Tag Archives: Anselm Hollo

Locus Solus

“L’écriteau bref qui s’offre à l’oeil apitoyé”
– Roussel

The first generation of New York School poets took their first shot at editing their own magazine in Locus Solus, a title that marks a private space both in its meaning (solitary place) and its derivation. It alludes to a 1914 novel of the same title by Raymond Roussel, the obscure French author whose work provided a secret meeting ground for the New York School poets. The idea for the magazine originated with Harry Mathews and John Ashbery, both living in France at the time. Mathews was able to provide funding through a recent inheritance, but otherwise his interest in the magazine was principally devoted to seeing installments of his novel The Conversions published in the first three issues, though the final issue (No. 5, 1962) also contains his poem “The Ring” and his translation of a portion of Roussel’s Locus Solus. Ashbery provided editorial leadership by assembling a “Double Issue of New Poetry” (numbers 3-4, winter 1962) and recruiting James Schuyler and Kenneth Koch to edit other issues. Koch’s “Special Collaborations Issue” (No. 2, summer 1961) remains a significant reference point for the practice that has become a defining feature of New York School poetry. Schuyler’s issues, the first and last (No. 1, winter 1961; No. 5, 1962), are miscellaneous but nevertheless formed by a deliberate intention to represent a group identity as Schuyler conceived it. In soliciting a contribution from his longtime friend Chester Kallman (1921–75), whose work appeared in the final issue, Schuyler explained that “part of the unstated objective” of Locus Solus was to offer “a riposte at The New American Poetry [1960], which has so thoroughly misrepresented so many of us” (it did not represent Kallman at all).

As a correction or supplement to The New American Poetry, 1945-1960, the most important contributions of Locus Solus are the re-introduction of Edwin Denby (represented in the first issue by nine sonnets from Mediterranean Cities [1956]) and the forecasting of Ashbery’s “experimental” turn in poems later collected in The Tennis Court Oath (1962; “The New Realism,” Locus Solus, Nos. 3–4) and Rivers and Mountains (1966; “Into the Dusk-Charged Air,” Locus Solus, No. 5). The poets’ work in prose is also represented in Schuyler’s “Current Events” (Locus Solus, No. 1); an early installment of the collaborative novel by Schuyler and Ashbery, A Nest of Ninnies (Locus Solus, No. 2); and Denby’s memoir “The Thirties” (Locus Solus, No. 5). The representation of the first-generation New York School poets in Locus Solus is completed with work by Kenward Elmslie, Barbara Guest, Koch, and Frank O’hara. The second generation begins to emerge with names that were to become prominent (Bill Berkson, Ted Berrigan, Joseph Ceravolo, John Perreault) and some others who had connected with Koch and O’Hara through their workshops at the New School (Jean Boudin, Allan Kaplan, Ruth Krauss). Another workshop student, Michael Benedikt (1935-2007), though not usually associated with the New York School, made his closest connection in the context of Locus Solus, assuming the title of managing editor for the final issue.

Although handsomely printed on fine paper, Locus Solus was not illustrated. It included writing by various authors with ties to the visual arts that were so important to New York School poetry. Fairfield Porter (and his wife, Anne), Robert Dash (a painter friend of the Porters), Musa McKim (the wife of Philip Guston), Larry Rivers, and Harold Rosenberg all contributed poems. Rudolph Burckhardt published Love in Three Acts: A Swiss Play (Locus Solus, No. 1). Using the form of a play, Jane Freilicher and Koch assigned lines to various parts of “The Car” (Locus Solus, No. 2) in a demonstration of collaboration on several levels. In the final issue, poems by Gerard Malanga and Piero Heliczer (1937-1993) signal the Andy Warhol circle that would expand throughout the coming decade to take in many New York School poets.

–Diggory, Terence. “Locus Solus” Encyclopedia of the New York School Poets. 2009

1. LOCUS SOLUS, No. 1, edited by James Schuyler
Lans-en-Vercors: Locus Solus, Winter 1960-1961

First edition, sewn-signatures bound into printed wrappers, 5” x 7”, 168 pages. There were 100 special copies printed in a limited numbered issue. Printed by Imprenta Graficas Miramar, Palma de Mallorca, Spain.

Contents:
1. Kenneth Koch – “On the Go”
  Kenneth Koch – “The Circus”
  Kenneth Koch – “The Railway Stationery”
  Barbara Guest – “Afternoons I: The Location of Things”
  Barbara Guest – “Afternoons II: Windy Afternoon”
  Barbara Guest – “Afternoons III: Russians at the Beach”
  Barbara Guest – “Melisande”
  Barbara Guest – “River Side”
  Barbara Guest – “Palm Trees”
  Barbara Guest – “All Grey-Haired My Sisters”
  James Schuyler – “Current Events”
  Anne Porter – “The First of May”
  Ebbe Borregaard – “Other stories of the beauty wapiti”
  Ebbe Borregaard – “wapiti 3”
  Ebbe Borregaard – “from Sprach””
  John Ashbery – “Idaho”
  John Ashbery – “Spring Twilight”
  John Ashbery – “Thoughts of a Young Girl”
  John Ashbery – “The Passive Preacher”
  John Ashbery – “Winter”
  John Ashbery – “A White Paper”
  Harry Mathews – “The Conversions (I)”
  Frank O’Hara – “Poem” [“To be idiomatic in a vacuum…”]
  Frank O’Hara – “Overlooking the River”
  Frank O’Hara – “East River”
  Frank O’Hara – “Ducal Days”
  Frank O’Hara – “Locarno, to James Schuyler”
  Frank O’Hara – “The Opera”
  Frank O’Hara – “House”
  Frank O’Hara – “Failures of Spring”
  Frank O’Hara – “Adieu to Norman, Bonjour to Joan and Jean-Paul”
  Frank O’Hara – “Far from the Porte des Lilas and the Rue Pergolese, to Joan Mitchell”
  Edwin Denby – “from Mediterranean Cities: Trastevere A Dedication”
  Edwin Denby – “from Mediterranean Cities: Venice”
  Edwin Denby – “from Mediterranean Cities: Villa D’este”
  Edwin Denby – “from Mediterranean Cities: Olévano Romano”
  Edwin Denby – “from Mediterranean Cities: Sant’ Angelo D’ischia”
  Edwin Denby – “from Mediterranean Cities: Positano”
  Edwin Denby – “from Mediterranean Cities: Delos”
  Edwin Denby – “from Mediterranean Cities: Mykonos”
  Edwin Denby – “from Mediterranean Cities: Ciampino Envoi”
  Robin Blaser – “Cups”
  George Montgomery – “The Painters”
  George Montgomery – “The Poet”
  George Montgomery – “Rocks under me are hard”
  George Montgomery – “D.W.”
  Rudy Burckhardt – “Love in Three Acts: a Swiss Play”
  Fairfield Porter – “The Mountain”
  Fairfield Porter – “To Laurence”
  Fairfield Porter – “At the End of Summer”
  Fairfield Porter – “When the morning train…”

2. LOCUS SOLUS, No. 2, A SPECIAL ISSUE OF COLLABORATIONS, edited by Kenneth Koch
Lans-en-Vercors: Locus Solus, Summer 1961

First edition, sewn-signatures bound into printed wrappers, 5” x 7.25”, 208 pages. There were 50 special copies printed in a limited numbered issue. Printed by Atar S.A., Geneva.

Contents:
1. John Ashbery – “To a Waterfowl”
  Five Chinese Poets – “A Garland of Roses” (translated by Donald Keene)
  Sei Shonagon and The Empress Sadako – “Poem about Saisho” (translated by Arthur Waley)
  Basho, Bonsho, Fumikuni and Kyorai – “The Kite’s Feathers” (translated by The Nippon Gkujutsu Shinkokai)
  Kakei, Basho – “November” (translated by Donald Keene)
  Basho, Ichiei, Sora and Sensui – “Gather Seawards” (translated by Donald Keene)
  Sogi, Shohaku and Socno – “Three Poets at Minase” (translated by Donald Keene)
  Blacatz and Vidal – “Tenso” (translated by Paul Blackburn)
  Vidal and Lanza – “Tenso” (translated by Paul Blackburn)
  Aragon, Salvatge, Foix and Auriac – “Coblas” (translated by Paul Blackburn)
  John Fletcher and William Shakespeare – “Song”
  John Donne and Henry Goodyere – “A Letter”
  Abraham Cowley and Richard Crashaw – “On Hope”
  John Suckling and Edmund Waller – “In Answer of Sir John Suckling’s Verses”
  Thomas Chatterton – “Onn Oure Ladies Chyrche”
  Thomas Chatterton – “The Account of W. Canynges Feast”
  Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey – “Two Passages from ‘Joan of Arc'”
  Marinetti, Cangiullo – “Public Garden: A Play” (translated by Kenneth Koch)
  André Breton and Paul Eluard – “from The Immaculate Conception” (translated by John Ashbery)
  Paul Eluard and Benjamin Peret – “Surrealist Proverbs” (translated by Kenneth Koch)
  André Breton and Yves Tanguy – “Question and Answer Game” (translated by Kenneth Koch)
  Paul Eluard and Others – “Cadavres Exquis” (translated by Kenneth Koch)
  René Char and Paul Eluard – “New” (translated by John Ashbery)
  René Char and Paul Eluard – “Landings” (translated by John Ashbery)
  James McAuley and Harold Stewart – “Boult to Marina”
  James McAuley and Harold Stewart – “Sybilline”
  John Ashbery and James Schuyler – “A Nest of Ninnies”
  Frank O’Hara – “Choses Passageres”
  Joseph Ceravolo and John Perreault – “Milk”
  Daniel Krakauer – “The Jack Who Yawned”
  Michael Benedikt and Milton Gilman – “Under the Stones, Where it is Shy”
  Jane Freilicher and Kenneth Koch – “The Car”
  Bill Berkson and Kenward Elmslie – “Armagnac or The Visitor”
  William Burroughs and Gregory Corso – “Everywhere March Your Head”
  William Burroughs and Gregory Corso – “Sons of Your In”
  Gregory Corso – “Cut Up”
  Ruth Krauss – “News”
  Ruth Krauss – [untitled] “compare thee…”
  John Ashbery and Kenneth Koch – “The Young Collectors”
  John Ashbery and Kenneth Koch – “Crone Rhapsody”
  John Ashbery and Kenneth Koch – “The Inferno”
  John Ashbery and Kenneth Koch – “Gottlieb’s Rainbow”
  John Ashbery and Kenneth Koch – “New Year’s Eve”
  John Ashbery and Kenneth Koch – “A Servant to Servants”
  Harry Mathews – “The Conversions (II)”
  Kenneth Koch – “A Note on this Issue”

3. LOCUS SOLUS, Nos. 3-4, NEW POETRY, edited by John Ashbery
Lans-en-Vercors: Locus Solus, Winter 1961-1962

First edition, sewn-signatures bound into printed wrappers, 5” x 7.25”, 296 pages. Printed by Atar S.A., Geneva.

Contents:
1. Michael Benedikt – “Victoria Falls”
  Michael Benedikt – “The Estate”
  Michael Benedikt – “In the Park”
  Michael Benedikt – “Traditions of Farming”
  Leroi Jones – “A Long Poem for Myself”
  Leroi Jones – “Style”
  Leroi Jones – “The End of Man is His Beauty”
  Leroi Jones – “A Poem for Myself, the Fool”
  Daniel Krakauer – “Selestina”
  Daniel Krakauer – “Prince Valiant’s Childhood”
  Bill Berkson – “Four Great Songs”
  Bill Berkson – “Warnings”
  Bill Berkson – “A Hot Day”
  Bill Berkson – “Poem, to Joe Lesueur”
  Bill Berkson – “Breath”
  Bill Berkson – “All You Want”
  Bill Berkson – “Pollyanna”
  Welton Smith – “If I Could Hold You for Light”
  Welton Smith – “This Sojourn in the Middle of Summer”
  Larry Rivers – “The Song of Polish Night”
  Larry Rivers – “1953”
  Larry Rivers – “The Month”
  Larry Rivers – “An Ape is in the Bedroom”
  Larry Rivers – “Only God Can Make a Tree”
  Larry Rivers – “Benjamin F”
  Robin Blaser – “The Park”
  Diane Di Prima – “Moon Mattress”
  Dennis Quinn – “from Life Shapes, Clock and Vein”
  Dennis Quinn – “from Life Shapes, Candles”
  Dennis Quinn – “from Life Shapes, You”
  Dennis Quinn – “from Life Shapes, Wish”
  Dennis Quinn – “Question”
  Dennis Quinn – “Off Guam”
  Dennis Quinn – “High”
  Dennis Quinn – “In Tangier”
  Alan Ansen – “Moonling”
  Alan Ansen – “Prohibition”
  Alan Ansen – “On and On and On”
  Robert Lax – [untitled] “the port…”
  Robert Lax – [untitled] “shadows…”
  Robert Lax – [untitled] “mystery of water…”
  Robert Lax – [untitled] “to the center…”
  Jean Boudin – “Second Story Brownstone”
  Jean Boudin – “Of the Nile”
  Frank O’Hara – “How to Get There”
  Frank O’Hara – “Favorite Painting in the Metropolitan”
  Frank O’Hara – “Wind”
  Frank O’Hara and Bill Berkson – “from The Memorandums of Angelicus Fobb”
  Frank O’Hara and Bill Berkson – “FYI 6/26/61 (The Picnic Hour)”
  George Stanley – “The Death of Orpheus”
  George Stanley – “Moonlight”
  Paul Carroll – “Postcard for Joseph Cornell”
  Denis Roche – [untitled] “As a matter of fact…” (translate by John Ashbery)
  Marcelin Pleynet – “of coal” (translated by John Ashbery)
  Marcelin Pleynet – “the new republic” (translated by John Ashbery)
  Marcelin Pleynet – “Black” (translated by John Ashbery)
  Pierre Martory – “Evenings in Rochefort” (translated by John Ashbery)
  Pierre Martory – “Tchat”
  Joseph Ceravolo – “A Great Sadness”
  Joseph Ceravolo – “The Climb”
  Joseph Ceravolo – “The Forest”
  Joseph Ceravolo – “Different Fragments of 2 Different Negro Poems”
  Joseph Ceravolo – “Water: How Weather Feels the Cotton Hotels”
  Musa McKim – “The News from Here”
  Musa McKim – “A Theory”
  Musa McKim – “The Train”
  Allan Kaplan – “Memory in France”
  Allan Kaplan – “Soliloquy of a Boat”
  Allan Kaplan – “Traffic Signals…”
  Hugh Amory – “from The Federalists”
  Daisy Aldan – “Zina”
  Kenward Elmslie – “Shirley Temple Surrounded by Lions”
  Kenward Elmslie – “Solar Rebus”
  Kenward Elmslie – “Ghandi”
  Kenward Elmslie – “Experts at Veneers”
  James Schuyler – “December”
  Gerard Malanga – “Psyche”
  James Koller – [untitled] “crouched in mothers musk…”
  James Merrill – “Letter from Egypt”
  David Ball – “A Recent Conversation”
  John Ashbery – “The New Realism”
  Furman Stout – “Prose Poem for Clara”
  Landis Everson – “from The Little Ghosts I Played With”
  John Perreault – “Circles”
  John Perreault – “O Whatta Beautiful Polish City So Shiny Aluminum”
  John Perreault – “Paris”
  Barbara Guest – “Dardanella”
  Barbara Guest – “His Jungle”
  Barbara Guest and Sa’Di Koylan – “Turkish”
  Anselm Hollo – “Text 9.iii. 1961”
  Kenneth Koch – “Ma Provence”
  Kenneth Koch – “Rialto”
  Kenneth Koch – “The Steam Bath”
  Kenneth Koch – “The Coat License”
  Kenneth Koch – “How Fair”
  Kenneth Koch – “Bon Dieu”
  Kenneth Koch – “The Echo”
  Jack Foss – “The Categorical Avoidance”
  Robert Magowan – “Summer of 1958”
  Robert Magowan – “Myra”
  Thomas Jackrell – “Grandma”
  Thomas Jackrell – “A Plan”
  Thomas Jackrell – “Art Finally Safe”
  Thomas Jackrell – “The River”
  Thomas Jackrell – “from Green Book: Cactuscope”
  Thomas Jackrell – “from Green Book”
  Thomas Jackrell – “The South Central States of America”
  Harry Mathews – “The Conversions (III)”

5. LOCUS SOLUS, No. 5, edited by James Schuyler
Lans-en-Vercors: Locus Solus, 1962

First edition, sewn-signatures bound into printed wrappers, 5” x 7.25”, 184 pages. Printed by Atar S.A., Geneva.

Contents:
1. Gerard Malanga – “Ode to Turchetti”
  Gerard Malanga – “The Girl Stands Under the Mobile at the Museum”
  Gerard Malanga – “Amour, Amour, Amour”
  Harold Rosenberg – “Ballad of Moral Beauty”
  Chester Kallman – “Wanderer”
  Chester Kallman – “Weighty Questions”
  Edwin Denby – “The Thirties”
  Frank O’Hara – “Mary Desti’s Ass”
  Frank O’Hara – “Madrid”
  Frank O’Hara – “Poem” (“Twin spheres full of fur and noise…”
  Frank O’Hara – “Blue Territory, to Helen Frankenthaler”
  Frank O’Hara – “Lebanon”
  Ted Berrigan – “Poem in the Traditional Manner”
  Carl Morse – “First Snow: Yorkville and Elsewhere”
  Carl Morse – “The Crisis: Tompkins Park and After”
  Carl Morse – “Anchor Demolition: East 82nd Street”
  Musa Guston – “On Your Birthday”
  Musa Guston – “Brooklyns”
  Piero Heliczer – “The Beautiful Ambush”
  Piero Heliczer – “The Diving Bell”
  Anselm Hollo – “A Letter, Both Intimate and Didactic”
  Thomas Anhava – “Elegy for Night” (translated by Anselm Hollo)
  Frank Lissauer – “Repercussion”
  Frank Lissauer – “Towards Silence”
  Frank Lissauer – “A Proposition”
  John Ashbery – “Into the Dusk-Charged Air”
  Harold Rosenberg – “Liberalism and Conservatism–and Literature”
  Kenward Elmslie – “Cave in”
  Kenward Elmslie – “Marbled Chuckle in the Savannahs”
  Kenward Elmslie – “Circus Nerves and Worries”
  Barbara Guest – “Candies”
  Donna Kerness – “Insomnia VI”
  John Wieners – “The Acts of Youth”
  John Wieners – “The Mermaid’s Song”
  John Wieners – “An Anniversary of Death”
  Richard Elliott – “9 Elaborations for 26 Characters”
  Harry Mathews – “The Ring”
  Jean Boudin – “Politics”
  Robert Harson – “Lacrimae”
  John N. Morris – “Reno”
  Daisy Aldan – “Facility phrases”
  Edwin Denby – “Snoring in New York: an elegy”
  Raymond Roussel – “Locus Solus (I)” (translated by Harry Mathews)
  Michael Cain – “Lovepoetry”
  Robert Dash – “Mémoires d’autres”
  Kenneth Koch – “The Islands”
  Kenneth Koch – “The Departure from Hydra”
  Tony Whedon – “Sounds”
  Charles Edward Eaton – “Chimera”
  Charles Edward Eaton – “Unlikely Legend”
  David Beckwith – “Point”
  David Beckwith – “Abendslied”
  Michael Benedikt – “Sunlight on the Terrace”
  Michael Benedikt – “With Love”
  Michael Benedikt – “Island Life”
  James Schuyler – “April and its Forsythia”
  James Schuyler – “Grand Duo”
  James Schuyler – “Looking Forward to See Jane Real Soon”
  Mary Caroline Richards – “Holy Poems: Prayers”

Online Resources:

· Reality Studio – Locus Solus
· Georgia Tech: Curating the New York School – Locus Solus

Ted Berrigan – Collaborations

>> return to Ted Berrigan main page >>

SECTION B:
This index includes collaborations by Ted Berrigan with other writers and artists.

1. Berrigan, Ted, Joe Brainard, and Ron Padgett. SOME THINGS
First edition:
New York: privately printed, 1963
Loose sheets in plain unprinted paper folder, 100 copies, signed by all three contributors on the title page, mimeograph printed. Illustrations by Joe Brainard.

2. Berrigan, Ted, and Ron Padgett. SEVENTEEN
First edition:
New York: privately printed, 1964
Side-stapled with printed cover, 8.5” x 11”, 48 copies, mimeograph printed. Plays by Ron Padgett and Ted Berrigan, individually and collaboratively.

3. Berrigan, Ted, and Ron Padgett. NOH
First edition:
New York: Lines Press, 1965
Broadside, 8″ x 13″, 50 numbered and signed copies. Published as Linesheet 1.

4. Berrigan, Ted, and Joe Brainard. LIVING WITH CHRIS
First edition:
New York: Boke Press, 1965
Side-stapled with illustrated cover, 8.5” x 11”, mimeograph printed.

Note: Chris refers to Christina Gallup, the daughter of Dick and Carol Gallup, for whom Ted was babysitting when he wrote this poem.

5. Berrigan, Ted, and Ron Padgett. BEAN SPASMS
a. First edition, paperbound issue
New York: Kulchur Press, 1967
Sewn signatures bound in illustrated wrappers, 7.5″ x 10″, 202 pages, 1000 copies. Illustrations and Drawings by Joe Brainard.

b. First edition, hardcover issue
New York: Kulchur Press, 1967
Hardcover in illustrated paper bound boards, 7.5″ x 10″, 202 copies. Illustrations and Drawings by Joe Brainard.

6. Berrigan, Ted, and George Schneeman. NO HELP WANTED
First edition:
New York: n.p., 1967
Broadside, 35” x 23”, 20 copies numbered and signed by poet and artist, silkscreen printed.

7. Berrigan, Ted, and George Schneeman. 10 THINGS I DO EVERY DAY
First edition:
New York: n.p., 1967
Broadside, 35” x 23”, 20 copies numbered and signed by poet and artist, silkscreen printed.

8. Berrigan, Ted, and George Schneeman. HOUSE IN THE COUNTRY
First edition:
New York: n.p., 1967
Broadside, 35” x 23”, 20 copies numbered and signed by poet and artist, silkscreen printed.

9. Berrigan, Ted, and Anselm Hollo. DOUBLETALK
First edition:
Iowa City: Privately published, 1969
Wrappers, 240 signed copies, letterpress printed by T.G. Miller.

10. Berrigan, Ted, and Anne Waldman. MEMORIAL DAY
a. First edition:
New York: Poetry Project, St. Mark’s Church In-the-Bowery, 1971

b. Second printing:
London: Aloes Books, 1974

11. Berrigan, Ted, Tom Clark, and Ron Padgett. BACK IN BOSTON AGAIN
New York: Telegraph Books, 1972

12. Berrigan, Ted, and Joe Brainard. THE DRUNKEN BOAT
New York: Adventures In Poetry, 1974

13. Berrigan, Ted, and Robert Creeley. THINK OF ANYTHING
n.p.: Hard Press, 1977

14. Berrigan, Ted, and Harris Schiff. YO-YO’S WITH MONEY
Henniker, NH: United Artists Books, 1979

13. Berrigan, Ted, and George Schneeman. IN THE NAM WHAT CAN HAPPEN?
New York: Granary Books, 1997

little magazines

Cleft, Edinburgh University

July 25, 2022 jason

CLEFT, Vol. 1, No. 1, edited by Bill McArthur. Edinburgh, June 1963

Bill McArthur studied drawing and painting at Edinburgh College of Art, then took a degree in Fine Art at Edinburgh University. At Edinburgh he became known as an illustrator and cartoonist in the student press, and editor of the student magazines Gambit and Cleft.

>> further reading >>

Cleft

Following his involvement in Gambit, McArthur went on to edit Cleft magazine from 1963 to 1964. With an irreverent sweep he downplayed the very function of small magazine in the first issue’s editorial:

” The field of the small literary magazine is, generally speaking, one of sequestered obscurity. It emanates a wilful negation of commercial contact; an opting out of the monetary contract. Drabness of intention and presentation characterize the production. Little attempt is made at communication and they tend to reflect, to a crippling extent, the particular predilections of the current editor. This opting out of the commercial aspect of magazine production has a useful side-kick in that it ensures the brevity of their existence. As a medium of communication they are of doubtful value.”

While McArthur’s prophecy may have been fatefully correct in certain respects, as the magazine itself was only to survive two issues, the publication was certainly anything but drab. The first issue contained contributions from a range of international writers including Norman Mailer, Eugene Ionesco, William Burroughs, Andrei Voznesensky, Anselm Hollo, and Louis Zukofsky. The second issue once again contained work by Burroughs and Mailer, as well as the first two paragraphs from the Noigandres Group’s Pilot Plan for Concrete Poetry.

1. CLEFT, Vol. 1, No. 1, edited by Bill McArthur
Edinburgh: Cleft, June 1963
First edition, saddle-stapled in printed and photo-illustrated wrappers, 7” x 9.5”, 36 pages.

Contents:
1. Kenneth White – “The Real Climate”
  Norman Mailer – “Four Poems”
  Eugene Ionesco – “The Motor Show”
  William Burroughs – “Martin’s Folly”
  Giles Gordon – “The Milkman”
  Andrei Vosnesensky (trans by Edwin Morgan) – “Three Poems”
  Hugh MacDiarmid – “The Poet We Hope For”
  Astrid Gillis – “Same Rain”
  Anselm Hollo – “The Seventh Lady”
  Iain Inglis – “The Sook”
  Alex Neish – “Leaving for Buenos Aires”
  L. Zukofsky – “Poem 29 (1938), from Anew”

2. CLEFT, Vol. 1, No. 2, edited by Bill McArthur
Edinburgh: Cleft, May 1964
First edition, saddle-stapled in printed and photo-illustrated wrappers, 7” x 9.5”, 32 pages.

Contents:
1. Henry Miller – “O Lake of Light”
  William Burroughs – “A Distant Hand Lifted”
  Norman Mailer – “Greasing the Radar”
  Norman Mailer – “A Study of Cancer”
  Robert Garioch – “At Robert Fergusson’s Grave”
  Mike McClure – “Ghost Tantra 50”
  Anselm Hollo – “Mucho Malo”
  Anselm Hollo – “The Bees”
  Keith Howell – “Washington Square”
  Gary Snyder – “The Old Dutch Woman”
  Edwin Morgan – “Breath of Corruption”
  Edwin Morgan – “Chinese Cat”
  Edwin Morgan – “Siesta of a Hungarian Snake”
  Ian Hamilton Finlay – “The Practice”
  Jonathan Williams – “The Wreck on the A222…”
  Jonathan Williams – “Besides Buttercups”
  Andrei Vosnesensky (trans. by Edwin Morgan) – “Earth”
  Kenneth White – “Ten Thousand Yellow Buds”
  Alex Neish – “The Loneliness of it All”

Online Resources:

Reality Studio – Cleft

References Consulted:

Clements, Marshall. A Catalog Of Works By Michael Mcclure, 1956-1965
New York: The Phoenix Book Shop, 1965

Maynard, Joe and Barry Miles. William S. Burroughs: A Bibliography, 1953-73
Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1978

little magazines

My Own Mag

December 18, 2021 jason

My Own Mag was produced by Jeff Nuttall, a larger than life figure in the history of the British counterculture, who edited it while working as a secondary school art teacher. Many prominent underground, Beat and related writers of a usually modest reputation, but not always, contributed to it. These included Anselm Hollo, Alan Brownjohn, Charles Plymell, Jim Haynes, William Wantling, Douglas Blazek, Bill Butler, Carl Weissner, Claude Pélieu, Criton Tomazos, Robert Creeley, and Allen Ginsberg.

>> further reading >>

My Own Mag

My Own Mag was produced by Jeff Nuttall, a larger than life figure in the history of the British counterculture, who edited it while working as a secondary school art teacher. Many prominent underground, Beat and related writers of a usually modest reputation, but not always, contributed to it. These included Anselm Hollo, Alan Brownjohn, Charles Plymell, Jim Haynes, William Wantling, Doug Blazek, Bill Butler, Carl Weissner, Claude Pélieu, Criton Tomazos, Robert Creeley, and Allen Ginsberg.

William S. Burroughs was the most prolific and important of these contributors, the publication is a rich treasure trove of his writings and thoughts on art, society, sexuality, deviance, literature and drugs. It is astonishing and laudable that Burroughs was publishing his most cutting edge work in a scruffy little zine that was self published and edited by a schoolteacher when he was a feted and notorious writer at the height of his fame after publishing Naked Lunch in 1959. My Own Mag was a ‘sandbox’ for Burroughs to play in and experiment with, primarily by publishing his own meta or sub-zines such as ‘The Moving Times’ and ‘The Burrough’. The first appearance of the former was in No. 5 the ‘Special Tangier Edition’, the front cover depicts a naively line-drawn Burroughs in a fez, smoking a cigarette. The free-for-all ethos of My Own Mag allowed Burroughs to introduce his cut ups directly into the text in a facsimile format, as with the 32 grid cut up manuscript entitled “Warning Warning Warning Warning Warning” in No. 5. My Own Mag was also where he began his long-lasting and fruitful collaborations with the aforementioned Claude Pélieu and Carl Weissner.

1. MY OWN MAG, No. 1, edited by Jeff Nuttall
Barnet: Homosap Inc, November 1963

First edition, side-stapled in printed and illustrated cover sheet, 8” x 13”, 4 pages, mimeograph printed.

Contributors: Jeff Nuttall, Keith Musgrove.

Note: according to Iain Sinclair Books, list 28, this issue was duplicated by “the French Teacher” at Nuttall’s school: Bob Cobbing.

2. MY OWN MAG, No. 2, edited by Jeff Nuttall
Barnet: Homosap Inc, December 1963

First edition, side-stapled in printed and illustrated cover sheet, 8” x 13”, 4 pages, 50 copies, mimeograph printed.

Contributors: Jeff Nuttall, Anselm Hollo, William S. Burroughs [“From H. B. William S. Burroughs” (M&M C93) (BS C57)].

3. MY OWN MAG, No. 3, edited by Jeff Nuttall
Barnet: Homosap Inc, February 1964

First edition, side-stapled in printed and illustrated cover sheet, 8” x 13”, 6 pages, mimeograph printed.

Contributors: Jeff Nuttall, Anselm Hollo, Keith Musgrove, Ray Gosling.

4. MY OWN MAG, No. 4, edited by Jeff Nuttall
Barnet: Homosap, March 1964

First edition, side-stapled in printed and illustrated cover sheet, 8” x 13”, 8 pages plus insert, mimeograph printed.

Contributors: Jeff Nuttall, William S. Burroughs [“Warning Warning Warning Warning Warning Warning Warning Warning Warning” (M&M C94) (BS C84)], Alan Brownjohn, Anselm Hollo, John MacCarthy, Peter Currell Brown.

5. MY OWN MAG, No. 5, edited by Jeff Nuttall
Barnet: Homosap Inc, May 1964

First edition, side-stapled in printed and illustrated cover sheet, 8” x 13”, 8 pages, mimeograph printed. Published as the Tangiers Special Issue.

Contributors: Jeff Nuttall, William S. Burroughs [“The Moving Times” [No. 1] (M&M C100 [see also M&M C232]) (BS C81, C85)].

Note: The Moving Times [No. 1] is a broadsheet edited by Burroughs, appearing as pages 3 and 4 of My Own Mag, No. 5, and containing three columns: “February 10, 1964. ‘We Will Travel Not Only in Space But in Time As Well.’”, “January 17, 1947. English Made Easy for Beginners. It Revolves Flexible Formula.”, “September 17, 1899. Last Gun Post Erased in a Small Town Newspaper, September 17, 1899.”

6. MY OWN MAG, No. 6, edited by Jeff Nuttall
Barnet: Homosap Inc, July 1964
First edition, side-stapled in printed and illustrated cover sheet, 8” x 13”, 10 pages, mimeograph printed.

Contributors: Keith Musgrove, Jeff Nuttall, Islwyn Watkins, Bob Knapp, Geoffrey Hyman, Ray Gosling, Anselm Hollo, B.S. Johnson, Bartholomew & Wilcox, John McCarthy, Peter Currell Brown, John Rowan, William S. Burroughs [“The Burrough” [No. 1] (M&M C95) (BS C67, C86)].

Note: The Burrough [No. 1] is a broadsheet edited by Burroughs, appearing as pages 3 and 4 of My Own Mag, No. 6, and containing “Afternoon Ticker Tape”.

7. MY OWN MAG, No. 7, edited by Jeff Nuttall
Barnet: Homosap Inc, July 1964

First edition, side-stapled in printed and illustrated cover sheet, 8” x 13”, 8 pages, mimeograph printed.

Contributors: Jeff Nuttall, Joanna, John Lowton, Peter Scott, Alden Van Buskirk, William S. Burroughs [“Bring Your Problems to Lady Sutton Fix”, “The Moving Times” [No. 2]
(M&M C97, C98) (BS C82, C87).

Note: The Moving Times [No. 2] is a broadsheet edited by Burroughs, appearing as pages 7 and 8 of My Own Mag, No. 7, and containing “Over the Last Skyscrapers a Silent Kite”.

8. MY OWN MAG, No. 8, edited by Jeff Nuttall
Barnet: Homosap Inc, August 1964

First edition, side-stapled in printed and illustrated cover sheet, 8” x 13”, 10 pages, mimeograph printed. Published as the Edinburgh Festival special.

Contributors: Jeff Nuttall, Alexander Trocchi, Bill Butler, Alden Van Buskirk, Malcolm Bandtock, E.J. Moore, Tom McGrath, Dennis J. Winnie, William S. Burroughs [“The Burrough” [No. 2]
(M&M C99) (BS C68, C88)].

Note: The Burrough [No. 2] is a broadsheet edited by Burroughs, appearing as pages 9 and 10 of My Own Mag, No. 8, and containing “What in Horton Hotel Rue Vernet…”.

9. MY OWN MAG, No. 9, edited by Jeff Nuttall
Barnet: Homosap Inc, November 1964

First edition, top-stapled in illustrated cover sheet, 8” x 13”, 12 pages, mimeograph printed. Published as the Special Post-Election issue.

Contributors: Jeff Nuttall, Arthur Moyse, Pete Barry, Dick Wilcocks, Joanna, Allen Ginsberg, Robert Creeley, Alden Van Buskirk, Tom McGrath, Pete Barry, Dennis J. Winnie, John Latham, William S. Burroughs [“The Moving Times” [No. 3] (M&M C101, C102) (BS C83, C89)].

Note: The Moving Times [No. 3] is a broadsheet edited by Burroughs, appearing as pages 11 and 12 of My Own Mag, No. 9, and containing “Extracts from Letter to Homosap”, “Personals Special to The Moving Times”.

10. MY OWN MAG, No. 10, edited by Jeff Nuttall
Barnet: My Own Mag, December 1964

First edition, side-stapled in illustrated cover sheet, 8” x 13”, 10 pages, mimeograph printed. Published as the All British Number.

Contributors: Jeff Nuttall, Tonk, Tom McGrath, Dick Wilcocks, Lionel Kearns, Bill Butler, Bob Knapp, Gary Lundberg, Joanna, Dave Cunliffe, Pete Barry.

11. MY OWN MAG, No. 11, edited by Jeff Nuttall
Barnet: My Own Mag, February 1965

First edition, side-stapled in printed and illustrated cover sheet, 8” x 13”, 12 pages plus insert, mimeograph printed.

Contributors: Jeff Nuttall, Dick Wilcocks, Tonk, Anselm Hollo, Michael McClure, William S. Burroughs [“Item that appeared in the Sunday Times…”, “The Moving Times” [No. 4] (M&M C105-C108) (BS C110, C113)].

Note: The Moving Times [No. 4] is a broadsheet edited by Burroughs, appearing as pages 13 and 14 of My Own Mag, No. 11, and containing “Tomorrow’s News Today, December 28”, “December 29, Tuesday Was the Last Day for Singing Years”.

12. MY OWN MAG, No. 12, edited by Jeff Nuttall
Barnet: My Own Mag, May 1965

First edition, top-stapled in printed and illustrated cover sheet, 8” x 13”, 14 pages plus inserts, mimeograph printed.

Contributors: Jeff Nuttall, Peter Currell Brown, Carl Weissner, Anthony Edkins, Tony Nuttall, Martin Bax, Dave Rogers, William S. Burroughs [“The Last Words of Dutch Schultz, Found and Transcripted with Intersection Points Underlined”, “The Apomorphine Times” [No. 1] (M&M C112, C113) (BS C96, C114)].

Note: The Apomorphine Times, [No. 1] is a broadsheet edited by Burroughs, appearing as pages 17 and 18 of My Own Mag, No. 12, and containing “Letter to Sunday Times”.

13. MY OWN MAG, No. 13, edited by Jeff Nuttall
Barnet: My Own Mag, August 1965

First edition, side-stapled in printed and illustrated cover sheet, 9” x 11.5”, 14 pages, 500 numbered copies, mimeograph printed. Published as the Dutch Schultz Special issue.

Contributors: Jeff Nuttall, Andrew Lloyd, Donatella Manganotti, George Dowden, George MacBeth, Cavan McCarthy, Miles, John Moore, Keith Musgrove, Phil Cohen, Carl Weissner, William S. Burroughs [“The Dead Star” (M&M C122) (BS C115)].

Note: prints facsimile of Burroughs’ three-column layout manuscript.

14. MY OWN MAG, No. 14, edited by Jeff Nuttall
Barnet: Jeff Nuttall, December 1965

First edition, side-stapled in printed and illustrated cover sheet, 8” x 13”, 12 pages plus cover booklet, mimeograph printed.

Contributors: Jeff Nuttall, Brian Patten, Lea Klaus, Mike Kustow, Peter Currell Brown, Islwyn Watkins, Carl Weissner, Tom McGrath, Charles Plymell, Bill Butler, Charles Marowitz, Cole, Tonk, Phil Cohen, Dick Wilcocks, John Keys, William S. Burroughs [“The Moving Times” [No. 6]
(M&M C131) (BS C112, C116)]

Note: The Moving Times [No. 6] is a broadsheet edited by Burroughs, appearing as pages 22-24 of My Own Mag, No. 14, and containing material by Carl Weissner.

15. MY OWN MAG, No. 15, edited by Jeff Nuttall
Barnet: My Own Mag, April 1966

First edition, side-stapled in printed and illustrated cover sheet, 8” x 13”, 20 pages, mimeograph printed.

Contributors: Jeff Nuttall, Bill Butler, John Moore, J.J. Crodforel, Roger Kettle, Nick Snow, John Keys, Renee Mion, William S. Burroughs [“The Moving Times” [No. 7] (M&M C137-C140) (BS C141-C142)], Claude Pelieu.

Note: The Moving Times [No. 7] is a broadsheet edited by Burroughs, appearing as pages 9-14 of My Own Mag, No. 15, and containing “Nut Note on the Column Cutup Thing”, “WB Talking”, “Quantities of the Gas Girls”, [untitled] “There I Was in the Corpse Finger…”.

16. MY OWN MAG, No. 16, edited by Jeff Nuttall
Barnet: My Own Mag, May 1966

First edition, side-stapled in printed and illustrated cover sheet, 8” x 13”, 8 pages plus insert, mimeograph printed.

Contributors: Jeff Nuttall, Bernard Marzalek, Carl Weissner.

17. MY OWN MAG, No. 17, edited by Jeff Nuttall
Barnet: My Own Mag, September 1966

First edition, top-stapled in printed and illustrated cover sheet, 8” x 13”, 20 pages, mimeograph printed.

Contributors: Jeff Nuttall, Bernard Marzalek, Carl Weissner, Dan Georgakas, Jim Haynes, Morgan Gibson, Phil Cohen, Eli Wiegal, Klaus Lea, Steve M. Ryan, Dick Wilcocks, Douglas Blazek, George Dowden, Renee Mion, Claude Pelieu, William Wantling.

References consulted:

Maynard, Joe and Barry Miles. William S. Burroughs: A Bibliography, 1953-73: Unlocking Inspector Lee’s Word Hoard
Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1978. (ref. M&M)

Schottlaender, Brian E. C. Anything But Routine: A Selectively Annotated Bibliography of William S. Burroughs
San Diego: UC San Diego Libraries, 2012 (ref. BS)

Online resources:

· Reality Studio – My Own Mag
· Schottlaender Bibliography

Pocket Poets Series

>> return to CITY LIGHTS main page >>

This index collects the books published as part of The Pocket Poets Series

1. Ferlinghetti, Lawrence. PICTURES OF THE GONE WORLD
a. First edition, regular copies:
San Francisco: City Lights Pocket Bookshop, November 1955
Saddle-stapled in printed wrappers with printed wrap-around label tipped on, 5″ x 6″, 44 pages, 500 copies, letterpress printed by David Ruff. Published as The Pocket Poets Series, No. 1.
(Cook 1)

b. First edition, hardcover copies:
San Francisco: City Lights Pocket Bookshop, 1955
Hardcover in cloth-bound boards with printed label tipped on, 5.25″ x 6.25″, 44 pages, 25 copies, letterpress printed by David Ruff, bound by the Cardoza bindery. Published as The Pocket Poets Series, No. 1.
(Cook 1)

Note: from the rear cover: “Pictures of the Gone World is the first volume in the Pocket Poets Series, in which it is planned to make available, in inexpensive form, work by such well known poets as e.e. cummings, Kenneth Patchen, Kenneth Rexroth, and William Carlos Williams, as well as poetry by younger less known writers who are also doing significant work in the modern idiom, whether it be ‘in the American grain’ or against it.”

2. Rexroth, Kenneth (translator). THIRTY SPANISH POEMS OF LOVE AND EXILE
a. First edition, regular copies:
San Francisco: City Lights Pocket Bookshop, 1956
Saddle-stapled in printed wrappers with printed wrap-around label tipped on, 4.75″ x 6″, 40 pages, 950 copies, letterpress printed. Designed by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Published as The Pocket Poets Series, No 2.
(Cook 2)

b. First edition, hardcover copies:
San Francisco: City Lights Pocket Bookshop, 1956
Hardcover in cloth-bound boards with printed label tipped on, 5″ x 6.25″, 40 pages, 50 numbered and signed copies, letterpress printed. Designed by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Published as The Pocket Poets Series, No 2.
(Cook 2)

3. Patchen, Kenneth. POEMS OF HUMOR & PROTEST
a. First edition, regular copies:
San Francisco: City Lights Pocket Bookshop, July 1956
Saddle-stapled in printed wrappers with printed wrap-around label tipped on, 5″ x 6″, 48 pages, 1000 copies, letterpress printed by Villiers Publications in London. Published as The Pocket Poets Series, No. 3
(Cook 3)

b. First edition, hardcover copies:
San Francisco: City Lights Pocket Bookshop, 1956
Hardcover in cloth-bound boards with printed label tipped on, 5.25″ x 6.25″, 48 pages, 25 copies, letterpress printed by Villiers Publications in London, bound by the Cardoza Bindery. Published as The Pocket Poets Series, No. 3
(Cook 3)

Note: this collection gathers 32 short poems from seven of Patchen’s earlier books, published during the 1940s and early 1950s.

4. Ginsberg, Allen. HOWL AND OTHER POEMS
First edition:
San Francisco: City Lights Pocket Bookshop, October 1956
Saddle-stapled in printed wrappers with printed wrap-around label tipped on, 5″ x 6″, 44 pages, 1000 copies, letterpress printed at Villiers Publications in London. Published as The Pocket Poets Series, No. 4
(Cook 4)

Note: The first printing lists Lucien Carr’s name on the dedication page. Later printings do not list his name, removed at his request. The hand-pasted wraparound paper label is only present on the first and second printings.

Ginsberg first read part of the poem at the Six Gallery reading on October 7, 1955. The second printing of Howl and Other Poems was seized by the U.S. Customs Office and shortly afterwards Ferlinghetti and Shigeyoshi Murao, manager of City Lights Bookshop, were arrested for selling and publishing obscene literature. Defended by the ACLU, the case was highly publicized and covered by established publications such as Time and Life, adding to the attention of this small press and Howl. Judge Clayton Horn found the book to be not obscene and this landmark decision helped launch City Lights and Ginsberg’s poems into the public arena.

5. Ponsot, Marie. TRUE MINDS
First edition:
San Francisco: City Lights Pocket Bookshop, January 1957
Saddle-stapled in printed wrappers with printed wrap-around label tipped on, 5″ x 6″, 32 pages, 500 copies, letterpress printed at Villiers Publications in London. Published as The Pocket Poets Series, No. 5
(Cook 5)

Note: the title of this collection of love poems was taken from Shakespeare’s 116th Sonnet. It would be 24 years later when she would publish her second volume of poems and borrow the title from the next line of the sonnet: “Avoid Impediment”.

6. Levertov, Denise. HERE AND NOW
First edition:
San Francisco: City Lights Pocket Bookshop, January 1957
Saddle-stapled in printed wrappers with printed wrap-around label tipped on, 5″ x 6″, 32 pages, 500 copies, letterpress printed at Villiers Publications in London. Published as The Pocket Poets Series, No. 6
(Cook 6)

7. Williams, William Carlos. KORA IN HELL: IMPROVISATIONS
First edition:
San Francisco: City Lights Books, August 1957
Sewn and bound in printed wrappers, 5″ x 6.25″, 84 pages, 1500 copies, letterpress printed at Villiers Publications in London. Published as The Pocket Poets Series, No. 7
(Cook 7)

Note: from the rear cover: “William Carlos Williams, at 74, has some claim to be called Poet Laureate of America, being the author of almost forty books, and having won most of the important poetry awards in this country. He is a man known for his enthusiasms, a constant defender of poets and poetry.”

8. Corso, Gregory. GASOLINE
First edition:
San Francisco: City Lights Books, February 1958
Perfect-bound in printed wrappers, 5″ x 6.25″, 48 pages, 1500 copies, letterpress printed by the Pinchpenny Press in Berkeley. Introduction by Allen Ginsberg. Published as The Pocket Poets Series, No. 8
(Cook 8)

9. Prévert, Jacques. SELECTIONS FROM PAROLES
First edition:
San Francisco: City Lights Books, July 1958
Sewn and bound in printed wrappers, 5″ x 6.5″, 72 pages, 1500 copies, letterpress printed at Villiers Publications in London. Published as The Pocket Poets Series, No. 9
(Cook 10)

Note: from the rear cover: “In the years immediately following World War II, Jacques Prévert spoke more directly to and for the French who had come of age under the Occupation than any other contemporary poet, if enormous success of Paroles is any indication. First published in 1946, it was almost immediately reprinted, and by 1952 there were 200,000 copies in print.”

10. Duncan, Robert. SELECTED POEMS
First edition:
San Francisco: City Lights Books, January 1959
Saddle-stapled in printed wrappers, 5″ x 6.25″, 80 pages, 1500 copies, letterpress printed at Villiers Publications in London. Published as The Pocket Poets Series, No. 10
(Cook 14)

Note: Selected Poems gathers poems written between 1942 and 1950. From the publisher’s statement: “In making this selection from his first four books, together with certain other poems of the same period, Duncan feels he has given his work as a whole a focus that amounts to a new definition of his poetic intent.”

11. Rothenberg, Jerome (translator). NEW YOUNG GERMAN POETS
First edition:
San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1959
Published as The Pocket Poets Series, No. 11
(Cook 16)

Note: This collection, edited and translated by Jerome Rothenberg, introduces ten German poets who were born between the First World War and the first years of the Nazi rise to power. The collection includes the first English appearances of Paul Celan, Ingeborg Bachmann and Gunter Grass.

12. Parra, Nicanor. ANTI-POEMS
First edition:
San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1960
Published as The Pocket Poets Series, No. 12

Note: These poems are taken from Parra’s Poemas y Antipoemas originally published in 1954. This is the first appearance in English, translated by painter and critic Jorge Elliott.

13. Patchen, Kenneth. THE LOVE POEMS OF KENNETH PATCHEN
San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1961
Published as The Pocket Poets Series, No. 13

14. Ginsberg, Allen. KADDISH AND OTHER POEMS
San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1961
Published as The Pocket Poets Series, No. 14

Note: This is the long anticipated volume of poems following the highly successful Howl and Other Poems. It presents the long title poem on the death of his mother and fifteen other poems. Kaddish is the name of the Hebrew prayer for the dead.

15. Nichols, Robert. SLOW NEWSREEL OF MAN RIDING TRAIN
San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1962
Published as The Pocket Poets Series, No. 15

16. Hollo, Anselm (translator). RED CATS
San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1962
Published as The Pocket Poets Series, No. 16

Note: In his introduction Hollo writes, “In the middle 50’s a number of Soviet writers started what became known as ‘The Thaw’: a movement towards freedom and personal literary and critical expression…” Yevgeni Yevtushenko and Andrei Voznesensky were in their twenties at the time Red Cats was published.

17. Lowry, Malcolm. SELECTED POEMS OF MALCOLM LOWRY
San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1962
Published as The Pocket Poets Series, No. 17

Note: from the back cover: “This is the first comprehensive collection of Lowry’s poetry, including most of those strange Mexican verses closely related to his novel, Under the Volcano.
Edited by Lowry’s good friend, Earle Birney, with the assistance of the author’s widow, this book brings into perspective the many poems from various periods which have appeared in magazines, as well as others never before published.”

18. Ginsberg, Allen. REALITY SANDWICHES, 1953-1960
San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1963
Published as The Pocket Poets Series, No. 18

Note: Reality Sandwiches collects poems written by Ginsberg between 1953 and 1960, thus presenting his early work prior to his groundbreaking poem Howl in 1956

19. O’Hara, Frank. LUNCH POEMS
San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1964
Published as The Pocket Poets Series, No. 19

20. Lamantia, Philip. SELECTED POEMS, 1943-1966
San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1967
Published as The Pocket Poets Series, No. 20

Note: this volume collects poems of his youth, travels and time in San Francisco: Revelations of a Surreal Youth (1943-1945), Trance Ports (1948-1961), and Secret Freedom (1963-1966).

21. Kaufman, Bob. GOLDEN SARDINE
San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1967
Published as The Pocket Poets Series, No. 21

22. Pommy-Vega, Janine. POEMS TO FERNANDO
San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1968
Published as The Pocket Poets Series, No. 22

23. Ginsberg, Allen. PLANET NEWS, 1961-1967
San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1968
Published as The Pocket Poets Series, No. 23

24. Upton, Charles. PANIC GRASS
San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1968
Published as The Pocket Poets Series, No. 24

25. Picasso, Pablo. HUNK OF SKIN
San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1968
Published as The Pocket Poets Series, No. 25

26. Bly, Robert. THE TEETH-MOTHER NAKED AT LAST
San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1970
Published as The Pocket Poets Series, No. 26

27. di Prima, Diane. REVOLUTIONARY LETTERS
San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1971
Published as The Pocket Poets Series, No. 27

Note: Revolutionary Letters was published in a number of earlier versions by underground presses. The first City Lights edition collects letters 1-43 and other poems. Later printings include additional letters.

28. Kerouac, Jack. SCATTERED POEMS
San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1971
Published as The Pocket Poets Series, No. 28

Note: Scattered Poems is a collection of poems published posthumously and compiled by Ann Charters, one of Kerouac’s earliest biographers. The poems included were written as early as 1945. The cover is a reproduction of a photograph of Kerouac
taken by William S. Burroughs in Tangier in 1957.

29. Voznesensky, Andri. DOGALYPSE: SAN FRANCISCO POETRY READING
San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1972
Published as The Pocket Poets Series, No. 29

30. Ginsberg, Allen. THE FALL OF AMERICA: POEMS OF THESE STATES, 1965-1971
San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1972
Published as The Pocket Poets Series, No. 30

Note: this collection continues Ginsberg’s chronicle of travels across America. He dedicates the volume to Whitman and includes on the dedication page a long quote from Whitman’s Democratic Vistas,
1871. Barry Miles, Ginsberg’s biographer, relates that Ginsberg was living near Kenneth Patchen on Telegraph Hill. Patchen introduced Ginsberg to the Dos Passos translation of Blaise Cendrars’ Trans-Siberian Voyage, which served as a model for Ginsberg’s travelogue-style work, The Fall of America.

31. Winslow, Pete. A DAISY IN THE MEMORY OF A SHARK
San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1973
Published as The Pocket Poets Series, No. 31

32. Norse, Harold. HOTEL NIRVANA
San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1974
Published as The Pocket Poets Series, No. 32

33. Waldman, Anne. FAST SPEAKING WOMAN
San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1975
Published as The Pocket Poets Series, No. 33

34. Hirschman, Jack. LYRIPOL
San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1976
Published as The Pocket Poets Series, No. 34

35. Ginsberg, Allen. MIND BREATHS: POEMS 1972-1977
San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1977
Published as The Pocket Poets Series, No. 35

Note: This collection presents poems written by Ginsberg from 1972 to 1977. Ginsberg dedicated this volume to Chögyum Trungpa, the poet and philosopher who named Ginsberg the “Lion of Dharma” in 1972.

36. Brecht, Stefan. POEMS
San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1978
Published as The Pocket Poets Series, No. 36

Note: A collection of poems by the son of German playwright and poet Bertolt Brecht . It was privately published two years earlier by the poet. The cover photograph is by Arthur Tress.

37. Orlovsky, Peter. CLEAN ASSHOLE POEMS & SMILING VEGETABLE SONGS
San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1978
Published as The Pocket Poets Series, No. 37

38. Antler [Brad Burdick]. FACTORY
San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1980
Published as The Pocket Poets Series, No. 38

39. Lamantia, Philip. BECOMING VISIBLE
San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1981
Published as The Pocket Poets Series, No. 39

40. Ginsberg, Allen. PLUTONIAN ODE: POEMS 1977-1980
San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1982
Published as The Pocket Poets Series, No. 40

41. Pasolini, Pier Paolo. ROMAN POEMS
San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1986
Published as The Pocket Poets Series, No. 41

42. NINE DUTCH POETS
San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1982
Published as The Pocket Poets Series, No. 42

43. Cardenal, Ernesto. FROM NICARAGUA WITH LOVE
San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1986
Published as The Pocket Poets Series, No. 43

44. Porta, Antonio. KISSES FROM ANOTHER DREAM
San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1987
Published as The Pocket Poets Series, No. 44

45. Cornford, Adam. ANIMATIONS
San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1988
Published as The Pocket Poets Series, No. 45

46. LaLoca [Pamala Karol]. ADVENTURES ON THE ISLE OF ADOLESCENCE
San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1989
Published as The Pocket Poets Series, No. 46

47. Mayakovsky, Vladimir. LISTEN
San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1991
Published as The Pocket Poets Series, No. 47

48. Kerouac, Jack. POEMS ALL SIZES
San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1992
Published as The Pocket Poets Series, No. 48

49. Zamora, Daisy. RIVERBED OF MEMORY
San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1992
Published as The Pocket Poets Series, No. 49

50. Murillo, Rosario. ANGEL IN THE DELUGE
San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1993
Published as The Pocket Poets Series, No. 50

51. Kerouac, Jack. SCRIPTURES OF THE GOLDEN ETERNITY
San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1994
Published as The Pocket Poets Series, No. 51

52. Blanco, Alberto. DAWN OF THE SENSES
San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1995
Published as The Pocket Poets Series, No. 52

53. Cortázar, Julio. SAVE TWILIGHT
San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1997
Published as The Pocket Poets Series, No. 53

54. Campana, Dino. ORPHIC SONGS
San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1998
Published as The Pocket Poets Series, No. 54

55. Hirschman, Jack. FRONT LINES
San Francisco: City Lights Books, 2002
Published as The Pocket Poets Series, No. 55

56. Mehmedinovic, Semezdin. NINE ALEXANDRIAS
San Francisco: City Lights Books, 2003
Published as The Pocket Poets Series, No. 56

Matrix Press

>> return to PIERO HELICZER main page >>

[note: this Booktryst essay has been excerpted for clarity of topic.]

A Checklist of Matrix Press (London 1961-4)
by Alastair Johnston

Tom Raworth started Matrix Press in 1961. His first book was a tiny edition of poems by Pete Brown. He then issued three numbers of a magazine called Outburst. One, in collaboration with the Finnish poet Anselm Hollo and the American Gregory Corso was Outburst: The Minicab War, a humorous salvo in the class war. Outburst became part of a network of avant-garde writers and aired the trans-Atlantic voices of Creeley, Dorn, Levertov, Fee Dawson, and Olson for the first time in Britain.

In an interview with Andy Spragg, Raworth explained his reason for starting his own press:

TR: I was following threads of people I liked in the Allen anthology [The New American Poetry, edited by Don Allen, Grove Press, 1960]… Dorn, O’Hara, Creeley, Ginsberg and so on… hard to do then in London (though Better Books and Zwemmers in Charing Cross Road were occasional sources) and I got used to having to write to the US for books. It crossed my mind that if I liked this stuff there might be a few others who would too. Around then, late 1959 early 1960, my father-in-law gave us a delayed wedding present of £100. I can’t remember how I’d got interested in letterpress printing: it might be genetic… years later I discovered my father had wanted to be a printer, and that an ancestor, Ruth Raworth, had printed one of Milton’s early books in the 17th C. Anyway, I got a small Adana press ?rst and then a larger treadle press. Offset printing was slowly taking over and letterpress equipment and type was not too expensive then. By late 1960/early 1961 I was in correspondence with Dorn, Creeley and others in the US and had met Anselm Hollo, Michael Horovitz, Pete Brown and others here. I printed the ?rst small booklet (a couple of tiny poems by Pete Brown) on the Adana. I was working then in the Euston Road, at Burroughs Wellcome, the manufacturing pharmacists, and a photographer friend there, Steve Fletcher, had a brother who was an engraver and shared a workshop just off Oxford Street with a letterpress printer. They let me move the treadle press there so they could use it for small jobs and in return I could have access whenever I wanted. I’d met, and become good friends with, David Ball and Piero Heliczer (also a letterpress printer with his Dead Language in Paris). So I did small books of Dorn, Ball and Heliczer. And two and a half issues of the magazine Outburst. I had to set two pages at a time (only enough type for that) on the ?oor at night after work, carry it into town the next day, print the pages on the press with whatever colour ink was in use, go home, sort the type back into the case and start again.

PUBLICATIONS

1. Brown, Pete. SAMPLE PACK
London: Matrix Press, 1961

According to Raworth, about 6 copies were printed. The poems were collected in Let Em Roll Kafka, Brown’s book from Fulcrum Press (London, 1969). Best-known today as the lyricist for the rock band Cream, Pete Brown was Britain’s first performance poet who earned his living giving readings. He was the first reader at the Morden Tower in Newcastle, one of the most important poetry venues in England in the 60s.

“When John Lennon was still in art college Pete was turning on Liverpool with his synthesis of Beat poetry, Bop jazz, and British humour.” — Stuart Montgomery

2. OUTBURST, No. 1, edited by Tom Raworth
London: Matrix Press, 1961

Handset by Raworth in Gill Sans, Perpetua, Times Bold, Ultra Bodoni. Printed by Richard Moore and Sons. Cover photo (& 2 more inside) by Steve Fletcher.

Contributors include Anselm Hollo, Tram Combs, Robert Creeley, Fielding Dawson, Denise Levertov, Ed Dorn, Christopher Logue, Gary Snyder, Charles Olson, Michael Horovitz, Piero Heliczer, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Pete Brown, Gregory Corso, and others.

The advertisements for other little magazines, like Migrant, Yugen and New Departures, show how closely networked the avant-garde was in the 1960s. Gael Turnbull (1928-2004) was a key figure in the literary small press movement. A Scottish doctor he started Migrant Press in 1957 and continued operating it (with a mimeograph machine) after he moved to Ventura, California. He published many of the same poets as Raworth, including Dorn, Hollo and Ian Hamilton Finlay, whose The Dancers Inherit the Party is reviewed in this issue of Outburst.

3. OUTBURST: THE MINICAB WAR
London: Matrix Press, 1961

White or blue wrappers, each page in a different color of ink. Cover photo by Steve Fletcher.

According to Raworth: “This issue was done with the hope that it might give a benevolent lift to the satirists of the Establishment, who want very much to destroy a possibly REAL revolution by making entertainment of it, and England’s future darker — The Minicab War is the Synthesis of Class War.”

Note: In June 1961 Michael Gotla of Welbeck launched a fleet of 400 minicabs on the streets of London, that carried advertising and undercut the well-established black cabs. Soon things turned nasty with hundreds of bogus phone calls to the minicab companies ordering cabs, black taxis hemming in the smaller vehicles, even vandalism as the situation escalated. In an editorial in August, under the headline “What the Public Wants,” The Times wrote: “It is fairly obvious that for many people in London finding a taxi has become too chancy and paying for it too stiff.” Minicab War contains spurious interviews with T. S. Eliot, John Betjeman, (Prime Minister) Harold MacMillan, George Barker, Bertrand Russell, Martin Bormann, & various cabbies. The perpetrators were Tom Raworth (O’Moore), Gregory Corso (De la Rue) & Anselm Hollo (Sykes). Martin Bormann was Hitler’s personal secretary. It was believed he had escaped Germany after the War and fled to South America so he remained alive in British popular culture, resurfacing on the beach in Brazil with Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs in the Sex Pistols’ movie The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle (dir: Julian Temple, 1980).

4. OUTBURST, No. 2 , edited by Tom Raworth
London: Matrix Press, 1963

Some pages printed in colored ink.

Contributors include Douglas Woolf, Paul Blackburn, Leroi Jones, Fielding Dawson, Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, Larry Eigner, Ruth Weiss, Ed Dorn, David Meltzer, Alan Sillitoe, Carol Bergé, Piero Heliczer, Paul Klee (translated by Anselm Hollo), Pentti Saarikoski (translated by Anselm Hollo), Philip Whalen, and others.

5. Heliczer, Piero. & I DREAMT I SHOT ARROWS IN MY AMAZON BRA
Brighton: Dead Language & London: Matrix Press

Cover photo by Ph Mechanicus; the image is reused from the last page of Outburst, No. 2.

According to Raworth: “Piero was living with us; he and I printed in on my treadle press which was off Oxford Street in Richard Moore’s print-shop…”

According to Alastair Johnston: “Ambitious design using the gutter as a focal point. Each page has a black bar printed in the gutter which then continues across the fold. Large condensed Gill Sans headers make striking compositions. The text is in Perpetua with Times Bold. One leaf is printed on lavender paper.”

6. Hollo, Anselm. HISTORY
London: Matrix Press, 1963

Set in Linotype Times, printed on Brookleigh Bond wove paper; price 3 shillings.

Colophon: This book has been set in Times Roman type. The two drawings are by Ken Lansdowne. Nelson is by Gregory Corso. A photograph of the cover illustration was supplied by Steve Fletcher. All blocks were made by Barry Hall. 350 copies were printed. Designed and printed by Tom Raworth

AJ: History by Anselm seems like the transitional book from matrix to goliard, since barry made the blocks. i guess you met him at this point and decided to collaborate from then on? it looks like a really light impression, or else some of it is offset, and it says typeset and printed by you, so what press were you using?

TR: It was done on my treadle press, the Adana, smaller than the later Goliard press one, which was stored at the print shop of Richard Moore, three floors up off Oxford Street where the deal was that he could use it for small jobs (his main press was a large Heidelberg). That came about because one of the other two craftsmen in the shop, the engraver (there was also a diestamper and process engraver) was the brother of my friend Steve Fletcher a photographer, who took the photo on the front of the second issue of Outburst.

7. Dorn, Edward. FROM GLOUCESTER OUT
London: Matrix Press, March 1964

Drawing by Barry Hall

From the Colophon: This book is set in Times Roman. There are 350 copies Designed and printed by Tom Raworth, Flat 3, Stanley House, Finchley Rd, London NW11 20.3.64

According to Johnston: Dorn visited England to teach at the University of Essex. He and Raworth became lifelong friends and collaborated later at Zephyrus Image, when both were living in San Francisco in the mid to late 70s.

8. Ball, David.TWO POEMS
London: Matrix Press, August 1964

Drawing by Gene Mahon. This book is set in Baskerville and Times Roman (cover title in Verona).

—

Piero Heliczer – Publications Edited, Printed, and Published

>> return to PIERO HELICZER main page >>

SECTION E:
This index includes publications edited printed, and published by Piero Heliczer and his Dead Language Press

1. Piero Heliczer and Angus MacLise. IMPRIMATUR M.CC.LXXX.I and THE COMPLETED WORKS OF ANGUS MACLISE
First edition:
White Plains: privately printed, 1957
Hand-sewn in printed and illustrated wrappers, 24 pages, letterpress printed by Piero Heliczer.

2. Om [pseud. Olivia de Haulleville]. MARIA
a. First edition, blue paper:
Paris: Dead Language Press, 1958
Broadside, 6.75″ x 15″, letterpress printed by Piero Heliczer. Contents: “Maria” [poem]
[not in archive]

b. First edition, white paper:
Paris: Dead Language Press, 1958
Broadside, 5″ x 6.5″, letterpress printed by Piero Heliczer. Contents: “Maria” [poem]

According to BeatBooks catalog #86, poem written partly in English and partly in French, probably composed in memory of the author’s maternal aunt, and wife of Aldous Huxley, Maria Nys, who died in 1955.

3. Om [pseud. Olivia de Haulleville]. LEMURS
First edition:
Paris: The Dead Language, 1958
Unbound sheets laid into printed and photo-illustrated wrappers, 11″ x 9″, 6 pages, letterpress printed by Piero Heliczer.

Note: This is the first separate edition of one of three pieces collected in A Pulp Magazine for the Dead Generation.

[scans of this item at Mimeo Mimeo]

4. [anthology] A PULP MAGAZINE FOR THE DEAD GENERATION, edited by Piero Heliczer
a. First edition, green cover:
Paris: The Dead Language Press, 1959
Three un-boud folded sheets laid into printed wrappers, letterpress printed by Piero Heliczer. Photograph of Om tipped in; this photograph is different in pose, format, and printing method than the one featured in the blue-covered issue. Contributors: Om [pseud. Olivia de Haulleville], Henk Marsman [aka J. Bernlef], Gregory Corso.

b. First edition, blue cover:
Paris: The Dead Language Press, 1959
Three un-boud folded sheets laid into printed wrappers, letterpress printed by Piero Heliczer. Photograph of Om affixed to last leaf, as issued; this photograph is different in pose, format, and printing method than the one featured in the green-covered issue. Contributors: Om [pseud. Olivia de Haulleville], Henk Marsman [aka J. Bernlef], Gregory Corso.

According to BeatBooks catalog #86, the book prints “Lemurs” by Om [pseud. Olivia de Haulleville]; five poems by Henk Marsman (the Dutch poet, Hendrik Jan Marsman, aka J. Bernlef); and four poems from The Vestal Lady on Brattle and Other Poems by Gregory Corso. Each contribution is preceded by a brief text, Corso’s probably written by Piero Heliczer, the others by the poets themselves.

5. THE DEAD LANGUAGE DIXHUIT RUE DESCARTES PARIS
First edition:
Paris: Dead Language, (c. 1959)
Flyer, 4.5″ x 8.25″, letterpress printed by Piero Heliczer.

Note: verso lists Dead Language publications, 1957-1959.

6. PURCELL FESTIVAL M.CM.L.IX
First edition:
Paris: The Dead Language, 1959
Flyer, 4.5″ x 8.25″, letterpress printed by Piero Heliczer.

Note: announces a festival “to be held in paris the second week of july to celebrate henry purcells three hundredth birthday…organised by the dead language”. Text in English and French.

According to BeatBooks catalog #86, The festival was organised by Piero Heliczer, a keen listener of English baroque, William Byrd as well as Purcell. When he visited Cambridge in early February 1960 as part of Michael Horovitz’s Live New Departures, Heliczer was presented with a viola da gamba by the musicologist and Purcell exponent, Thurston Dart, an instrument that Horovitz remembers Heliczer soon mastered.

Earlier, in June 1959, a petit scandale emerged when Peter Forbes, a British tabloid journalist, visited Heliczer in Paris after hearing of his invitations to English school girls to attend the festival, one of them sent to the headmistress of Queen Anne’s School in Caversham. Forbes’s article appeared in the Sunday Pictorial on June 7 and featured a photograph of Heliczer with Olivia de Haulleville (“A Bohemian young scamp and his girl friend”).

It claimed that Heliczer was offering “to receive groups of girls at a festival in Paris… The girls would pay their own fares, but Heliczer would provide free hotel accomodation.” Forbes added that Heliczer hoped “to get one of his girl guests to act in a play he has written. It features a headless man and a girl who appears naked standing on a tombstone”, and quotes the headmistress as initially having been “quite enthusiastic. Some of the girls had obtained their parents’ consent and were looking forward to the trip. Now, however, we shall unquestionably withdraw. I shall write to Heliczer telling him so.” The article concludes: “Other headmistresses, please copy. And Piero, please drop those crackpot capers. They will land you in real trouble one day.”

7. Haulleville, Eric de. MÉLANCHOLIA 1
First edition:
Paris: The Dead Language, (c. 1959)
Postcard, 6″ x 4″, letterpress printed by Piero Heliczer.

From the verso: “gardez ce poeme dans vos bas grace a sa preparation il les protegera des moisissures” (trans. “keep this poem in your stockings thanks to its preparation it will protect them from mold”).

According to BeatBooks catalog #86, Baron Eric de Haulleville, Olivia’s father, was a Belgian poet and writer who died in France during the second world war, shortly after his daughter’s birth.

8. Tyndall, Thomas. CITY SUMMER NIGHT
First edition:
Paris: The Dead Language, nd. (c. 1959)
Postcard, 6″ x 4″, letterpress printed by Piero Heliczer.

From the verso: “keep this poem between your sweaters because of its special properties it will protect them from moths”.

9. WHY ARE YOU LOOKING ASKANCE IM JUST TRYING TO SHOUT
a. First edition, cream-colored stock:
Paris: Dead Language, (c. 1959)
Postcard, 4″ x 6″, letterpress printed by Piero Heliczer.

b. First edition, orange-colored stock:
Paris: Dead Language, (c. 1959)
Postcard, 4″ x 6″, letterpress printed by Piero Heliczer.

Note: a publicity card printing a short text by Piero Heliczer on his private press (“the only one left which has not been absorbed by those given over to reminiscence”), and listing the titles and prices of its early publications.

10. MacLise, Angus. STRAIGHT FARTHEST BLOOD TOWARDS (OPENING SECTION)
First edition:
Paris: The Dead Language Press, 1959
Single 6.25″ x 22″ sheet folded three times to make six printed pages and a cover, 5.5″ x 6.5″, letterpress printed and with a block print cover by Piero Heliczer. Angus MacLise’s first publication.

According to BeatBooks catalog #86, it was after noticing a copy of this title in City Lights Books that La Monte Young first became aware of Angus MacLise. When the latter moved to New York in 1961 they began performing together regularly, and it was through Young that MacLise first met John Cale.

11. [anthology] WEDNESDAY PAPER, edited by Piero Heliczer and Angus MacLise
a. First edition, white cover:
New York: The Dead Language Press, (c. 1961)
Saddle-stapled in printed and illustrated wrappers, 5.5″ x 8.5″, 12 pages, offset printed. Contributors: Gregory Corso, Cyclops [Lester], Anselm Hollo, Gustav Schiele.

b. First edition, pink cover:
New York: The Dead Language Press, (c. 1961)
Saddle-stapled in printed and illustrated wrappers, 5.5″ x 8.5″, 12 pages, offset printed. Contributors: Gregory Corso, Cyclops [Lester], Anselm Hollo, Gustav Schiele. This apparent later issue adds the title to Hollo’s poem on the cover.

According to BeatBooks catalog #86, prints the poems “Song of Stations” by Anselm Hollo and “It Was the Happy Birthday of Death” by Gregory Corso (reputedly included without Corso’s permission). Also features reproductions of a sketch by Egon Schiele (with accompanying texts by him); a holograph letter from Cyclops Lester to Piero Heliczer; a ‘Woman Contest’ (“every two weeks wednesday paper will run photos of the winner and runner up of our quarter moon woman contest”); newspaper clippings; and brief ads. for the Dead Language, New Departures, and “hollands leading litry magazine”, Barbarber.

12. MacLise, Angus. YEAR, A WEDNESDAY PAPER SUPPLEMENT
First edition:
New York: The Dead Language Press, 1961
Multiple sheets tape-bound to make a single accordion fold with 12 panels, one for each of the twelve months and an entry for each day, 4.6″ x 9″ (folded), letterpress printed by Piero Heliczer. Cover illustration, “The Ascension of St. Rose of Lima”, by Aubrey Beardsley.

According to BeatBooks catalog #86, the publication prints MacLise’s renaming of every day of the year, some simply assigned a number, but most given poetic names, such as “day of the hearts blood”, “day of the two daughters”, “the shouts from the sea”, and “last day of the autumn feast”. La Monte Young used the calendar to date many of his recordings from the period, including “B-flat Dorian Blues (Fifth Day Of The Hammer)”.

[scans of this item at Brown Digital Repository]

13. Smith, Jack. THE BEAUTIFUL BOOK
a. First edition:
New York: The Dead Language Press, 1962 Saddle-stapled in printed and illustrated wrappers, 7.5″ x 9″, 20 pages, 200 copies (though it is often claimed that only sixty or so copies were ever completed), letterpress printed by Piero Heliczer. Includes 19 silver gelatin contact prints (2.25″ x 2.25″), one tipped on to each page: 19 photographs by Jack Smith, and 1 portrait of Jack Smith by Ken Jacobs. Cover art by Marian Zazeela.

b. Facsimile edition, second printing:
New York: Granary Books / Plaster Foundation, 2001
Saddle-stapled in printed and illustrated wrappers, 7.5″ x 9″, 20 pages, Includes 19 silver gelatin contact prints (2.25″ x 2.25″) made from the original negatives, one tipped on to each page: 19 photographs by Jack Smith, and 1 portrait of Jack Smith by Ken Jacobs. Cover art by Marian Zazeela.

Note: a printed sheet issued with the Granary Books / Plaster Foundation edition in 2001 stated: Noting the scarcity of this title on the rare book market and its absence from many prominent collections (not to mention the chaotic circumstances in which it was produced) it is likely that considerably fewer than 200 books were actually nished and distributed. Jack Smith, Piero Heliczer, and their associates assembled the books during the late spring and early summer of 1962 before shooting began on Smith’s seminal film Flaming Creatures (1963), one of the most notorious underground films of the 1960s, which became a test case of censorship laws.

14. FOLDING CHAIR OF THE PRINTING MASTER, A CATALOG OF ITEMS PRINTED BY THE DEAD LANGUAGE 1963
First edition:
New York: The Dead Language Press, 1963
Saddle-stapled in printed and illustrated wrappers, 4.75″ x 5″, letterpress printed by Piero Heliczer. Cover art by Aubrey Beardsley.

Note: a catalogue of Dead Language editions listing seven publications, each one including the price and pithy comments or quotes. The text ends: “make checks payable to piero heliczer”.

15. Hollo, Anselm. LOVER MAN
First edition:
New York: The Dead Language Press, (1963)
Accordion-bound sheets laid into printed and illustrated wrappers, 6.75″ x 8.75″, 12 pages, letterpress printed by Piero Heliczer. Cover art (“Le Viol”, 1934) by Rene Magritte.

According to BeatBooks catalog #86, the Folding Chair Dead Language catalog describes the publication as “a very free translation of the lemminkainen cantos of the kalevala” (a 19th century work of epic poetry compiled from Karelian and Finnish oral folklore and mythology). (©BeatBooks.com)

16. FOLDING CHAIR OF THE PRINTING MASTER, A CATALOG OF ITEMS PRINTED BY THE DEAD LANGUAGE 1963
First edition:
Paris: The Dead Language Press, 1963
Multiple sheets tape-bound to make a single accordion fold with 8 panels, 4.75″ x 5″, letterpress printed by Piero Heliczer. Cover art by Aubrey Beardsley.

Note: a catalogue of Dead Language editions listing ten publications, with The Beautiful Book, The First Battle of the Marne, and Loverman added to the seven titles listed in the earlier edition, the first two featuring quotes from Ron Rice and Fielding Dawson respectively.

[facsimile at Brown University Library digital repository]

17. [anthology] CORONA SPINARUM: SON OF WEDNESDAY PAPER, OFFICIAL JOURNAL OF THE EMPIRE OF EUROPE & THE PIERO HELICZER FAN CLUB, Vol. 1, No. 1, edited by Piero Heliczer
First edition:
Amsterdam: Piero Heliczer, October 1980
Folded and gathered unbound sheets, 5.75″ x 8.25″, 8 pages, photocopy printed.
[not in archive]

Note: prints the abstracts from the first meeting of the Imperial Council, attended by Piero, Bill Levy and Ira Cohen.

18. [anthology] DE VROUWE VAN ALLE VOLKEREN [trans. THE LADY OF ALL NATIONS], edited by Piero Heliczer
First edition:
Amsterdam: Piero Heliczer, 1981
Folded and gathered unbound sheets, 5.75″ x 8.25″, 12 pages, photocopy printed.
[not in archive]

Note: includes a map of Amsterdam with numbers encircled of places of importance, a professional horoscope reading (by Ronnie Dreyer), holy texts of Saints, and an ad for a marijuana sweepstakes.

19. [anthology] CORONA SPINARUM, No. 3, edited by Piero Heliczer
First edition:
Amsterdam: Piero Heliczer, 1981
Folded and gathered unbound sheets, 5.85″ x 8.3″, 12 pages, photocopy printed.
[not in archive]

Note: announces a poetry reading by Heliczer, and prints various texts (on Thomas Beckett, Bernadette Soubirous, Jeanne d’Arc, and Thérèse de Lisieux) in French, Dutch and English.

—

Open Space

Stan Persky began Open Space in 1964, printing 50 copies of each issue on a multilith machine (whereas J was mimeographed). Like J, and M, Open Space was a very local (North Beach) magazine whose contents seemed primarily intended for those who contributed, including: Helen Adam, Robin Blaser, Ebbe Borregaard, Richard Duerden, Harold Dull, Larry Fagin, Jess Collins, Jack Spicer and George Stanley. The magazine was also “quite spicy and a little gossipy, for instance, labeling the famed 1955 reading at the Six Gallery as ‘creamed cottage cheese.’”

1. OPEN SPACE, No. 0, A PROSPECTUS, edited by Stan Persky
San Francisco: Open Space, January 1964
First edition, corner-stapled in printed and illustrated cover, 8.5″ x 11″, 34 pages, lithography printed by Mike Kummer, lettering by Peggy Engle. Translations by Max Knight.

Contents:
1. Stan Persky – “A Proposition”
  Christian Morgenstern – “The Moonsheep”
  Jack Spicer – [untitled] “This ocean, humiliating in its disguises…”
  George Stanley – “Choir”
  anonymous – “The Constant Preaching to the Mob”
  Allen Ginsberg – “Owl”
  Richard Duerden – “A Card for the Tarot”
  anonymous – “Okeanos”

2. OPEN SPACE, No. 1, edited by Stan Persky
San Francisco: Open Space, February 1964
First edition, corner-stapled in printed and illustrated cover, 8.5″ x 11″, 50 pages, lithography printed by Mike Kummer, lettering by Peggy Engle. Collage by Graham Mackintosh.

Contents:
1. Stan Persky – “Come-On”
  Robin Blaser – “Psyche”
  Hartford Mutual – “No Possum, No Sop, No Taters”
  Jess – “Critical Dreams – I (eye)”
  Janet Thormann – “The Knight of Cups”
  Jack Spicer – “Sporting Life”
  Link – [untitled] “the insane lady…”
  Link – [untitled] “Like frozen water…”
  Lewis Ellingham – [untitled] “Rock, salt and spray, the angels…”
  James Alexander – “Amoralesay”
  George Stanley – [untitled] “You listen to the leaves, or watch the leaves…”
  Helen Adam – “Two Songs for Lewis Ellingham”
  Gregory Corso – “Mortal Infliction”
  anonymous – “Orders”

3. OPEN SPACE, Valentine Issue, edited by Stan Persky
San Francisco: Open Space, February 1964
First edition, corner-stapled in printed and illustrated cover, 8.5″ x 11″, 60 pages, lithography printed printed by Mike Kummer, lettering by Peggy Engle. Photography by Lartigue.

Contents:
1. Stan Persky – “Alibi”
  C. – “In Despair”
  C. – “The Marriage”
  Bill Roberts – “Recess”
  anonymous – “What Happened : Prelude”
  Robert Duncan – “Postscript for Open Space, January 1964”
  Robin Blaser – “The Prints”
  Robin Blaser – “Translation”
  Stan Persky – “Gourmet Cooking”
  JA – “‘The Island’ by Robert Creeley”

4. OPEN SPACE, No. 2, edited by Stan Persky
San Francisco: Open Space, February 1964
First edition, corner-stapled in printed and illustrated cover, 8.5″ x 11″, 62 pages, lithography printed by Mike Kummer. Illustration by Fran Herndon, collage by Graham Mackintosh..

Contents:
1. Cassius Clay – “I’m the King”
  Stan Persky – “Second Base”
  Jess – “Critical Dreams – II (marginal)”
  Jack Spicer – “This is Submitted to Your Valentine Contest”
  James Herndon – [untitled] “He went outside…”
  Gene Fowler – “The Time Travelers”
  Robin Blaser – [untitled] “It is essentially reluctance…”
  George Stanley – “Orion”
  Link – “Citys Would Make a Masque for Hearts”
  Link – “A Poem for Ulysses”
  Jack Spicer – [untitled] “I hear a banging on the door…”
  Robert Duncan – [untitled] “And to Her-Without-Bounds I send…”
  Richard Duerden – “Hunger”
  Jack Kerouac – “Blindness”
  Stan Persky – “A Kingdom”
  Stan Persky – “Home & Garden”

5. OPEN SPACE, No. 3, edited by Stan Persky
San Francisco: Open Space, March 1964
First edition, corner-stapled in printed and illustrated cover, 8.5″ x 11″, 52 pages, lithography printed by Mike Kummer, lettering by Peggy Engle. Cover art and illustration by Fran Herndon.

Contents:
1. Stan Persky – “Whan That Aprill With His Shoures Soote”
  James Alexander – “Love was Here, for Simon”
  Jack Spicer – [untitled] “Just because baseball is not poetry…”
  Philip Whalen – “Technicalities for Jack Spicer”
  Ron Loewinsohn – “The Fifth Circle of Hell that is not Los Angeles”
  Jack Spicer – “Predictions”
  Jaimie MacInnes – [untitled] “Lime decayed their mouths…”
  Jaimie MacInnes – [untitled] “If running stockings…”
  Jack Spicer – [untitled] “The log in the fire…”
  Jack Spicer – [untitled] “Finally the messages penetrate…”
  George Stanley – [untitled] “Dear Stan…”
  Robin Blaser – “2 of Image Nations”
  Anselm Hollo – “Air to Dream in”
  Marianne Moore – “W.S. Landor”
  Stan Persky – “The Wish”
  Joanne Kyger – [untitled] “The persimmons are falling…”
  Stan Persky – “Home & Garden”
  Jack Spicer – “Dear Ferlinghetti”

6. OPEN SPACE, No. 4, Taurus Issue, edited by Stan Persky
San Francisco: Open Space, April 1964
First edition, corner-stapled in printed and illustrated cover, 8.5″ x 11″, 66 pages, lithography printed by Mike Kummer and Lee Kummer, lettering by Peggy Engle. Illustrations by Bill Brodecky and Tom Field

Contents:
1. Stan Persky – “Horns”
  Robin Blaser – “Sophia Nichols”
  Jess – “Critical Dream – III (trial)”
  James Dickey – “The Being”
  Harold Dull – “The Fire”
  David Bromige – “The Accident”
  E.B. [Ebbe Borregaard] – “Sketches for 13 Sonnets”
  Deneen Brown – [untitled] “Gathered years…”
  Deneen Brown – [untitled] “The rectangle of heat…”
  Jack Spicer – [untitled] “Heroes eat soup like anyone else…”
  Jack Spicer – [untitled] “Smoke signals…”
  Harold Dull – “The Wild Geese”
  George [Stanley] – “From Seas Mainly”
  Thomas M. Hannon – [untitled] “The angle iron…”
  Thomas M. Hannon – “For a Friend Who is Married”
  Thomas M. Hannon – [untitled] “Last night…”
  Gary Snyder – “Out West”
  Stan [Persky] – “Adventurer”
  Jack Spicer – [untitled] “A redwood forest is not invisible…”
  Jack Spicer – [untitled] “The whorship of beauty…”
  Jess – [untitled] “Dear Jerry Reilly…”
  Stan Persky – “Home & Garden”

7. OPEN SPACE, No. 4, White Hope Issue, edited by Stan Persky
San Francisco: Open Space, May 1964
First edition, corner-stapled in printed and illustrated cover, 8.5″ x 11″, 66 pages, lithography printed. Illustration by Fran Herndon.

Contents:
1. Joanne Kyger – [untitled] “Where ever you go I am with you…”
  E.B. [Ebbe Borregaard] – “Sketches for 13 Sonnets”
  Fran Herndon – untitled illustration
  Harold Dull – “Venus and the Moon Poem”
  Deneen Brown – “for Bill Brodecky”
  E. Poe – “Ulalume”
  Bill Brodecky – [untitled] “I admit…”
  George [Stanley] – “The Lyre in the East Rising”
  George [Stanley] – “The Shepherds Verse”
  Jess – “Critical Dreams – IV (haven)”

8. OPEN SPACE, No. 5, edited by Stan Persky
San Francisco: Open Space, May 1964
First edition, corner-stapled in printed and illustrated cover, 8.5″ x 11″, 50 pages, lithography printed by Mike Kummer and Lee Kummer, lettering by Peggy Engle. Illustrations by Fran Herndon, Nemi Frost, Tom Field, Bill Wheeler, and Graham Mackintosh.

Contents:
1. Richard Duerden – “Border: The Sun Imprisoned”
  John Ashbury – “A Blessing in Disguise”
  Lewis Ellingham – [untitled] “A new log had been put on the fire…”
  Jack Spicer – [untitled] “Pull down the shade of ruin, rain verse…”
  Jack Spicer – [untitled] “If your mother’s mother had not riven, mother…”
  Jack Spicer – [untitled] “What in sight do I have…”
  Jack Spicer – [untitled] “It comes May and the summers renew themselves…”
  Graham Mackintosh – [untitled] “Like Odysseus under the ram…”
  Robert Duncan – “A New Poem, for Jack Spicer”
  Helen Adam – “Farewell Stranger”
  Jamie MacInnis – [untitled] “These are your nights…”
  Ronnie Primack – “From a line by Spicer”
  Lewis Brown – “Bartok, for Pen Lace”
  anonymous – “Book of the Boss”
  George [Stanley] – “Two Parts of a Poem”
  Jack Spicer – [untitled] “Thanatos, the death-plant in the skull…”
  Stan [Persky] – [untitled] “a man drawing the sword…”
  Stan Persky – “Home & Garden”
  Gene Fowler – “Credo”
  C.A. Swin – [untitled] “Fourth, ballad, and take roses…”
  Stan Persky – “Gemini”

9. OPEN SPACE, No. 6, edited by Stan Persky
San Francisco: Open Space, June 1964
First edition, corner-stapled in printed and illustrated cover, 8.5″ x 11″, 50 pages, lithography printed by Mike Kummer. Cover art by Helen Adam, illustrations by Armando
Navarro and Robert Berg.

Contents:
1. Stan Persky – “Orphic Space”
  Jack Spicer – [untitled] “1st SF home rainout since. Bounce…”
  Jack Spicer – [untitled] “The country is not very well defined…”
  Jack Spicer – [untitled] “I squint my eyes to cry…”
  Jack Spicer – [untitled] “The metallurgical analysis of the stone that…”
  George Stanley – “The Gifts of Death, after Virgil, for Louis Zukofsky”
  Robin Blaser – “Image-Nations 3”
  Robin Blaser – [untitled] “O-friend…”
  Lewis Ellingham – “A Cold Dawn”
  Deneen Brown – [untitled] “It lit up…”
  Wystan – “One Circumlocution”
  Lewis Ellingham – “The Perfect Correspondent”
  Lewis Ellingham – “The Sleepers”
  Lewis Ellingham – “Underweir”
  Robert Duncan – “Passages 5”
  Robert Duncan – “Passages 6”
  Robert Duncan – “Passages 7”
  Robert Duncan – “Passages 8”
  Robert Duncan – “Passages 9”
  Jess – “Critical Dreams – V (ivy)”
  Gael Turnbull – “A Voice, Voices, Speaking”
  Gael Turnbull – “To be Shaken”
  Stan Persky – “A Poem of Light and Dark, for C.S. Lewis”
  Stan Persky – “Home & Garden”

10. OPEN SPACE, No. 7, edited by Stan Persky
San Francisco: Open Space, July 1964
First edition, corner-stapled in printed and illustrated cover, 8.5″ x 11″, 82 pages, lithography printed by Lee Kummer, lettering by Peggy Engle. Cover art by Jess. Illustrations by William McNeill, Ken Botto, Fran Herndon, and Nemi Frost.

Contents:
1. L. Kearney – [untitled] “A rock…”
  L. Kearney – [untitled] “A certain kind of dusk…”
  L. Kearney – [untitled] “I could be wrong except for…”
  Hart – “Chaplinesque”
  Robert Duncan – “A Note for Open Space 7”
  Robert Duncan – “The Structure of Rime XXIII”
  Robert Duncan – “Shadows”
  Jack Spicer – “Love Poems”
  George Stanley – “Songs from Arcadia”
  Joanne Elizabeth Kyger – “In July”
  Joanne Kyger – [untitled] “there is no meeting…”
  Helen Adam – “Sing Song”
  Jess – “Critical Dreams – VI (quicksilver)”
  Jim Alexander – “Alexander”
  Jim Alexander – “Jacob’s Larder”
  Jim Alexander – “Poem Toward a Rondel”
  D.R. Drake – “3”
  Harold Dull – “First Lesson”
  Harold Dull – “Second Lesson”
  Harold Dull – “Third Lesson”
  Harold Dull – “Fourth Lesson”
  Lewis Ellingham – “11, 12”
  Stan Persky – “Report to the Stockholders”

11. OPEN SPACE, No. 8, edited by Stan Persky
San Francisco: Open Space, August 1964
First edition, corner-stapled in printed and illustrated cover, 8.5″ x 11″, 76 pages. Cover art by Robert Berg.

Contents:
1. Michael McClure – “The Mystery of the Hunt”
  L. Kearney – [untitled] “In the children’s forest…”
  Robert Duncan – “A Note for Open Space 8”
  Robert Duncan – “Structure of Rime XXIV”
  Robert Duncan – “Chords”
  Robert Duncan – “Spelling”
  Robert Duncan – “At Lammas Tide”
  Robert Duncan – “Saint Graal (after Verlaine)”
  Charles Dodgson – [untitled] “I have a fairy by my side…”
  Charles Olson – “Against Wisdom as Such”
  Jamie MacInnis – “Every Little Star”
  Jess – “Tricky Cad, Case IV”
  Jack Spicer “Intermission I-III”
  Jack Spicer – “Transformations I-III”
  Lawrence Fagin – “from Procris & Cephalus”
  Edna Barnes – [untitled] “If beyond passion our love…”
  Harold Dull – [untitled] “I’ve listened before…”
  Ron Loewinsohn – “The Burden of Loveliness, 1”
  Ron Loewinsohn – “The Burden of Loveliness, 2”
  Ron Loewinsohn – “The Great Sand Dunes (for Joey)”
  Stan Persky – “Muse News”

12. OPEN SPACE, No. 9, edited by Stan Persky
San Francisco: Open Space, September 1964
First edition, corner-stapled in printed and illustrated cover, 8.5? x 11?, 92 pages, lithography printed by Mike Kummer. Cover art by Harry Jacobus. Illustration by Jess.

Contents:
1. Harold Dull – [untitled] “He tries…”
  Richard Duerden – “Iris, Cut for an Intended Painting”
  Ron Loewinsohn – “The Step (a collage poem)”
  Jack Spicer – “Morphemicks”
  Lewis Ellingham – “Nightmare and Dream”
  George Stanley – “Untitled”
  Lew Brown – “Lionel”
  Lawrence Fagin – “from Procris & Cephalus”
  Bill Brodecky – [untitled] “Clear face facing…”
  Bill Brodecky – [untitled] “In my dream…”
  Richard Duerden – “The Air”
  Lawrence Kearney – [untitled] “I tell you…”
  Lawrence Kearney – [untitled] “Beyond where you…”
  George Stanley – “For Bill”
  Tom Field – “The Dentist”
  Robert Duncan – “Parsifal: The Easter Magic”
  Stan Persky – “They”
  Stan Persky – “Home & Garden”

13. OPEN SPACE, No. 10, edited by Stan Persky
San Francisco: Open Space, October 1964
First edition, corner-stapled in printed and illustrated cover, 8.5? x 11?, 92 pages, lithography printed by Mike Kummer. Cover art and collage poem by by Jess.

Contents:
1. George Stanley – “Elpinor”
  George Stanley – [untitled] “I thought of Achilles…”
  Ronnie Primack – “Love Poem”
  Robin Blaser – “It It It It”
  M. Hannon – “Station Crossing”
  M. Hannon – [untitled] “My hand goes dark…”
  Jamie MacInnis – “Uncourtly Love”
  Jack Spicer – “Phonemics”
  Richard Duerden – “The Host, September”
  Robert Duncan – “The Currents”
  Ron Loewinsohn – “some more from The Step”
  Harold Dull – “Day”
  Harold Dull – “Night”
  Lawrence Kearney – [untitled] “Now the winter burns…”
  Lawrence Kearney – [untitled] “Tell me nothing now…”
  Stan Persky – “The Story”
  Stan Persky – “House & Garden”

14. OPEN SPACE, No. 11, edited by Stan Persky
San Francisco: Open Space, November 1964
First edition, corner-stapled in printed and illustrated cover, 8.5″ x 11″, 70 pages, lithography printed by Mike Kummer. Cover photograph by Margot Prattlesome Dross.

Contents:
1. Ronnie Primack – “V”
  Oscar Wilde – “The Harlot’s House”
  Harris Schiff – “for Lewis Warsh”
  Jack Spicer – “Graphemics”
  Richard Duerden – “In the Morning”
  Robert Duncan – “Moving the Moving Image”
  Michael S. Willis – “A History of I and Eyes”
  George Stanley – “Penelope’s Prayer”
  George Stanley – “I Thought of Achilles”
  George Stanley – [untitled] “The year’s ending…”
  M.S.W. – [untitled] “A lover’s face…”
  Lewis Ellingham – “Psyche”
  Harold Dull – [untitled] “Is he an intrusion…”
  Harold Dull – [untitled] “We fought…”
  Deneen Brown – [untitled] “Blood colored biscuits…”
  Harold H.C. – “The Broken Tower”
  Stan Persky – “Home & Garden”

15. OPEN SPACE, No. 12, edited by Stan Persky
San Francisco: Open Space, 1964
First edition, corner-stapled in printed and illustrated cover, 8.5″ x 11″, 90 pages, lithography printed by Mike Kummer. Illustrations by Jess and Robert Duncan.

Contents:
1. Joanne Kyger – “From Our Soundest Sleep, It Ends”
  Robert Duncan – “The Torso, Passages 18”
  Robert Duncan – “The Earth, Passages 19”
  Robert Duncan – “Structure of Rime XXVI, Passages 20”
  James Alexander – “The Greater Happiness”
  Stan Persky – [untitled] “The first thing I notice…”
  Robin Blaser – “The City”
  Robin Blaser – “Saturn, Star of Melancholy”
  Robin Blaser – “Orpheus”
  Robin Blaser – “Image Nations, 4”
  Jamie MacInnis – “Ducks for Grownups”
  Thomas Clark – “The Site”
  Harris Schiff – “(Unfinished), for Jack Spicer”
  Lewis Ellingham – “O, O”
  Harris Schiff – “Library Window-sill”
  Lew Brown – “To Break the Day’s Contentions”
  Lew Brown – “I Hear Chains”
  Lew Brown – “O to Reknit this Morning”
  Lew Brown – “Blackstone”
  Lew Brown – “Tuig”
  Harold Dull – [untitled] “When leaves like ashes fall…”
  Lawrence Fagin – “from Procris & Cephalus”
  Lawrence Kearney – [untitled] “You are more constant…”
  Lawrence Kearney – [untitled] “To be more tied…”
  Lawrence Kearney – “For Jamie”
  Ron Loewinsohn – “Some more from The Step”
  Stan Persky – “Home & Garden”

Online Resources:

Flying Object – scans of all issues

verdant press

Tag Archives: Anselm Hollo

Locus Solus

Ted Berrigan – Collaborations

Cleft, Edinburgh University

Cleft

My Own Mag

My Own Mag

Pocket Poets Series

Matrix Press

Piero Heliczer – Publications Edited, Printed, and Published

Open Space

verdant_press

a random walk through the open field…