While working at the Lewis Meyer bookstore on 37th and Peoria in 1959, Ron Padgett had an idea. Taken with the work of the era’s literary giants and New York-based “little mags” like the Evergreen Review, Padgett, barely 17 and still a junior at Central High School, decided that he would start his own avant-garde lit journal. He and his best friend Dick Gallup would be co-editors.
By high school, they were hanging out at Lewis Meyer Bookstore so often that Meyer offered Padgett a job. In addition to introducing the boys to a slew of edgy, contemporary authors, the store owner gave Padgett his first glimpse of what would lay the foundation for his concept: those avant-garde journals like Evergreen, Yugen, and Semina that contained short-form work from the same Beat and Black Mountain writers he was then devouring.
With two enthusiastic editors, the ambitious concept was becoming a reality. The next step was to recruit art editors. Padgett recruited classmate Joe Brainard as the journal’s art editor. They then invited Michael Marsh, a classical pianist who introduced the growing team to the work of Debussy and Capote, to be Brainard’s co-editor.
They called their magazine the White Dove Review, an homage to Evergreen, which featured on the cover of its sixth issue a striking black and white photograph of a young Asian woman holding a white dove. To fund its publication, they enlisted the help of Padgett’s mother, who donated $20 of the first issue’s $90 production cost. To typeset the journal, they borrowed the state-of-the-art IBM Presidential from their good friend and fellow classmate George Kaiser, who, Padgett said, “provided moral support for the magazine.”
They had their own poems, their own artwork, their own typewriter, and their own start-up funds. But then the White Dove editorial board took a bold step. Padgett and Gallup decided to fill the White Dove’s pages with the work they solicited from their heroes.
“Dick and I made a list of the living writers we were excited by,” Padgett explained. “Kerouac, Ginsberg, e.e. cummings, Malcolm Cowley, Paul Blackburn, etc. Then we wrote to them, care of their publishers, asking—begging, really—them for material. Our letter was rather immature, but in it we did confess to being in high school.”
According to Padgett, “a surprising number of writers responded” to the solicitations, and with the submitted work he and Gallup were able to choose what best fit their vision. The crown jewel of the premiere issue is Jack Kerouac’s “The Thrashing Doves,” a poem submitted by the Beat godfather as a knowing salute to the Review’s avian imagery:
“The thrashing doves in the dark, white fear,
my eyes reflect that liquidly
and I no understand Buddha-fear?
awakener’s fear? So I give warnings
‘bout midnight round about midnight
“And tell all the children the little otay
story of magic, multiple madness, maya
otay, magic trees- sitters and little girl
bitters, and littlest lil brothers
in crib made of clay (blue in the moon).
“For the doves.”
[excerpted from Joshua Kline’s essay on The White Dove Review]
1. THE WHITE DOVE REVIEW, Vol. 1, No. 1, edited by Ron Padgett, Richard Gallup, Joe Brainard, and Michael Marsh
Tulsa: White Dove Review, 1959
First edition, saddle-stapled in printed and illustrated wrappers, 5.5” x 8.5”, 16 pages.
- Contents:
- Clarence Major – “In”
Clarence Major – “A Protest Against the Wooden Average Man”
Ron Padgett – “Bartok in Autumn”
Paul Blackburn – “Winter Solstice”
Vernon Scannell – “Killing Flies”
John Kennedy – “Portrait of Barbara”
Joe Brainard – “Portrait”
Michael Marsh – “Opel Thorpe”
Bob Martholic – “Portrait”
Jack Kerouac – “The Thrashing Doves”
Simon Perchik – “Cape Canaveral”
Kitasono Katue – “A Black Chapel”
- Clarence Major – “In”
2. WHITE DOVE REVIEW, Vol. 1, No. 2, edited by Ron Padgett, Richard Gallup, Joe Brainard, and Michael Marsh
Tulsa: The White Dove Review, 1959
First edition, saddle-stapled in printed and illustrated wrappers, 5.5” x 8.5”, 16 pages. Cover design by Michael Marsh.
- Contents:
- Ron Loewinsohn – “The Scent of the Rose”
LeRoi Jones – “For Hettie”
Ted Berrigan – [untitled] “Seven thousand feet over…”
Ted Berrigan – [untitled] “One green schoolboy…”
Marsha Meredith – “Street Light in the Snow”
Wes Whittlesey – “Notes from the Village”
Stephen Stepanchev – “Dinner for Two”
Stephen Stepanchev – “Tenement Fire”
William A. King – “Blackbird”
Nyla Joe – “Boy and the Grasshopper”
John Kennedy – “Flower”
Paul England – “Nude”
Simon Perchik – “Children Picking Clams”
Martin Tucker – “Graffiti Station”
Martin Tucker – “Private Domain”
Paul Blackburn – “Redhead”
Fielding Dawson – “Manhatten Crackup 2”
Clarence Major – “The Act of Love”
- Ron Loewinsohn – “The Scent of the Rose”
3. WHITE DOVE REVIEW, Vol. 1, No. 3, edited by Ron Padgett, Joe Brainard, and Betty Kennedy
Tulsa: The White Dove Review, 1959
First edition, saddle-stapled in photo-illustrated wrappers, 5.5” x 8.5”, 20 pages. Cover photograph of Chrissie Bartholic by John Kennedy.
- Contents:
- Allen Ginsberg – “My Sad Self”
David Meltzer – “1: from The Desciple”
David Meltzer – “I Believe”
David Meltzer – “Satori”
David Meltzer – “Look Down & Watch”
David Meltzer – “For the Poet: VII”
Ron Loewinsohn – “Trees/1”
Ron Loewinsohn – “Trees/2”
Ron Loewinsohn – “Trees/3”
Judson Crews – “An Unspecial Mirth”
Judson Crews – “Spots of Lone West”
Peter Orlovsky – [untitled] “A death scream…”
Peter Orlovsky – [untitled] “A cherry splits…”
Jack Kerouac – “To Allen Ginsberg”
Jack Kerouac – [untitled] “Jazz killed itself…”
O.W. Crane – “Synthesis”
Johnny Arthur – “Drawings”
O.W. Crane – “Silver Birds”
Carl Larsen – “Crap and Cauliflower”
Idell Romero – “Mash Note”
Idell Romero – “My Sullen Art”
David Winegar – “Haiku”
Charles Shaw – “Conversation Piece”
Charles Shaw – “Invisible Spectator”
Clarence Major – “Poem for William Carlos Williams”
Ron Padgett – “Poem for Chrissie”
- Allen Ginsberg – “My Sad Self”
4. WHITE DOVE REVIEW, Vol. 2, No. 4, edited by Ron Padgett, Joe Brainard, and Betty Kennedy
Tulsa: The White Dove Review, 1960
First edition, saddle-stapled in photo-illustrated wrappers, 5.5” x 8.5”, 16 pages. Cover design by Joe Brainard.
- Contents:
- David Omer Bearden – “Walking at Evening”
David Omer Bearden – “Poem for Martin Edward Cochran”
David Rafael Wang – “Drinking Song (for William Carlos William)”
Rozana Webb – “Home Town”
Sue Abbott Boyd – “Of Related Themes”
Gilbert Sorrentino – “Memorial Day (for Elsene)”
Jean Arsenault – “Singing Cool”
Ron Padgett – “One Will Forget (for Carolyn)”
Ron Padgett – “Before I Said (for Carolyn)”
Jack E Lorts – “Poem for Her”
Harold Briggs – “Tell me Mr. Teller”
Paul England – “Graphics”
Fielding Dawson – “Massachusetts Breakdown 1”
Ted Berrigan – “A Wish”
Ted Berrigan – “For Teresa Mitchell”
- David Omer Bearden – “Walking at Evening”
5. WHITE DOVE REVIEW, Vol. 2, No. 5, edited by Ron Padgett, Joe Brainard, and Betty Kennedy
Tulsa: The White Dove Review, 1960
First edition, saddle-stapled in photo-illustrated wrappers, 5.5” x 8.5”, 24 pages. Cover by Joe Brainard.
- Contents:
- Ted Berrigan – “Song”
Jack Anderson – “The Gift”
David Omer Bearden – “The Most Ancient Law”
David Omer Bearden – “Another has come to the Silver Mirror”
Richard Dokey – “Baptism”
Richard Gallup – [untitled] “Lonliness is red…”
Joe Brainard – untitled drawings
Carl Larsen – “An Age of Winter”
C. Cleburne Culin – “Lambeth Field”
LeRoi Jones – “Ostriches & Grandmothers”
Dan Teis – untitled illustrations
Dan Teis – “Art as Expression”
Dan Teis – “Art as Communion”
Gilbert Sorrentino – “Hello Again”
Martin Edward Cochran – “Song for April”
Martin Edward Cochran – “White on White”
Martin Edward Cochran – “August 1958”
Martin Edward Cochran – “Joy for a Pumpkin”
Robert Creeley – “A Token”
Ron Padgett – “Another Poem for P.”
Ron Padgett – “A Pansy Told Me that Poetry Is”
Ron Padgett – “The Pastel Pansy of Her Wide Eyes”
Ron Padgett – “Poem for P.”
Ron Padgett – “6th Street Noon”
- Ted Berrigan – “Song”
Online Resources:
Granary Books – The White Dove Review
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