The Censored Review

A one-off publication produced on the occasion of a decision to censor poems written by Ted Berrigan and David Bearden that had previously been accepted for the spring issue of The Columbia Review, edited by Jonathan Cott and Mitchell Hall. The editors resigned in protest, and the contents of the issue were published as The Censored Review under the imprint of The Good Taste Press in April 1963.

Berrigan and Padgett designed the cover, which was the immediate precursor to C: A Journal of Poetry, whose first issue came out the  following month. Given the cloud of scandal and censorship that
accompanied The Censored Review, the 800 copies printed were  quickly distributed on the Columbia University campus and immediately sold out.


THE CENSORED REVIEW, edited by Ron Padgett
New York: The Good Taste Press, April 1963
First edition, corner-stapled in printed cover, 8.5″ x 14″, 20 leaves printed recto only, mimeograph printed.

  • Contents:
    1. Noble Brainard – “Free Speech”
      Jonathan Cott and Mitchell Hall – “Preface 4-17-1963”
      Dick Gallup – “Ember Grease”
      Jonathan Cott – “Old Whore”
      Philip Lopate – “Eli’s Story”
      Nancy Ward – “Jacob and the Angel”
      Ron Padgett – “Gasteropods, Faint!”
      Ted Berrigan – “I Was Born Standing Up, for Carol Clifford”

Note: Noble Brainard is a pseudonym for Ted Berrigan and Ron Padgett.


Online Resources

· From a Secret Location – C Press