams, Duncan) with a pinch of San Francisco Renaissance (Spicer, Duncan) and New York School (O’Hara). In essence Wieners succeeded in “draw[ing] all threads together” of what would become defined in Donald Allen’s landmark anthology of 1960 as New American Poetry. All that was missing from this first issue were the Beats. Ginsberg’s efforts would change that in the second issue, which featured Jack Kerouac and Gregory Corso along with Holy Barbarian and West Coast Beat Stuart Perkoff. With these two issues, Wieners provided the foundation for Donald Allen to build his anthology, which eventually did more than merely define New American Poetry, it canonized it — thus solidifying Measure‘s crucial role in the Mimeo Revolution and Wieners’ genius as an editor. Designed as a quarterly, Issue Two of Measure appeared over a year later. Issue Three would not appear until Summer 1962, by which point New American Poetry was fully established. The third issue lacks the previous issues’ cohesion, purpose, and force of statement. Despite being only 36 pages as opposed to the 64 pages of Issue Two, it rambles and stumbles. The issue reflects Wieners’ own mental state of disorientation and confusion. It gives off a sense of depression and exhaustion.

Despite Wieners’ personal and financial difficulties, Ginsberg remained optimistic about Measure as a viable outlet a couple of years after the first issue. If Ginsberg could not improve Wieners’ mental state, he could attempt to improve his financial situation, which he did in May 1959, by spearheading a group reading in support of the third issue of Measure: A Return of Measure Monster Poetry Reading held on May 23, 1959, at Garibaldi Hall on 441 Broadway in San Francisco. Ginsberg and Wieners composed the press release for the reading. Once again Ginsberg demonstrated his acumen with public relations. Remember Ginsberg performed this task in the advertising industry at one time. “This is the first and last time that these Monsters will hold hands on the same stage. People in the sticks like would die to get in on this scene. The poets will read from a high balcony surrounded by American Flags and Lunar Haloes. There will be no bad jazz.” That sounds like pure Ginsberg.

The reading featured Ginsberg, James Broughton, Christopher MacLaine, Robert Duncan, Michael McClure, David Meltzer, Jack Spicer, Philip Whalen and Wieners. Tickets were $1 and 400 people showed up. It is primarily interesting for bringing together many of the “monsters” in the SF Renaissance, which by 1959 were far from the cohesive group presented in the 1957 San Francisco Scene issue of Evergreen Review. In fact they never were and by 1959 that scene was further fragmented with the group in-fighting among themselves rather than operating as a front against the literary establishment. It is an impressive gathering of poets. And filmmakers by the way. Broughton and MacLaine were both. MacLaine has been lost to history to an extent. A tragic story of a mad genius that was all too common with the poets and people around Wieners. Think Issue 33 of Floating Bear as guest-edited by Wieners with its collection of poet-junkies who crashed and burned. That issue could be viewed as Measure 4. The work survives even if the poets and artists themselves fade from memory. For example, check out MacLaine’s film The End on UbuWeb.

Besides the presence of the reclusive MacLaine, the fact that Jack Spicer participated in the reading is particularly remarkable given his feelings about Wieners and Measure. Unlike Ginsberg, Spicer lacked faith in Wieners’ ability to pull much of anything off be it poetry or publishing. From Poet Be Like God, the biography of Spicer and his circle:

The same ambivalence can be seen in his attitude toward John Wieners’s prospective magazine Measure. In his letters to Boston, Spicer circled warily about Wieners’ potential as an editor, his plusses and minuses. Avoiding the use of Wieners’s name wasn’t difficult, not when you could call him “Hot Dog,” as Jack did.

In his conspiracy theory as poem on the 1962 National League pennant, “The Fix,” Spicer wrote, “This is an ode to John Wieners and Auerhahn Press/who have driven me away from poetry like a fast car.” As explained in Poet Be Like God, Spicer was fed up with the four-year delay in publishing the third issue of Measure due to Wieners’ ongoing financial and drug problems. So it is startling to see Spicer’s name on the poster announcing the Measure reading and even more shocking that he actually showed up to read in support. Ever the peacemaker, at the after-party for the reading, Ginsberg attempted to “patch up bad feelings by giving Spicer a blow job in full view of the other guests,” according to Bill Morgan’s biography of Ginsberg, I Celebrate Myself. Spicer did not rise to the occasion and remained leery of Ginsberg and Wieners.

Burroughs did not appear in the third issue either, although by this time Burroughs was all over the little magazine scene. Possibly the urgent need to publish Naked Lunch had passed by that point, but the question remains why Wieners declined to publish Burroughs in the Winter 1958 at a critical juncture in the publication history of the novel. By that point only Black Mountain Review, The Chicago Review, and Yugen had taken the bait thrown out by Ginsberg. These appearances occurred in the Spring and Fall 1958 (Black Mountain Review #7 is listed as Autumn 1957, but Maynard & Miles states it was actually issued in Spring 1958. I am not sure about that. Paul Blackburn in “The Grinding Down” states the magazine was available to the American public in Autumn 1957.) Publishing a section of Naked Lunch in Winter 1958 would have been a big catch for Wieners’ magazine.

And therein resides the problem: Burroughs’ notoriety. Remember Ginsberg sent Wieners “FRAGMENTS OF A BLUE MOVIE,” which may have included this (as published in the Olympia Press Naked Lunch in the Summer 1959):

“Come along baby.” She leads the way into the bedroom. He lies down on his back and throws his legs back over his head, clasping elbows behind his knees. She kneels down and caresses the backs of his thighs, his balls, running her finger down the perennial divide. She pushes his cheeks apart, leans down and begins licking the anus, moving her head in a slow circle. She pushes at the sides of the asshole, licking deeper and deeper. He closes his eyes and squirms. She licks up the perennial divide. His small, tight balls. A great pearl stands out on the tip of his circumcised cock. Her mouth closes over the crown. She sucks rhythmically up and down, pausing on the up stroke and moving her head around in a circle.

In 1957 when Wieners received Burroughs’ manuscript, he had no idea who Burroughs was. He was merely “someone who has to write under the pseudonym of William Lee.” The excerpt above suggests the reason for the subterfuge. We cannot excuse Wieners for wondering: What the fuck is this and who the fuck wrote it?!!? Remember in the Summer 1957, the Howl trial was in full swing. Wieners was one of the “best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked.” Wieners knew intimately of those “who blew and were blown by those human seraphim, the sailors, caresses of Atlantic and Caribbean love.” He after all wrote “A Poem for Cocksuckers” in The Hotel Wentley Poems, published as the first book of David Haselwood’s Auerhahn Press in the Summer 1958. Wieners’ experience with publishing his first book suggests why Burroughs did not appear in Measure. The San Francisco printer of The Hotel Wentley Poems issued “A Poem for Cocksuckers” as “A Poem For _ _ _ _suckers.” Haselwood was so incensed that he took up printing himself to prevent future censorship. Wiener would always fill in the blanks when signing copies of the first edition, but clearly he understood that if the word “cocksuckers” was deemed as obscene, Burroughs’ manuscript was unpublishable.

At the time in 1958, despite the efforts of Black Mountain Review, Yugen, and The Chicago Review, this seemed to be the general consensus. In a long letter to John Hollander of September 7, 1958, Ginsberg lays out the state of the union in the nascent world of New American Poetry. The letter is a rant about the difficulty of getting published, reviewed, and recognized by the literary establishment. It is a letter as fascinating and famous as his one to Richard Eberhardt in 1956, which laid out the poetics behind “Howl.” The Hollander letter demonstrates that two years later, the powers-that-be still don’t get where “Howl” or the New American Poetry is coming from. The job of being the movement’s spokesman was making Ginsberg scream. Ginsberg writes:

To have to tackle all that single-handedly practically and then be put down for all that — I DIDN’T HAVE TO TAKE THE TROUBLE- to have to listen to Rhav in Venice giggling that there’s no poetry in U.S. so that’s why they didn’t have a poetry editor at all 2 year ago — which was just his ignorance and the ignorance of all non-poets — yet he’s RUNNING this so called mental newssheet!? and to call that responsible culture? And to have them and everybody else ignoring totally the productions of Jonathan Williams’ Jargon series which for 8 years was the only respectable publishing company for experimental poetry — and total ignorance of all the work developed out of Black Mountain — the fuck sneers if anything — total incomprehension of Creeley’s funny volumes of verse, nobody reviewed or heard of Blackburn’s book (Dissolving Fabric — not GREAT but real), nor Levertov’s nor Zukofsky’s books there reviewed, Black Mountain Review the only decent mag operating for poets in America circulating 300 copies and nobody supposedly responsible at Columbia or anywhere else taking the trouble to HELP, and the other BM poet minors, Oppenheimer, Perkoff, maybe Duncan etc. — and the great new young ones John Wieners and Edward Marshall — whom nobody ever heard of — or will investigate — and don’t think I haven’t written this to anybody I could get hold of, Gold, Rhav, Mademoiselle, Hudson, New World Writing, endless conversations and letters and explanations and trying to spread some good news, Life, and have them fuck it all up with the indifference or vulgar money journalism — and the whole problem of the Burroughs manuscript legally uncirculatable here in the U.S. — to say nothing of the great unknown Boston group around John Wieners (got a magazine Measure out in SF now) — and the beginning of interconnection of all these with the NY people, O’Hara Ashbery Koch — at least these latter three pick up on something, and have some sympathy and openness, and respond to original attempts at composition.

To go back to Stewart’s footnote in his chapbook. In 1962, Naked Lunch faced an obscenity trial in Boston. What would have been the reaction to Issue Two of Measure had Burroughs appeared? Ginsberg spells it out in the quote above. The climate in the Fall 1958 was complete indifference by the literary establishment unless the response was complete outrage and censorship as in the case of Burroughs. In such a climate with his limited financial means, it seems likely that Wieners could not risk an obscenity trial. No benefit reading, no matter how well attended, could foot the legal bill. So I suspect that Wieners, despite the courage and conviction demonstrated in his own poetry, had to pass on the Burroughs manuscript. So even Burroughs’ absence from Measure tells quite a story.

It is a shame; as I have written about in connection with John Ciardi, Burroughs has a place in the literary scene of the Boston Renaissance. I for one would love to read Burroughs alongside Stephen Jonas, a forgotten junkie poet out of Boston that I am particularly fond of. Little mags let you eavesdrop on those types of conversation. Even if they never happened. That is why I collect little mags and love them so much. So buying the complete run of Measure is really a no-brainer for a Burroughs collector, if you just take the time to think about it a little bit.

Measure Archive

Measure#1

Download complete issue

Measure#2

Download complete issue

Measure#3

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Written by Jed Birmingham and published by RealityStudio on 15 October 2016.

Index to the Contents of C: A Journal of Poetry

RealityStudio — Sat, 10 Aug 2013 21:19:58 +0000

Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker

Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting

C: A Journal of Poetry No. 1 (May 1963)

Cover Page: A title page and table of contents [i]

Endless Resoundings Fill the RCMM — Dick Gallup [1]

Ember Grease — Dick Gallup [2]

It’s Everywhere, Like So Much Glue — Dick Gallup [3]

Out West and Back East — Dick Gallup [4]

Persia is Falling Beneath the Blue Triremes — Dick Gallup [5]

Sonnet I (“Three thoughts about a bad boy. Chapped punk”) — Ron Padgett [6]

Sonnet II (“As the blue cup sits upon the table, postcards”) — Ron Padgett [7]

Sonnett III (“The stone house your father built by hand, thirty”) — Ron Padgett [8]

Untitled (“Most sensual of recluses, faint” — Ron Padgett [9]

A Play — Joe Brainard [10]

A Diary August 4th — 15th — Joe Brainard [11-13]

Poem in the Traditional Manner — Ted Berrigan [14]

Poem in the Modern Manner — Ted Berrigan [15]

Homage to Beaumont Bruestle — Ted Berrigan [16]

Two Scenes (after John Ashbery) — Ted Berrigan [17]

Homage to Mayakofsky — Ted Berrigan [18]

It is a Big Red House — Ted Berrigan [19]

In Place of Sunday Mass — Ted Berrigan [20]

From a Secret Journal — Ted Berrigan [21]

Sonnet I (“His piercing pince-nex. Some dim frieze”) — Ted Berrigan [22]

Sonnet II (Dear Margie, hello. It is 5:15 a.m.”) — Ted Berrigan [23]

Sonnet III (“Stronger than alcohol, more great than song,”) — Ted Berrigan [24]

Sonnet IV (Lord, it is time. Summer was very great.”) — Ted Berrigan [25]

Sonnet V (“Squawking a gala occasion, forgetting, and”) — Ted Berrigan [26]

Sonnet VI (The bulbs burn phosphorescent, white”) — Ted Berrigan [27]

Real Life — Ted Berrigan [28]

C: A Journal of Poetry No. 2 (June 1963)

Cover Page [i]

Title Page and table of contents [1]

The Birth of Lamantia — J. Richard White [2]

February in San Francisco — J.Richard White [3]

From The Lady — J. Richard White [4]

From a Letter from Joe Brainard to Ted Berrigan/20 May 63 — Joe Brainard [5]

Words for Love — Ted Berrigan [6]

Doubts (to Dave Bearden) — Ted Berrigan [7]

I Am Alone. You Are a Jungle. These Are the Ties That Bind — Ted Berrigan & Dick Gallup [8]

Untitled (“Dear Aunt Rose and Uncle Bert,”) — Sandra Alper [9]

Homage to Max Jacob — Ron Padgett [10]

Gamma Rays — Ron Padgett [11]

X (“I hope somebody else writes your story you zombie!”)– Ron Padgett [12]

Ash Tarzan — Ron Padgett [13]

Tristan Tarzan — Ron Padgett [14]

The Portable Life of Dr. Reverdy — Ron Padgett [15]

Sonnet XVIII (“Dear Marge, hello. It is 5:15 a. m.”) — Ted Berrigan [16]

Sonnet XXIII (“On the 15th day of November in the year of the motorcar”) — Ted Berrigan [17]

Sonnet XXXII (“The blue day! In the air winds dance”) — Ted Berrigan [18]

Sonnet XXXVI — Homage to Frank O’Hara (“It’s 8:54 a.m. in Brooklyn it’s the 28th of July [and]”) — Ted Berrigan [19]

Sonnet XXXVIII (“Sleep half sleep half silence and with reasons”) — Ted Berrigan [20]

Sonnet XL — (“Wan as pale thighs making apple belly strides”) — Ted Berrigan [21]

Sonnet XLI (“bangin around in a cigarette she isn’t ‘in love'”) — Ted Berrigan [22]

Sonnet XLII (“She murmurs of signs to her fingers”) — Ted Berrigan [23]

For Richard White Sonnet LII (“It is a human universe: & I”) — Ted Berrigan [24]

Sonnet LIII: “for all the history of grief” (“The poem upon the page is as massive as” — Ted Berrigan [25]

A Mother’s Love is a Blessing — Joe Brainard [26]

Sally — Joe Brainard [27]

Poem (“Last night was blue or maybe arabia”) — Joe Brainard [28]

Penn Station — Ted Berrigan [29]]

C: A Journal of Poetry No. 3 (July/August 1963)

Cover: Image by Joe Brainard [i]

The Waking — Theodore Roethke [1]

Title page and table of contents [2]

A Sonnet for Dick Gallup / July 1963 (LXXII) (“The logic of grammar is not genuine it shines forth”) — Ted Berrigan [3]

$$$$$ from Re-Establishing Raymond Roussel — John Ashbery [4]

Sonnet (In this house I feel sad”) — John Stanton [5]

Sonnet (“Is the effort of my poem worth Manhattan:”) — John Stanton [5]

Now in Another Way (for Andy Warhol) — Gerard Malanga [6]

Some Feathers — Richard Gallup [7]

Sonnet XXXI (“And then one morning to waken perfect-faced”) — Ted Berrigan [8]

Sonnet XXXIV (“Time flies by like a great whale”) — Ted Berrigan [9]

Sonnet XXXVII (“It is night. You are asleep. And beautiful tears”) — Ted Berrigan [10]

Sonnet XLIV (“The withered leaves fly higher than dolls can see”) — Ted Berrigan [11]

Sonnet XLV (“What thwarts this fear I love”) — Ted Berrigan [12]

Sonnet XLVII (“Frances Marion nudges himself gently in the big blue sky”) — Ted Berrigan [13]

Sonnet LVIII (“A glass of chocolate milk, head of lettuce, dark-“) — Ted Berrigan [14]

Sonnet LXXIV (“The Academy of the future is opening its doors”) — Ted Berrigan [15]

A Final Sonnet for Chris (LXXXVIII) (“How strange to be gone in a minute! A man”) — Ted Berrigan [16]

Two for Barbara Guest — James Brodey

(“Muscular, standing past the station’s rim”) [17]

(“Melancholy changes its constant vigorous heart”) [17]

Three Sonnets After Frank O’Hara — Ron Padgett [18]

Poem Play (A Beautiful Day) — Ruth Krauss [19]

A Play (In a Bull’s Eye) — Ruth Krauss [20]

A Play (untitled) — Ruth Krauss [21]

A Play (There’s a Little Ambiguity Over There Among the Bluebells) — Ruth Krauss [22]

Homage to Pierre Reverdy — Ron Padgett & Ted Berrigan [23]

Egg Plants Are Not Green — Ron Padgett [24]

Lettuce — Unattributed (Ron Padgett & Ted Berrigan) [25]

Instead of a Man in Black the Men in Blue — Ron Padgett [26]

Choctaw — Ron Padgett — [27]

Sonnet Written in the Time it Took Lauren Owen to Walk 100 Feet — Ron Padgett [28]

Building a house — Richard Gallup [29-30]

C: A Journal of Poetry No. 4 (September 1963)

Cover: Andy Warhol [1]

Title page and table of contents [2]

The Poetry of Edwin Denby — Frank O’Hara [2-4]

An Introduction — John Wieners [5]

Grace After a Meal — Ted Berrigan [6]

Edwin’s Hand — Frank O’Hara [7]

Poems from In Public, In Private — Edwin Denby

The Climate [8]

The Shoulder [8]

Standing on a Street Corner [9]

Summer [10]

The Silence at Night [10]

City Without Smoke [11]

Elegy — The Streets [11-12]

From a Sonnet Sequence

13 (“Suppose there’s a cranky woman inside me who”) [13]

21 (“The street is where people meet according to law”) [13]

Aaron [14]

The Friend [14]

Long Island City [14]

A Domestic Cat [15]

Poems from Mediterranean Cities — Edwin Denby

Ravenna [16]

Florence [16]

Siena [17]

Rome [17]

Via appia [18]

Villa Adriana [18]

Naples [19]

Amalfi [19]

Paestum [20]

Syracuse [20]

Segesta [21]

Taormina [21]

Forza d’agro [22]

Brindisi [22]

Athens [23]

The Parthenon [23]

Attica [24]

Mycenae [24]

Thebes [25]

Delphi [25]

Snoring in New York, an elegy — Edwin Denby [26-27]

Some Notes — Ted Berrigan [28]

Back Cover: Andy Warhol

C: A Journal of Poetry Vol. 1 NR 5 (October/November 1963)

Cover: Joe Brainard (i)

Title page and table of contents [1]

The New Realism — John Ashbery [2-3]

A Game of Chess — Ron Padgett [4-7]

Passivation — Joseph Ceravolo [8-9]

Kerygma — Sotero Torregian [10]

Prose Poem (“The soul clings with its tenacity to the broken edge”) — John Wieners [11]

Sickness — John Wieners [11]

Untitled (“Do not let the silent, secret reaches of the night”) — John Wieners [12]

Happiness Is Just a Thing — John Wieners [13]

The Frightened City — Ted Berrigan [14]

Cathedral Towns — Ted Berrigan [15]

New Junket (for Harry Fainlight) — Ted Berrigan [16]

Wind — Ron Padgett [16]

What Price Salvation? — J. Richard White [17]

Spelunca (for A.R.) — J. Richard White [17]

Late December — John Ashbery [18]

Copy of a Copy — John Ashbery [19]

Undated — John Ashbery [20-22]

Political Science — Lorenzo Thomas [22]

The Infant Jesus of Prague — James Schuyler [23-28]

Poem II (“Muezzins, buzzards, newspapers — like”) — Harry Fainlight [28]

Olivetti Ode — Barbara Guest [29]

Hands — Barbara Guest [30-31]

Florida Hillocks — Kenward Elmslie [31]

Piazza of the Bananas — Kenward Elmslie [32]

Another Island Groupage — Kenward Elmslie [33]

The New World — Leroi Jones [34]

*The Success — Leroi Jones [35]

*Predicates/Categories (after M.H.) — Leroi Jones [36]

*Cant — Leroi Jones — [36]

*Poem (“There were more dirty”) — Joseph Ceravolo [37]

*Grass — Joseph Ceravolo [37]

*Poem (“Come and go see over there”) — Joseph Ceravolo [38]

*Poem (“Lapping water”) — Joseph Ceravolo [38]

*Funny Day — Joseph Ceravolo [39]

*Happiness in the Trees — Joseph Ceravolo [39]

C: A Journal of Poetry Vol. 1 NR 6 (December 1963/January 1964)

Cover: Joe Brainard

Dedication Page: Trista Tzara (4 April 1896 — 24 December 1963) [1]

Title page and table of contents [2]

Canzone — Ted Berrigan [3]

Presence — Ted Berrigan [4]

Destination Moom — Ted Berrigan [5-6]

Prose Keys to American Poetry — Ted Berrigan [6]

Andy Warhol: Andy Do It — Joe Brainard [7]

Nancy — Joe Brainard [8-9]

Inside the Park — Dick Gallup [10]

Stillness — Joe Ceravolo [11]

I Am Lonely in My Crib — Joe Ceravolo [11]

Five Poems — Joe Ceravolo [12-13]

The Night Passes Through April Wind, No One Wants to Sleep — Joe Ceravolo [13]

Non-Sonnet IV — Gerard Malanga [14]

Non-Sonnet XII — Gerard Malanga [14]

Across the Table — Robert Dash [15]

C’est Toi Qui Dors Dans L’Ombre — Harlan Dangerfield [16-17]

Johnny — Joe Brainard [17]

From the Beaumont Series — Dick Gallup [18]

Duet — Ruth Krauss [19]

Poem in Honor of Some Bombs — Ted Berrigan [19]

The Pastor — Harlan Dangerfield [20-21]

Orange Jews — Harlan Dangerfield [21]

Enureseis — Lorenzo Toumes [22]

The Blind Dog of Venice (To Pat) — Ron Padgett [23]

The EMS Dispatch (To Ted)– Ron Padgett [23]

Blimps — Kenward Elmslie [24]

Poem (“the wooden junk flood closed the city”) — Kenward Elmslie [24]

Television Scenario: The Users — Kenward Elmslie [25]

Your Fun is a Snob — Kenneth Koch [26]

Sweethearts From Abroad — kenneth Koch [26]

Rapping Along — Kenneth Koch [27]

The Cat’s Breakfast — Kenneth Koch [27]

Sun Out — Kenneth Koch [28]

The Dead Body — Kenneth Koch [28]

In Every Victim Awaits the Guest of Honor — Ted Berrigan [29]

It Makes You Think, — Ted Berrigan [29]

The Complete Works: A Story-Poem (To Joe) –Ron Padgett [30-32]

C: A Journal of Poetry Vol. 1 NR 7 (February 1964)

Covers: Joe Brainard [i-vi]

Title page and table of contents [1]

Some Troubles — Ted Berrigan [2]

Cremations — Tom Veitch [3-4]

A Story from the Bushmen — Joe Ceravolo [4]

Warmth — Joe Ceravolo [5]

Ending — Joe Ceravolo [5]

The More You Take It — Joe Ceravolo [5]

From A Sonnet Sequence — Ted Berrigan

Sonnet LXXIII [6]

Sonnet LXXVI [6]

Sonnet LXXVIII [6]

Sonnet LXXX [7]

Sonnet LXXXI [7]

Sonnet LXXXII [7]

Sonnet LXXXIV [8]

Sonnet LXXXVII [8]

After the Broken Arm — Ron Padgett [9]

I’d Give You My Seat If I Were Here — Ron Padgett [9]

Sonnet / To Andy Warhol — Ron Padgett [10]

Rome — Ron Padgett [10]

Nothing in That Drawer — Ron Padgett [10]

The Windows — John Wieners [11]

Les fenetres – Guillaume Apollinaire [11]

Prologue — Tony Towle [12]

Apology — Tony Towle [12]

Thoughts Near the George Washington Bridge — Tony Towle [13]

Somebody Else, Black Poems, Brown Poems — Tony Towle [13]

Gilbert and Sullivan — Lorenzo Thomas [14]

Another Abstract etc — Lorenzo Thomas [14]

The Conscience of Cole Porter — Lorenzo Thomas [14]

Abuela’s Wake — Frank Lima [15]

In Memory of Eugene Perez (drowned may 25, ’62) — Frank Lima [16]

John Perreault — John Perreault [16]

Yesterday Down at the Canal — Frank O’Hara [17]

Poeme en Forme de Saw — Frank O’Hara [17]

To jane: And in Imitation of Coleridge — Frank O’Hara [18]

Unpacking the Black Trunk — James Schuyler & Kenward Elmslie [19-26]

*Poem (“I do not always understand what you say”) — James Schuyler [26]

Two poems — James Schuyler

(“In the café I sat and watched the rain”) [27]

(August, smelling of ripe grapes and afternoon sleep”) [27]

From a Sonnet Sequence: Sonnet 30 (“Roar drowns the reproach, facing him) — Edwin Denby [28]

Political Poem on a Last Line of Pasternak’s — Frank O’Hara [28]

The Lay of the Romance of the Associations (to Kenneth Koch) — Frank O’Hara [29]

Commercial Variations — Frank O’Hara [30-31]

34 mile wind — Frank O’Hara [31]

Rhapsody — Frank O’Hara [32]

Those Who Are Dreaming, A Play about St. Paul — Frank O’Hara [32-33]

Ah, London — Harry Fainlight [34]

Meeting – Harry Fainlight [35]

Lyric — Harry Fainlight [35]

Echo & co — Harry Fainlight [36]

28 — Harry Fainlight [36]

You Have Wasted Your Life — Harry Fainlight [36]

The Home Book — James Schuyler [37-44]

Recoting — Dick Gallup [44]

C: A Journal of Poetry Vol. 1 NR 8 (April 1964)

Cover: Love Pictures by Ted Berrigan and Joe Brainard [i]

Title Page and Table of Contents [1]

From a Sonnet Sequence: Sonnet 20 (“the grand republic’s Poet is”) — Edwin Denby [2]

In His Distant Camp, Ted Awaits the Priests — Ron Padgett [2]

Mess Occupations (after Henri Michaux) — Ted Berrigan [3]

The voyage of the Argonauts (for Lionel Trilling) — Harlan Dangerfield [3]

From We Are Gentle Part I — David Shapiro [4]

Invention (to John Ashbery) — Ted Berrigan [4]

Literary Days — Tom Veitch [5-7]

Boils — Ted Berrigan, Gerard Malanga, Peter Orlovsky & Ron Padgett [8-11]

Theme and Variation — Harry Fainlight [12]

(“The chant, le chant, the song”) — Harry Fainlight [12]

Childhood — Harry Fainlight [13]

Poem (“what matter of luxury is this?”) — Al Fowler [13]

A letter from Tom Veitch/ April 5, 1962 — Tom Veitch [13]

Book III: The Concluding Book — Joseph Ceravolo [14-19

Eskimos again — Dick Gallup [19]

From The Gobble Gang Poems — Ed Sanders [20-21]

Some Bombs (Mistranslations) (after Reverdy) — Ron Padgett [22-25]

Prick Song — J Richard White [25]

February in San Francisco] — J Richard White [26]

Poem for Things — J Richard White [26

San Francisco Ephemeris — J Richard White [26]

Early Sunday Afternoon — J Richard White [27]

Conversation — J Richard White [27]

Il penseroso — Ted Berrigan [27]

The Secret Life of Ford Maddox Ford (for carol clifford) — Ted Berrigan

Stop stop six [28]

Then I’d cry [28]

Fauna time [28-29]

The upper arm (for Andy Warhol) — Ted Berrigan [29]

Sonnet XXVI (One sonnet for dick) — Ted Berrigan [29]

A Poem of the Forty-Eight States — Kenneth Koch [30-32]

Rain dunce (after Ted) — Ron Padgett [32]

Hygiene Sonnet — Dick Gallup [32]

Hatred — Frank O’Hara [33-35]

Reeling Midnight (to Pierre Reverdy) — Ted Berrigan [35]

The Jolly Abyss — Tom Veitch [36-40]

(“Spooky-wooky-wooky”) — Joe Brainard [40]

C: A Journal of Poetry Vol. 1 Number 9 (Summer etc. 1964)

Cover: Joe Brainard

Title page and table of contents [1]

Y..R D..K — Ron Padgett [2]

Begun — Ron Padgett [3]

The Rodent — Ron Padgett [3]

Jimmy — Ron Padgett [4]

To Henry James — Ron Padgett [4]

Some Plays — Ted Berrigan & Ron Padgett

Looking For Chris [5]

Teresa (A Play) [5]

Seventeen (A Play for Kay Boyle) [5]

Seventeen (A Play)

Teresa [6]

Seventeen (A Play for Signor Melone of Venice) [6]

The Rest of the Secret Life of Ford Madox Ford — Ted Berrigan

On His Own [7]

The Dance of the Broken Bomb [7]

Putting Away [8]

Owe [8-9]

We Are Jungles [9]

What Is That Flying Away? — Joe Ceravolo [10-16]

Life in Darkness — Dick Gallup [17-21]

From Newstand Report — John Stanton [22-23]

Sally — Joe Brainard [24-26]

Intersection Shifts and Scanning from Literary Days by Tom Veitch — William Burroughs [27]

From The Jolly Abyss — Tom Veitch [28-31]

Two Poems — David Shapiro

(“Light became audible, that is, a child, and took the empty place”) [32]

(“The most terrible spasms”) [33]

Three Poems — Tony Towle

Attached Poem [34]

Poems (to Joe LeSueur) [34]

Skylarks [34]

Juvenglandia — Harry Fainlight [35-37]

To the Autumn Sunbeam God — Harry Fainlight [37]

White — John Ashbery [38]

Vocalise — John Ashbery [38-39]

Evening Quatrains — John Ashbery [39]

At the Railway Station — Kenneth Koch [40]

Dostoevski’s The Gambler — Kenneth Koch [40]

Triste E Una Donna — Kenneth Koch [41]

Morro Rock — Kenneth Koch [41]

Schweitzerreich — Kenneth Koch [41]

Mateeyanah — Kenneth Koch [41]

Wahego — Kenneth Koch [42]

In Harmonium — Kenneth Koch [42]

Chiaroscuro — Kenneth Koch [42]

Heanorupeatomos – — Kenneth Koch [43]

An X-Ray of Utah — Kenneth Koch [43]

Religiously — Kenneth Koch [43]

Givers of Winds Is My Name — William Burroughs [44-48]

Strum Night — Barbara Guest [49]

Looking at Flowers Through Tears — Barbara Guest [49-50]

Dada Proverb — Tristan Tzara [50]

The Change: Kyoto-Tokyo Express July 18, 1963 — Allen Ginsberg [51-54]

The Return of Yellow May — Kenneth Koch [55-57]

The Revolt of the Giant Animals — Kenneth Koch [58]

The Building of Florence — Kenneth Koch [59-60]

The Beverly Boys Summer Vacation — Kenneth Koch [61-64]

For the Chinese New Year & For Bill Berkson — Frank O’Hara [65-67]

C: A Journal of Poetry Vol. 1 No. 10 (February 14, 1965)

Cover: Joe Brainard

Title Page and table of contents [1]

Poop — Francis Picabia [2]

Fits of Candor (A Manifesto) — Dick Gallup [2]

The Return of Philista — Dick Gallup [3]

Washington, July 5 — John Giorno [3]

Inside Speech — Harlan Dangerfield [4]

December — Giuseppe Ungaretti [4]

Brett — Ted Berrigan [5]

Brett (A Play) — Ron Padgett [5]

After Breakfast — Giuseppe Ungaretti [5]

Richard Cory — Ron Padgett [6]

Revised Poem — John Stanton [6]

Montana — Giuseppe Ungaretti [6]

Poem (“I stand last night near a lonely son-of-a-bitch.”) — Aram Saroyan [7]

From the Poetry Machine — Al Katzman [7]

Blandford, England, Sept. 23 — John Giorno [7]

December — Ron Padgett [7]

“Yes, I Am William Burroughs. . . .” — Tom Veitch [8-9]

To the Imperial Wizard — Jeff Giles [9]

A Grave — James Schuyler [10]

Moving — Aram Saroyan [10]

Georgia — Philippe Soupalt (trans. By Peter Schjeldahl) [10]

Dirge (South Africa) — David Shapiro [11]

From Five Songs — David Shapiro [11]

*From The Mutation of the Spirit — Gregory Corso [12-14]

*Precipice: A Story — Tom Veitch [15-17]

*The Day Before the Windowshade Fell — Les Gottesman [18]

*Apologies for the Angry Postcard — Les Gottesman [18]

*Principia Mathematica — Ron Padgett [18]

*Anecdote of Mumbly at Home — Louis Nasper [19]

*Homage to _______________ – John Perreault [19]

*Ragtime Cowboy Joe — Louis Nasper [19-20]

*From the Paris Sonnets — Peter Schjeldahl

Sonnet 16 (“Darkness rises from the sewers of Paris which I hear”) [20]

Sonnet 20 (“I cannot go on like this a mother hen”) [20]

*We Hardly — Richard Huelsenbeck [21]

*”My arms are warm” — Aram Saroyan [22]

*Falling in Love in Spain or Mexico — Ron Padgett [22]

*Prison of Souls — Jeff Giles [22]

*Pomp Ilk — Dick Gallup [23]

*Mother Cabrini (a play) — Ted Berrigan [23]

*Poem (“In the corner of my room an American!”) — Aram Saroyan [24]

*My First Story — Szabo [24]

*Poem (I don’t belong to you”) — Harlan Dangerfield [24]

*Preface to “The Champ” — Kenward Elmslie [25-27]

*The Champ — Kenward Elmslie [27-34]

*Craze Man Wiliiker — Pierre Reiter [35]

*Memoirs — Douglas MacArthur [35]

*Secret Wallpaper — Ted Greenwald [36]

*The Pirates — David Shapiro [36]

*A Memory Filled with White — Giuseppe Ungaretti [36]

*(“There was an old prude from St. Paul”) — Harlan Dangerfield [37]

*(“A young maid awalking alone”) — Harlan Dangerfield [37]

*The Groundhog — Ted Berrigan [37]

*Song — Richard Kolmar [38]

*To Modigliani, to Prove to Him That I’m a Poet — Max Jacob [38]

*The Fernandez — Ron Padgett [39]

*Miss America — Kenneth Koch [39]

*Did Daniel Webster and Rufus Choate Plan to Enter Medicine — Joe Brainard [40-41]

*The Custard Sellers — James Schuyler [42-43]

*Ghost Tantra #9 — Michael McClure [43]

*Excerpt from The Jolly Abyss — Tom Veitch [44-46]

*Recipe Department — Hasheesh Fudge — Brion Gysin [46]

*(When the mercenaries ran away . . . “) with image [47]

Ten When My Eyes Were Hurting — Larry Swingle [48-50]

A Man Saw a Ball of Gold — Ron Padgett [50]

John Button Birthday — Frank O’Hara [51]

Can’t Keep — Joseph Ceravolo [51-52]

Sestina with a Lost Line — Bruce Kawin [52]

Poem (“A new telephone on the table”) — Aram Saroyan [53]

The Bermudas — Richard Kolmar & Aram Saroyan [53]

Balance of Payments — John Ashbery [54]

Supplements — Tony Towle [55-57]

Ave Maria — Frank O’Hara [57]

Fits of Affection — John Dent [57]

The Ecclesiast — John Ashbery [58]

The Woman — Frank Lima [59]

In Three Parts — Ted Berrigan [59]

Fortune — John Ashbery [60-61]

Revolting (A one act play) — Dick Gallup [62]

The Courtier — Kenneth Koch [63]

En L’an Trentisme de Mon Eage — Kenneth Koch [63-65]

Leapfrog (for Jim Sears) — The Poem Machine [65]

Hoboken — John Ashbery [66-68]

(“From Aphrodite”) — Ed Sanders [68]

The Ode to Music (for Morton Subotnick) — Philip Whalen [69-72]

Fits of Nerves with a Fix — William Burroughs [72-73]

Street — Joe Ceravolo [74]

Ed Sanders’ Language — Charles Olson [74]

Music — Joe Ceravolo [74]

C: A Journal of Poetry Vol. 2 No. 11 (Summer 1965)

Cover: Joe Brainard [i]

Title page and table of contents [1]

On Frank O’Hara’s Birthday — Ron Padgett & Ted Berrigan [2]

Adios Lecture — Ken Weaver [3]

Police Lock — Aram Saroyan [4-5]

The Luis Armed Story — Tom Veitch [6-15]

From Looking For Chris — Ted Berrigan [16-23]

From The Bingo — Dick Gallup [24-26]

From Motor Maids Cross the Continent — Ron Padgett [27-32]

Two Stories — Barbara Guest

Another Daddy [32]

The “Adventures of Tin-Tin” Story [32]

Selections from a Novel — John Stanton [33-34]

Barbie and Ken — Kenward Elmslie [35-39]

From A Sonnet Sequence — Edwin Denby

(“New York, smog dim under August”) [40]

(Neighbor sneaks refuse to my roof”) [40]

(In tooth and claw red, not nature”) [40]

(“Disorder, mental, strikes me; I”) [41]

(“In a hotelroom a madman”) [41]

(“Nocturnal void lower Fifth, I”) [42]

“Drenched saw Doris home, midnight gale” [42]

Sonnet 18 (“Sunday on the Senator’s estate”) [42]

Sonnet 19 (“The size balls are sudden Lamarch”) [42]

Sonnet 20 (“The grand republic’s Poet is”) [43]

Sonnet 21 (“Blue grey ridge, green grey leafage”) [43]

Sonnet 23 (“Heavy bus slows, New York my ride”) [44]

Sonnet 24 (“New year’s near, glass autumn long gone”) [44]

Sonnet 30 (“Roar drowns the reproach, facing him”) [44]

Advertisement for an Ed Sanders Catalog [45]

From The Red Robins — Kenneth Koch [46-55]

Frost – Harlan Dangerfield [56]

Saturday Night at the Movies — Harlan Dangerfield [56]

A Fine Thing — Tom Veitch [56]

C: A Journal of Poetry Vol. 2 No. 12 (NEVER ISSUED)

C: A Journal of Poetry Vol. 2 No. 13 (May 1966)

This issue has printed page numbers in the upper right corner beginning with page 2 after the cover and title page. As a result , the page numbers are not placed in brackets.

Cover page: Image of a stencil cutter by Joe Brainard

Table of contents and title page [1]

In Praise of the Postal System — Stéphane Mallarmé p. 2

From The Bingo — Dick Gallup pp. 3-7

Mortality — Théophile Gautier p. 8

The Suitor – Théophile Gautier pp. 8-9

From Julius Caesar — tran. John J. Murphy p. 10

The Heavenly Skater — Pierre Reverdy p. 11

At Dawn — Pierre Reverdy p. 11

The Traveller and His Shadow — Pierre Reverdy p. 11

Fetish — Pierre Reverdy p. 11

Natural Greatness — Pierre Reverdy p. 12

The Hard Heart — Pierre Reverdy p. 12

From Clear the Range — Ted Berrigan pp. 13-15

The Great Melancholy of an Avenue — Phillipe Soupault p. 15

Fragment — William Saroyan p. 16

Saving Japan — Theresa Mitchell p. 17-18

Two Sad Birds — Harry Mathews pp. 19-20

Brunswick Stew — Joe Brainard p. 21

Alas! — Max Jacob p. 21

History of France — Kenward Elmslie pp. 22-23

Valiant Warrior on Foreign Soil — Max Jacob p. 23

Juile ou la rose — Guillaume Apollinaire pp. 24-29

Julie ou j’ai prete ma rose pp. 24-25

Corona di Cazzi p. 25

Epithalame p. 25

In Vase Proepostero p. 26

Petit Balai p. 26

Le teint p. 26

VIII (“Linda la noire aux paumes roses”) p. 26

CartesPostales pp. 27-28

Le Chat p. 28

Le Negre p. 28

Quelques Distiques Pour Plaire a Dupuy pp. 28-29

Bibilographie p. 29

Justification p. 29

Notes on this C Edition p. 29

The Julie or the Rose Newsletter — Ron Padgett ed. pp. 30-31

Introduction p. 30

Commentaries, blurbs p. 30

Two letters from Pascal Pia pp. 30-31

Letter from Leroy Breunig p. 31

Notes p. 31

Notices p. 31

Blank back cover [32]

C: A Journal of Poetry No. 14 (1967)

Behind the Wheel — Michael Brownstein

No Empty Hands [2]

Nations [3]]

Sunny Barn, Special Guests [4]

Behind the Wheel [5]

The Plains of Abraham [6]

Large Blue [7]

Fingertips [8]

Janice [9]

*Lily Flower [10] — Missing from Harter Index

*Waitress [11] — Missing from Harter Index

*News [12]

*Florence Was Fine in the Summertime [13]

*Clean & Clear [14]

*Poem (“Yours the taught climb borne security”) [15]

*Navel [16]

*Pond [17]

*A Final Storm [18]

*Coincidences [19]

*Moving You Along [20]

*Massachusetts [21]

*Against the Grain [22]

*Typhoon [23]

*A Modern Instance [24]

*Pounds and Ounces [25]

Colophon [26]

Author Bio [27]

Written by Jed Birmingham and published by RealityStudio on 12 August 2013.

Yugen

RealityStudio — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 15:45:50 +0000

Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker

Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting

Several years ago, I wrote on the potential joys of collecting Charles Olson. Olson loomed as a literal giant over the small press and little magazine scene from 1950 until his death in 1970. As a result, his work appeared in some of the most interesting chapbooks and magazines of the period. His books are beautiful and expansive (I am thinking of the Jargon Press Maximus Poems) as objects above and beyond the epic scope of their contents.

Leroi Jones (later Amiri Baraka, but Jones for the purposes of this column) appeals to me in a way similar to Olson and, of course, William Burroughs. My interest in Jones centers on his Beat phase lasting until the mid 1960s. This work would make an outstanding collection. In 2000, Brown University showcased its Jones holdings and the Beat pieces really spoke to me. I was especially struck by Jones’ work as an editor. It seems like he had his hands in every major magazine coming out of New York City in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Yugen, Floating Bear, Kulchur. This does not include his founding of Totem Press and that press’s publications with Cornith Books. Jones published Michael McClure, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Frank O’Hara, Charles Olson, Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen, Ed Dorn, Diane Di Prima, and Paul Blackburn.

I am going to focus here on Yugen. Yugen ran for eight issues from 1958-1962. The magazine filled a void for newly emerging schools of poets that were denied publication in the academic and mainstream venues, like Poetry or The Kenyon Review. Jones stated, “It was started because I didn’t see publications coming out that carried poetry or writing that I was interested in. Therefore, I thought I should start one to try to gather that poetry that I thought was interesting… I just thought nothing was happening on the poetry scene as it should be so I started publishing.”

Yugen is often described as a Beat outlet. Work by Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Gregory Corso, Jack Kerouac, Gary Snyder and Philip Whalen definitely appears frequently, but I think the content is much broader than that. Yugen billed itself as a “new consciousness in arts and letters.” The poetry dovetailed with the groundbreaking and monumental New American Poetry anthology of Don Allen published in 1959/1960. Jones included the New York School (Frank O’Hara, Kenneth Koch), Black Mountain (Charles Olson, Robert Creeley, Joel Oppenheimer, Fielding Dawson), and San Francisco Renaissance (Robin Blaser) poets alongside a healthy helping of the Beats. The Black Mountain poets made a very strong showing. In the last issue, the table of contents reads like a who’s who of New American Poets. By 1962, Yugen‘s work was done. On ending the magazine, Jones stated, “Well, I think it just outlived its usefulness as far as I was concerned. By the time Yugen stopped publishing there were innumerable magazines that were publishing poets and writers that I had some respect for.”

Much of the work of constructing Yugen was done by Jones’ wife, Hettie Cohen. Cohen worked as an editor as Partisan Review which gave her invaluable experience in putting together a magazine. She performed many editorial tasks as well as designing the layout. Like with many magazines of the period, the construction process, such as collating, folding, mailing, and stapling, provided a center for the literary community. Collating parties became literary events. Hettie Cohen’s How I Became Hettie Jones is mandatory reading on the literary community in New York City in the late 1950s, early 1960s, as is Diane Di Prima’s Recollections of My Life as a Woman. Both books provide detailed accounts of the day-to-day process of running a literary magazine. I highly recommend them.

Yugen was printed by Troubador Press in New York City. All eight issues have a similar design and feel. They are simple yet handsome chapbooks, much like the small books published by Jones’ Totem Press, like O’Hara’s Second Avenue and Kerouac’s The Scripture of the Golden Eternity. The defining characteristic of a Jones chapbook was arresting cover art drawn by an artist closely affiliated with the literary scene. The artwork for Yugen possessed a strong Black Mountain feel with illustrations by Basil King and Norman Bluhm. The covers contained elements of Eastern calligraphy and the brushwork of the abstract expressionists like Franz Kline. Yugen shows how printing cheaply does not have to detract from richness of design. All Jones productions of this period appeal to me as objects saying nothing of the appeal of the writing within. Highpoints include Kerouac’s “Rimbaud” in Issue 6 as well as defining work by Charles Olson. While all the work is not of a high quality (it is uneven like most little magazines), the sense of a newly emerging literary community shines through. Yugen captures a snapshot of alternative poetics as the New American Poetry anthology broke things open.

William Burroughs appeared in two issues of Yugen: Issue 3 and Issue 8. These appearances highlight a change that occurred in Burroughs as a writer between the late 1950s and early 1960s. In issue three, Burroughs submitted “Have You Seen Pantapon Rose?,” an early piece of the still gestating Naked Lunch. Issue eight features an essay: “The Cut Up Method of Brion Gysin.” In 1958, Burroughs was still searching for himself as a writer and unsure of both his work and his method. As I have mentioned before, Yugen proved instrumental in giving Burroughs confidence as a writer, providing publication at a crucial time in Burroughs’ development. Burroughs’ collaborator at the time was Allen Ginsberg. Burroughs’ letters containing routines were addressed to him. Oliver Harris details letter writing as a key to Burroughs’ method in William Burroughs and the Secret of Fascination.

By 1962, Burroughs was a completely different man and writer. Burroughs discovered the cut-up which replaced the routine as his major literary technique. Similarly, Gysin replaced Ginsberg as the major collaborator and confidante. The effects of the change can be seen in Burroughs’ essay on Gysin and the cut-up. Burroughs writes an authoritative essay featuring a cut up, not a routine. He has become a spokesman on writing technique and history. His belief in his style is absolute. Everything is a cut-up and all literature can be subjected to the cut-up. “ALL WRITING IS IN FACT CUT-UPS OF GAMES AND ECONOMIC BEHAVIOR OVERHEARD?” Burroughs’ voice is more confident and strident. Burroughs speaks from the mountain top; he has seen the light. You get the sense of a power shift between issues three and eight. In issue three, Burroughs benefits tremendously by appearing in Yugen. In issue eight, Yugen benefits tremendously by featuring Burroughs. Between the two issues, Burroughs went from literary unknown to an international cult figure.

To this day, Yugen remains fresh and vibrant, like the New American Poetry it featured. Putting together a complete run of Yugen is tough but not impossible. Issue four marks a turning point in the magazine’s availability on the collector’s market. Issues 1-4 are tough to find and are expensive, roughly $100-150 per issue. Issues 5-8 are much more common and cheaper. The later issues provide a good bang for the buck. Issue 6 includes Kerouac’s “Rimbaud” before it was published as a broadside by City Lights. Of course, issue 8 has the early Burroughs appearance. Visually and textually they are worth the $35-50 price tag. For anyone interested in the Beats and modern poetry in general, Yugen is a fun purchase. Truly, Yugen was a laboratory in which poets of the post-WWII era experimented before their work became accepted as mainstream.

Yugen Archive

Yugen #1
1958

Download Complete Issue

Philip Whalen, Ed James, Judson Crews, Tom Postell, Allen Polite, Stephen Tropp, Bob Hamilton, LeRoi Jones, Diane Di Prima, Ernest Kean, Jack Micheline, Allen Ginsberg

Yugen #2
1958

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Gregory Corso, Tuli Kupferberg, Thomas Postell, LeRoi Jones, Barbara Ellen Moraff, Ron Loewinsohn, Diane Di Prima, Oliver Pitcher, James Boyer May, Gary Snyder, Ben Spellman, George Stade, Harold Briggs, Tomi Ungerer

Yugen #3
1958

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Gary Snyder, William S. Burroughs, Charles Farber, Barbara Moraff, C. Jack Stamm, Phililp Whalen, Gilbert Sorrentino, Allen Ginsberg, Mason Jordan Mason, Diane Di Prima, George Stade, Peter Orlovsky, Fivos Delfis, Ray Bremser, Robin Blaser, Thomas Jackrell, Stanley Fisher, Peter Schwarzburg

Yugen #4
1959

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Charles Olson, Peter Orlovsky, Frank O’Hara, Max Finstein, Fielding Dawson, Allen Ginsberg, Ray Bremser, Edward Marshall, Joel Oppenheimer, Judson Crews, Michael McClure, Ron Loewinsohn, Gary Snyder, Jack Kerouac, John Wieners, Robert Creeley, Gregory Corso, LeRoi Jones, Gilbert Sorrentino, Mason Jordan Mason, Fielding Dawson

Yugen #5
1959

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William Carlos Williams, Allen Ginsberg, Barbara Guest, David Meltzer, Max Finstein, Paul Blackburn, Philip Whalen, Diane Di Prima, John Wieners, Walter Lowenfels, Michael McClure, Fielding Dawson, Rainer Gerhardt, Jerome Rothenberg, Frank O’Hara, César Vallejo, Lillian Lowefels, Bruce Fearing, Jack Kerouac, Barbara Moraff, Gregory Corso, Larry Eigner, Joel Oppenheimer, Basil King

Yugen #6
1960

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Michael McClure, Charles Olson, Ron Loewinsohn, Philip Lamantia, Paul Blackburn, Robin Blaser, Hubert Selby, Jr., David Meltzer, Ray Bremser, Ed Dorn, Rochelle Owens, Paul Carroll, Robert Creeley, Tristan Tzara, Daisy Aldan, Gary Snyder, Edward Marshall, LeRoi Jones, Jack Kerouac, David Wang, Kenneth Koch, Larry Eigner, Edward Dahlberg, Frank O’Hara, Basil King

Yugen #7
1961

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LeRoi Jones, Gilbert Sorrentino, Bruce Boyd, Robert Creeley, Kenneth Koch, George Stanley, Frank O’Hara, Gregory Corso, B. Smith, Stuart Z. Perkoff, Gilbert Sorrentino, John Ashbery, Philip Whalen, Larry Eigner, Max Finstein, Joel Oppenheimer, Diane DiPrima, Charles Olson, Edward Marshall, Joel Oppenheimer, Allen Ginsberg, Norman Bluhm, Frank O’Hara

Yugen #8
1962

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George Stanley, Gilbert Sorrentino, Steve Jonas, William Burroughs, Speckled Red, George Stanley, Gilbert Sorrentino, Edward Dorn, Robert Creeley, Edward Marshall, LeRoi Jones, Charles Olson, Basil King

Written by Jed Birmingham and published by RealityStudio on 30 April 2006. Updated Dec 2010 and Dec 2012.