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]

Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting

Gilbert Sorrentino to Leroi Jones, April 5, 1961, published in Floating Bear #11

Just before I left Dillon’s last night you and Joel were talking abt this Burroughs stuff in the last issue of The Bear — that Joel cdnt read it, etc. Which got me to thinking abt Burroughs and this morning I dug out a review of The Naked Lunch that I did abt a yr or so ago, but which I buried later, not because I thought it wasn’t the right angle to take on it but because I didn’t know if my reasons for putting the book down were valid. I think maybe it’s time we talked abt that book, instead of just taking it for a “classic” or whatever the fuck you want to call it, what the clowns call it anyway . . . well, what the hell is the book? I mean what is so good about it that we must pay attention to it, which we must . . .

I didn’t like the book, as a Book, because of reasons extra-literary, that’s why the review I did bugged me — the trash about its lack of organization etc., well, we won’t go into that old shit. I don’t care if he wrote the book with a pair of scissors in each hand etc., etc. Like, he’s fooling us? “And now, ladies and gentlemen, I shall reveal to you that this book was actually written by my pet bedbug.” (fanfare) — like that weary bullshit about the monkeys winning prizes at abstract painting exhibits in Bohunk and so on. No. At least that wd be the literary come on and the indefensible in the year 1961, it holds some water. My bitch against the book is I’m afraid, a moral one.

Now, is Burroughs showing us the world? And I don’t mean the English Class world, so that our lives can be better etcetc, but is he showing us the junk world, nightmare world, not even “as it is,” but is there a human agency involved in all that jazz? Where is our compassion to go, what figure do we setup as someone worth it all, there isn’t even the rejection of love, like in let’s say Cubby’s Tralala, where the whore has her chance with the Army officer and doesn’t even know what he’s talking about, she tears his love not up looking for a check, etc. Or is Ferdinand (?) in Celine’s Journey: when he gets to New York, well, you writhe, and not in horror, but because he is so pitifully defenseless, hopeless, and is such as a man, a human being. Or taking it out as far as it will go in my mind: Dostoievski’s hero in Notes from the Underground. Now there is alienation to the 3rd power, no figure in literature has ever been more not with it than this guy, more so than Benway or Bradley the Buyer, but the point is that something is lost and gone in him and we know it: I mean we know that he’s lost something that human do/shd have. The Burroughs people come at you like they never had anything to lose; that “undreaming insect world” that he talks about IS the world of The Lunch. And so what? I mean this is sheer horror and I don’t know but what it gets to an oversaturated point at which it turns into almost caricature (intended? — no not certainly that word, but what then? — superhumanism, certainly not antihumanism, that doesn’t occur in the book), Burroughs, that is, does not have a Swiftian comeon in that he loathes people, he starts from the premise that all these folks ain’t really human, they are alienated to the point at which they turn backwards and become — not evil, but just horrors. I think it’s Coleridge talking abt Lear and the evil of Cordelia’s sisters, talking that the horror is truly that because we expect them to act like human beings at some point and they don’t they are absolutely without moral values. This the truly horrible. Ok, so does this put Burroughs on that level of making: /? But where the relief? Like, where are the good guys? There is Edgar; where Kent?

Work of art? Or valid lesson-book? Or even a reference to gauge the junkies that we know against? Balls, nothing happening here/ Sex in the head, Lawrence would have cut him up in little pieces, like he’s cutting things out of the phone book or whatever books he’s got going for him — and on that score, Christ: Haven’t we had enough of Transition and nightwriting and all the rest of that half-assed spawn of JJ who picked up ass-wise on everything from Portrait to the Wake? Like all the terrible shit that Bloom lets go thru his mind, used, USED, mind you, as a valid and workable technique by all the slobs who thought that Joyce like bumped into it, and won’t believe you if you try and tell them that this was the MOST explicit putdown of the Bloomian mind, this the mind that encounters OB-JECTS, and lets them flow out the back of the head like shit thru a sieve. Yep, Bloomian thought in The Lunch, we got that, sure, but what again, is the point? That these cockroaches think like this is no surprise, and to show us that they think like this, so what. When they wig out, and die, or get hung with an OD, it’s not the Pequod going down, that went down a long time ago, and though I hope and trust and MUST believe that Lawrence was wrong as hell when he said that all American writing after Moby Dick was post-mortem effects, here we have a book at hand that justifies and proves that observation, and it bugs me. I don’t mean either that these cats dying and fucking up is not important as the sinking of the Pequod in the same terms, that is, life for life, etc., but that Burroughs doesn’t let you give these cats life. Who the fuck in the whole Naked Lunch is worth saving, I mean can you care abt Hassan O’Leary in any other context but what chills and laughs he can give you?

What the hell is the man up to? Blah, Blah, “an indictment of American society,” etc. Whatever the jerks say, no, no, simple, much too simple for me, and I won’t buy it. It is a rage, a destruction, not of American society but on the mind of Burroughs himself, he hurls all that hate around like shit from a bucket, and then some goddam stupid sonofabitch stands there and has the idiocy to say to me that this spastic shitflinging is an “indictment of American society”; as if we needed it anymore after Moby Dick, The Great Gatsby, The Maximus Poems, Paterson, Pierre, and on and on . . .

What do we have to be told for? I mean to say does the intensity of the hatred leveled make the “indictment” stronger? You don’t need a machinegun to kill a dying man. You don’t need this fierceness to do in our kulch. A question: what, considering time, place, and values, is the fiercer book? The Red and the Black or Naked Lunch? In REAL terms, the Red and the Black make the Lunch look like petulance. I ain’t gonna play with those dirty coplovers and gunsellers . . . ok, but what to say after that? Obviously, nothing: grab the honeybucket and start flinging.

I want compassion, I want it, I need it, I ain’t going buy Hussan, I don’t like him, I don’t give a damn abt him. OR, I want real hatred directed against real people, who do things that are evil in a world that still has those values (of good and evil), which the world does have, even though we are in our “cycle of decay,” and the rest of the German Romantic Spenglerian horseshit, flow, flow time is a god, bullshit. You are my friend because you are a good man, no, not corn, you are a good man, the important word here, man. I mean, it makes no difference if I say you are a good roach/you are a bad roach. Who cares whether a roach is good or bad?

OK, just some ideas I wanted to write you while I had them; I must believe in the goodness of Creation or I stop living.

Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting

“Imagine that you have before you a flagon of wine. You may choose your own favorite vintage for this imaginary demonstration, so that it be a deep shimmering crimson in color. You have two goblets before you. One is of solid gold, wrought in the most exquisite patterns. The other is of crystal-clear glass, thin as a bubble, and as transparent. Pour and drink; and according to your choice of goblet, I shall know whether or not you are a connoisseur of wine. For if you have no feelings about wine one way or the other, you will want the sensation of drinking the stuff out of a vessel that may have cost thousands of pounds; but if you are a member of that vanishing tribe, the amateurs of fine vintages, you will choose the crystal, because everything about it is calculated to reveal rather than to hide the beautiful thing which it was meant to contain.

Bear with me in this long-winded and fragrant metaphor; for you will find that almost all the virtues of the perfect wine-glass have a parallel in typography.”

— Beatrice Warde, “The Crystal Goblet, or Printing Should Be Invisible” 

In Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Indy and his father court death and disaster in pursuit of the Holy Grail. At the Canyon of the Crescent Moon, with his father’s life hanging in the balance, Jones stands before a collection of chalices and goblets, one of which is the Grail. The corrupt Dr. Elsa Schneider, blinded by the grandeur and glory of her vision of the Son of God, chooses the most ostentatious of cups. Walter Donovan drinks deeply and crumbles into dust. “He chose poorly.” Jones knows better. Remembering that our Lord and Savior was a mere carpenter, Professor Jones chooses the humblest of cups. This holy water heals the gaping gunshot wound of his father, saving his life. Sometimes the greatest treasure is the simplest of objects. The last Knight blesses Indy’s decision: “You have chosen . . . wisely.”

Thus was my dilemma upon receiving Andrew Sclanders’ latest BeatBooks catalog: Number 59. For Burroughs fans there was a copy of Black Mountain Review #7 or the English Bookshop pressing of Call Me Burroughs. Copy after copy of drug pulps flew from the catalog. Last time I checked the Ace Junkie remains available. In a sense, the Ace Junkie is yet another jeweled goblet, a false treasure. It is expensive at 425 pounds, and with over 100,000 copies printed, most treasure seekers have already snatched up their copies.

I found my Grail in the “Beats, Outsiders, and Other Adventures in Poetry” Section. It was the humblest of entries: “Carrington, Harold. Drive Suite. London: Paul Breman, 1972. First edition, 8vo. Wrps., 12pp. Wrappers slightly rubbed. Very Good. 15 Pounds.” Carrington was born in Atlantic City in 1938. From the age of 16, he served time in various jails and institutions. While in jail, he picked up the writer’s bug to go along with his drug and alcohol habit. On July 27, 1964, Carrington was released from prison. He died three days later in the city of his birth of a drug overdose.

Carrington may be familiar to Burroughs fans. There is a fragile link between the two writers. First, both are junkie-writers. Unfortunately, Carrington ended up in the credit column of the junkie-writer ledger. The other link is Floating Bear No. 9. Burroughs’ Roosevelt After Inauguration appears in this issue along with LeRoi Jones‘ The System of Dante’s Hell. The issue was mailed to Carrington in Rahway Prison in New Jersey in 1961. Carrington’s copy was seized by prison censors, who objected to Burroughs’ pornographic satire and Jones’ homosexual subject matter. The seizure led to obscenity charges against Jones and Diane DiPrima. Ultimately, the charges were dropped. DiPrima and Jones proclaimed their victory in Issue 20 of Floating Bear. I bought the book on the basis of the link to Floating Bear and Burroughs — an interesting piece of the Floating Bear puzzle that fills in the history of that magazine and, in particular, the controversial ninth issue.

Before seeing the book in the BeatBooks catalog, I was completely unaware that anything of Carrington’s was actually published. Yet upon receiving the slim volume, it was immediately familiar. This should have been obvious from the title. Drive Suite is also the title of a Ray Bremser poem, published as Nova Broadcast No. 1 by Jan Herman. A quick look at the two publications reveals that they are versions of the same poem. The first three sections are, with slight variations, identical. The Nova Broadcast edition contains a fourth section entitled “Luyah, the Glorious Step.”

What the hell is going on? A little digging reveals an interesting story. Turns out that Bremser, another poet who struggled with his addictions, served time with Carrington at Rahway Prison. Bremser introduced Carrington to literary connections in New York and elsewhere, such as Walter Lowenfels. Diane DiPrima became a correspondent of Carrington’s as well, which led no doubt to the mailing of Floating Bear. Lowenfels and DiPrima maintained their correspondence with Carrington, so some of his writing and work survived after his sudden and unexpected death. Carrington’s uncle also held on to a small archive. Going through Carrington’s papers, Breman found a draft of Drive Suite written largely in Carrington’s hand. Breman assumed the poem was Carrington’s, which it is not. The poem was chosen by Breman for publication due to its “sheer virtuosity” and for the connection to jazz musician Cecil Taylor, a member of the circle of poets, artists and musicians that gathered around Jones, Hettie Cohen, and Yugen. Drive Suite eventually became Number 14 in Breman’s important Heritage Series of African-American poets. Breman’s memoir on The Heritage Series has some useful information on Carrington and this publishing snafu.

Quite possibly, Carrington copied the poem in order to comment on it or simply to preserve a poem he admired. It could be that there is a T.S Eliot / Ezra Pound dynamic going on with Drive Suite, with Carrington hovering behind Bremser’s finished and published poem. Doubtful. Lowenfels and others have confirmed the authorship as Bremser’s and eventually Breman acknowledged his error and pulled the Heritage publication of Drive Suite. What is strange is that the Nova Broadcast edition of Bremser’s poem was in print from 1968. An earlier version of first section of the poem was published in Stanley Fisher’s Beat Coast East anthology as far back as 1960. The poem was clearly in circulation for years. Given the Bremser / Carrington friendship, it is doubly odd that nobody made the connection earlier.  

So we are left with a situation in which the only published book of poems by Harold Carrington contains in its entirety a poem that is not by Carrington. Let me stress that this was unintentional and merely an editing mistake by Breman, yet it suggests another dimension of writing and criminality in relation to Carrington besides the obvious ones of junkie / prisoner / poet and obscenity trials. The serious crimes in terms of writing are that of plagiarism and copyright violation. Carrington the poet has been falsely incarcerated in Bremser’s text. Interestingly, Bremser could be accused of identity theft. Jones / Baraka wrote to Breman about the affair, “Why Bremser now wants to take on the personae [sic] of a dead black poet I can only guess at.” The reasons are obvious in that the “dead black” Carrington is perceived by Bremser as being more authentic, more real, and closer to the Truth (pure experience and pure speech). This is the theme of the White Negro yet again, with Bremser, along with the other white Beats, appropriating black culture and experience to enrich what they viewed as an impoverished, outmoded, and tired dominant tradition.

The back blurb on the Heritage Series volume mentions other poems and projects relating to Carrington, including a “novel which Walt Sheppard planned to publish as a supplement to his Nickel Review.” In addition, Eugene Redmond is mentioned as “establishing the corpus of Carrington’s scattered work.” I do not think anything came of these projects. From what I can tell, Aldon Lynn Nielsen has singlehandedly kept the memory of Carrington alive. Nielsen collected a handful of poems in Every Goodbye Ain’t Gone: An Anthology of Innovative Poetry by African Americans. In 2006, Nielsen posted three entries on his Heat String Theory blog relating to Carrington, which include some poems and letters. The letters, particularly a long one to Lowenfels, give wonderful insights into Carrington’s concerns as a poet. For those looking to drink deeply of the work of “Wine” Carrington, there looks to be precious little in print or online to satisfy your thirst. To a certain extent, Drive Suite, as published by The Heritage Series, is a false grail. Like Dr. Schneider, Paul Breman was blinded by “sheer virtuosity” and chose poorly. As evidenced by the work uncovered by Nielsen, Carrington’s output is of a humbler nature. Yet Drive Suite, false as it is, reveals a hidden truth about the crimes of writing and provides a fitting monument to a man and poet whose (to paraphrase Eric Burdon and the Animals) intentions were good but was destined to be misunderstood.

Drive Suite attributed to Harold Carrington

Harold Carrington (attributed)
Drive Suite (front)
Paul Breman Ltd, 1972

Harold Carrington (attributed)
Drive Suite
Paul Breman Ltd, 1972

Harold Carrington (attributed)
Drive Suite
Paul Breman Ltd, 1972

Harold Carrington (attributed)
Drive Suite
Paul Breman Ltd, 1972

Harold Carrington (attributed)
Drive Suite
Paul Breman Ltd, 1972

Harold Carrington (attributed)
Drive Suite
Paul Breman Ltd, 1972

Harold Carrington (attributed)
Drive Suite
Paul Breman Ltd, 1972

Harold Carrington (attributed)
Drive Suite (back)
Paul Breman Ltd, 1972

Drive Suite by Ray Bremser

Ray Bremser
Drive Suite (front)
Nova Broadcast Press, 1968

Ray Bremser
Drive Suite
Nova Broadcast Press, 1968

Ray Bremser
Drive Suite
Nova Broadcast Press, 1968

Ray Bremser
Drive Suite
Nova Broadcast Press, 1968

Ray Bremser
Drive Suite
Nova Broadcast Press, 1968

Ray Bremser
Drive Suite
Nova Broadcast Press, 1968

Ray Bremser
Drive Suite
Nova Broadcast Press, 1968

Ray Bremser
Drive Suite
Nova Broadcast Press, 1968

Ray Bremser
Drive Suite
Nova Broadcast Press, 1968

Ray Bremser
Drive Suite
Nova Broadcast Press, 1968

Ray Bremser
Drive Suite
Nova Broadcast Press, 1968

Ray Bremser
Drive Suite
Nova Broadcast Press, 1968

Ray Bremser
Drive Suite
Nova Broadcast Press, 1968

Ray Bremser
Drive Suite
Nova Broadcast Press, 1968

Ray Bremser
Drive Suite (back)
Nova Broadcast Press, 1968

Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting

Quite a while back, a heartbroken bookseller offered me a copy of the Mad Motherfucker issue of Fuck You, a magazine of the Arts with the Couch cover for $35. Now realize the bookseller was distraught not crazy. When I received the mag in the mail, I could understand his disappointment. On first glance, it was like a giant zit on the Mona Lisa — the Warhol cover was ripped. In addition the once-tight frame had gone to seed, as the body of the magazine was de-stapled and incomplete. For example, the centerpiece of this issue, Auden’s “The Platonic Blow,” was missing. Still I happily paid the $35 for the Couch cover, which even torn was better than nothing. I could always upgrade, right? As it turned out, easier said than done. Fine copies of the issue with the cover attached have become prohibitively expensive, reaching ever higher into the lower four figures.

After I bought it, I scanned the covers and then packed the battered corpse into an archival coffin — where it lay until now. I was sitting this weekend in the pre-dawn, smoking and waiting for the sun to come up, when it came to me out of the fog: Why the hell haven’t I scanned the rest of the issue, warts and all? Reading as I scanned it, I am really glad I finally woke up. Like a fresh, young starlet turned barfly, glimpses of past glory flash from the opened face of the Mad Motherfucker despite years of abuse. The issue remains, even in this damaged and incomplete state, a truly magnificent example of mimeo publication. Over the years I have read quite a bit of Fuck You Press’ output, and I’ll be the first to admit it is equal parts good, bad and ugly. Nevertheless, above and beyond all else, what stands out are the paratexts: the editorial comments, the notes on contributors, the bibliographic asides, the glyph work and illustration. This stuff, the lifeblood of Fuck You Press, is pure Ed Sanders genius. So feed your head on this glorious mess of a magazine.

What is painfully obvious to me is that a complete reprint of Fuck You magazine is sorely needed. Clearly, the time is ripe. The Fuck You Press Archive has proven to be one of the top eyeball catchers on RealityStudio, second only to the Kurt Cobain / William Burroughs dossier. The publication of In Numbers and an upcoming MIT press book on artists’ magazines highlights the fact that interest is there and growing. I look forward to what seems to be an onslaught of critical work on little magazines and the Mimeo Revolution, but, let me tell you, reading about Fuck You is not enough. People need to get access to the magazine itself. Here is a taste. You’ll be hooked.  

On a complete reprint, the question remains: How to do it? The Internet is one option, an option that RealityStudio has fully explored with Jeff Nuttall’s My Own Mag, C Press’s Time, several of Charlie Plymell’s publications, and individual issues of a handful of important little magazines. I love this approach because of its populist nature. It is an open buffet for people to graze as they see fit. But I cannot help but wonder if the prestige of print would have shown My Own Mag, in particular, to greater effect. A hardcover edition forces critics and scholars to comment on its existence and get a discussion going, which personally I desire for this neglected masterwork. To me, it is one of the highpoints of William Burroughs’ career and, of course, the Mimeo Revolution generally. Why I don’t feel that it is enough simply to admire it, I have not fully gotten to the bottom of. But I feel compelled to push this intoxicating publication on everybody. For those who are not interested, in the words of Nancy Reagan, “Just say no,” but I can only say it will make you feel good.

So I wonder, even as we hear daily of the death of print, if hard copy is not the way to go for little magazine reprints. For me, the prototype for such a reprint is the Laurence McGilvery publication of Floating Bear from 1973: a full reprint, an introduction, a complete index of each issue, and footnotes full of information on the contributors and their contributions. Obviously, I would love to see this for Fuck You — Ted Berrigan’s C: A Journal of the Arts also comes immediately to mind as a little magazine desperately in need of a serious reprint — but I would cream my jeans to see a complete version of Jack Spicer’s J or, even better, Dan Saxon’s Le Metro and Les Deux Magots mimeos, as these magazines are close to impossible to assemble on the rare book market. This is not just a question of finances; they are, quite simply, not available. Single issues of these magazines are few and far between, and full runs just do not exist, even in institutions. An institution such NYU, Columbia, or the New York Public Library, just to name those in New York City, would have to step up and offer their magazines for scanning. Not an unreasonable request in my opinion and one that would bring attention to the library’s special collections and their educational value.

Let’s move on to the question of who would scan such rarities. A quick look through the news will tell you that public and university libraries are in deep trouble. They cannot adequately preserve their holdings let alone promote and utilize them. I do not know if the project would be profitable for a commercial publisher. There is always the university and academic press, but I would not mind going back to the Floating Bear reprint as a model. I would like to see a return of the rare bookseller as publisher. Once upon a time, booksellers did not just sell books; they printed them. The Wilentz Brothers’ 8th Street Bookshop and their Corinth Books are my favorite example with chapbooks by Leroi Jones, Jack Kerouac, Philip Whalen, Frank O’Hara, and others. As the McGilvery Floating Bear shows, bookstores also printed reference books. For the past four or five years, I have heard rumblings from various booksellers about issuing a chapbook of some sort or another. Nothing has been released yet, but the interest is there.

What if NYU or UCONN gave Dan Gregory of Between the Covers access to a complete run of Fuck You to photograph? What if the institution or Sanders threw in mock-ups and stencils of the issues? Let’s go crazy and add correspondence related to the magazine’s day-to-day operations, distribution, and reception. Bear with me as I go even further: What if Ed Sanders wrote a lengthy introduction and provided bibliographic and biographic details on the contents and contributors of each issue? What if there were essays on all aspects of the magazine — the mimeograph machines used to print it; how the technology, the ink, and the paper all influenced the design of the magazine; behind-the-scenes information on certain iconic contributions, like Auden’s gobblefest or Nelson Barr’s flowery prose and poems. What if…? Well, shit, that would be one Mad Motherfucker of a publication and I would buy it in a second. I can dream, can’t I? But for now, there is RealityStudio and a quickie version of the Mad Motherfucker issue. Coitus interruptus, for sure, but at least you can get your tip wet and your appetite for more whetted.

Fuck You, A Magazine of the Arts

Number 5, Volume 8

Fuck You / A Magazine of the Arts #5 Volume 8
Cover

Fuck You / A Magazine of the Arts #5 Volume 8
Interior Cover

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Title Page

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Talk of the Town

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Talk of the Town

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Lawrence Ferlinghetti, “To Fuck Is To Love Again”

Fuck You / A Magazine of the Arts #5 Volume 8
Lawrence Ferlinghetti, “To Fuck Is To Love Again”

Fuck You / A Magazine of the Arts #5 Volume 8
Lawrence Ferlinghetti, “To Fuck Is To Love Again”

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Lawrence Ferlinghetti, “To Fuck Is To Love Again”

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Lawrence Ferlinghetti, “To Fuck Is To Love Again”

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Michael McClure, “Poisoned Wheat”

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Michael McClure, Letter to Ed Sanders

Fuck You / A Magazine of the Arts #5 Volume 8
Michael McClure, Cutout Cards

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Michael McClure, Cutout Cards

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Michael McClure, Cutout Cards

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Leroi Jones, “Words from the Right Wing”

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Leroi Jones, “Western Front”

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Ed Sanders, “From the Gobble Gang Poems”

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Ed Sanders, “From the Gobble Gang Poems”

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Ed Sanders, “From the Gobble Gang Poems”

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Ted Berrigan, “Four Sonnets from The Sonnets”

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Ted Berrigan, “Four Sonnets from The Sonnets”

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Ted Berrigan, “Four Sonnets from The Sonnets”

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Ted Berrigan, “Four Sonnets from The Sonnets”

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Ronnie Tavel, “Friends of Gerard Malanga”

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Vincent Ferrini, Poems

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Vincent Ferrini, Poems

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Vincent Ferrini, Poems

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Vincent Ferrini, Poems

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Vincent Ferrini, Poems

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Vincent Ferrini, Poems

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Vincent Ferrini, Poems

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Harry Fainlight, “Street”

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Gregory Corso, “At the Big A”

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Gregory Corso, “At the Big A”

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Claude Pélieu, “Four Shriek Pages from Liquidation of Stocks”

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Claude Pélieu, “Four Shriek Pages from Liquidation of Stocks”

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Claude Pélieu, “Four Shriek Pages from Liquidation of Stocks”

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Claude Pélieu, “Four Shriek Pages from Liquidation of Stocks”

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Al Fowler, Poem

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Al Fowler, Poem

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Al Fowler, Poem

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Elise Cowan, Poem

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Elise Cowan, Poem

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Elise Cowan, Poem

Fuck You / A Magazine of the Arts #5 Volume 8
John Keys, “The Relationships”

Fuck You / A Magazine of the Arts #5 Volume 8
Robert Kaye, Poem

Fuck You / A Magazine of the Arts #5 Volume 8
Robert Kaye, Poem

Fuck You / A Magazine of the Arts #5 Volume 8
Robert Kaye, Poem

Fuck You / A Magazine of the Arts #5 Volume 8
John Francis Putnam, “Mythology”

Fuck You / A Magazine of the Arts #5 Volume 8
John Francis Putnam, “Freebie Peek at Remaindered Girlie Mags” and “All Saints Day”

Fuck You / A Magazine of the Arts #5 Volume 8
Carol Berge, “Thank You”

Fuck You / A Magazine of the Arts #5 Volume 8
Carol Berge, “Thank You”

Fuck You / A Magazine of the Arts #5 Volume 8
Carol Berge, “Thank You”

Fuck You / A Magazine of the Arts #5 Volume 8
Bill Fritsch, Poem

Fuck You / A Magazine of the Arts #5 Volume 8
Al Katzman, “Directions I”

Fuck You / A Magazine of the Arts #5 Volume 8
Al Katzman, “The Bloodletting”

Fuck You / A Magazine of the Arts #5 Volume 8
Gerard Malanga, “In the Pores of His Forehead the Hairline Had Weakened”

Fuck You / A Magazine of the Arts #5 Volume 8
Gerard Malanga, “Some Thoughts on Jean Shrimpton”

Fuck You / A Magazine of the Arts #5 Volume 8
Gerard Malanga, “Charles Olson Amid the White Trees”

Fuck You / A Magazine of the Arts #5 Volume 8
Nancy Ellison, “That Which Comes into the World to Disturb Nothing Deserves Neither Respect Nor Patience”

Fuck You / A Magazine of the Arts #5 Volume 8
Nancy Ellison, “That Which Comes into the World to Disturb Nothing Deserves Neither Respect Nor Patience”

Fuck You / A Magazine of the Arts #5 Volume 8
Nelson Barr, “Guernica”

Fuck You / A Magazine of the Arts #5 Volume 8
Notes on Contributors

Fuck You / A Magazine of the Arts #5 Volume 8
Notes on Contributors

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