Tag Archives: George Montgomery

Shit Sheet

1. SHIT SHEET, No. 1, edited by d.a. levy *
First edition:
Cleveland: The University Fringe Anti-Christian Movement – Cleveland Branch, 1966
Side-stapled sheets, 8.5″ x 11″, 6 pages, mimeograph printed by d.a. levy. (T&H P-122)

2. SHIT SHEET, No. 2, edited by d.a. levy
Cleveland: The Militant Pseudo-Buddhist Council of America, 1966

First edition, side-stapled in printed and illustrated cover, 8.5″ x 11″, 4 pages, mimeograph printed by d.a. levy. (T&H P-123)

Contents:
Richard Krech – [untitled] “Galactus sat hurling thunderbolts…”
Boris de Rachewiltz – “Yoruba Legend from Black Eros”
unattributed – “England Debates Problems of Sex”
George Montgomery – “Picture of a Woman I Love”

Free Love Periodically

1. FREE LOVE PERIODICALLY, No. 1, edited by RJS
Cleveland: Free Love Press, 1966

First edition, side-stapled in printed cover, 8.5” x 11”, 26 leaves printed recto only, spirit-duplicator printed.

“featuring the poets who read at the fourth open poetry reading at the Gate in Cleveland”

  • Contents:
    1. rjs – “Poets at the Gate” [editorial]
      Don Thomas – “The Awakening”
      rjs – “Anti-Gestapo Games” [editorial]
      rjs – “Anti-Gestapo Poem”
      Frank Osinski – “A Joke”
      Grace Butcher – “East ‘o the Sun and West ‘o Kleve Land”
      T.L. Kryss – [untitled] “the Old Hungarian says…”
      T.L. Kryss – [untitled] “barry goldwaters banjo…”
      Kent Taylor – “8-15-66”
      T.L. Kryss – [untitled] “at twilight that moment when…”
      d.a. levy “We are all Putting Out / But Noone is Receiving”
      Geoffrey A. Cook – “Upon Allen Ginsberg’s Reading in Cleveland”
      d.a. levy – “Poem for Lama Ginsberg”
      Malcolm Hall – [untitled] “Returning home yesterday…”
      Walter R. Keller – “A Vision of St. Lucy’s Day”
      Russell Salamon – [untitled] “smooth extensions of now…”
      Grace Butcher – “Thank You Note”
      Matt Shulman – [untitled] “u sit back in the crowd…”
      John Wherry – “A Cleveland Composite in 3 Parts”

2. FREE LOVE PERIODICALLY, No. 2, guest-edited by Tom Kryss
Cleveland: Free Love Press, June 1967

First edition, side-stapled in printed and illustrated wrappers, 8.5” x 11”, 32 leaves printed recto only, mimeograph printed. Illustrations by Dagmar and d.a. levy. Cover art by Dagmar.

“The editor is in jail & FLP #2 is being put out by telepathic juice ray mind batteries”

  • Contents:
    1. d.a. levy – “There Seems to be Some Discrepancy or Why is RJS in Jail?”
      d.a. levy – “What Can I Say?”
      Rik Davis – “Letter to The Cleveland Plain Dealer, May 18”
      Richard W. Morris – [letter]
      D.r. Wagner – [untitled] “Now it isn’t everyday…”
      Kent Taylor – [untitled] “i always dreamed of…”
      Willie – [untitled] “There are no crickets in Albuquerque!”
      Bill Bissett – [untitled] “yur not to know it all…”
      Bill Bissett – “In Other Words th Food of th Soul”
      T.L. Kryss – [untitled] “Jesus g siss G cyst…”
      R Wolter – “Ode to Pote”
      D.r. Wagner – [untitled] “No place to puncture…”
      Pete Gregory – “Final Peace”
      D.r. Wagner – [untitled] “Man I used to drink…”
      d.a. levy – “Psychedelic Information Center”
      George Montgomery – “Message to Cunda”
      Pete Gregory – “You Sitting in the Lotus Position”
      Pete Gregory – “Beach Girl”
      D.r. Wagner – [untitled] “this girl and she was…”
      T.L. Kryss – [untitled] “i hear the fogbells burning…”
      William Gallo – “Ashcroft, You”
      Douglas Blazek – “Youth Psalm”
      William Gallo – “Dream Two”
      Kent Taylor – “4/16/67”
      George Montgomery – “Salesman”
      rjs – “Ditto”
      Joyce Guion – “Eulogy for an Eagle”
      Clive Matson – “On the Way”
      R. Wolter – “For Gene Bloom, Who was Lately Sentenced”
      d.a. levy – “Visualized Prayer for the American God #5”

The Marrahwanna Quarterly

Fourteen issues of The Marrahwanna Quarterly were published by d.a. levy’s Renegade Press from 1964 to 1968. Cover art and illustrations were done by d.a. levy, Kent Taylor, Dagmar, T.L. Kryss, and others. Contributors included John Keys, Margaret Randall, Marvin Malone, Carl Larsen, George Montgomery, Judson Crews, Douglas Blazek, Steve Richmond, Charles Bukowski, d.a. levy, D.r. Wagner, Bill Wyatt, rjs, Russell Atkins, and many others.

1. THE MARRAHWANNA QUARTERLY, Vol. 1, edited by d.a. levy
Cleveland: Renegade Press, 1964

First edition, side-stapled in printed wrappers, 5.5″ x 6.5″, 20 pages, 150 copies, letterpress printed by d.a. levy. Illustrated with block prints by Celeste Simon (“Petrograd”), d.a.levy (“You Murderers with Your Indifference”), and Pat Crayton ([untitled]). (Lowell B2, T&H P-38)

  • Contents:
    1. Russell Salamon – “V (after Pynchon)”
      John Keys – “Prescott via Hudson”
      d.a. levy – “Shipensburg”
      Roberta E. Badger – “Please”
      Margaret Randall – “The Broken Glass Begins to Whole Itself”
      Marvin Malone – “The Professional”
      Ann – “Fall”
      Carl Larsen – “Clyde and Martha”
      Carl Larsen – “Slumscapes: 4”
      George Montgomery – “A Poem for Ray & Bonnie”
      J. Cornillon – “Poem” (“Zoom. Zoom Zoom…”)
      Dave Rasey – “Midwestern Manifesto”
      Erik Kiviat – [untitled] “an organ fugue sways…”
      Allen Katzman – “The Transgression”
      George R. Beck – “Two Brothers”
      Judson Crews – “Medical Science”

2. THE MARRAHWANNA QUARTERLY, No. 2, edited by d.a. levy
Cleveland: Renegade Press, Winter 1964-5

First edition, side-stapled in printed wrappers, 6″ x 8.5″, 21 pages, 150 copies, letterpress and spirit duplicator printed by d.a. levy. Illustrated with untitled block prints by Katherine Wasil, cuz, and Kent Taylor. (Lowell B2, T&H P-42)

  • Contents:
    1. Tuli Kupferberg – [untitled] “Here’s a toast to others…”
      D. Blazek – [untitled] “folklore is in bed…”
      R. Blossom – [untitled] “there is a…”
      John Cornillon – “The Fellaheen Prick, to d.a. levy”
      d.a. levy [disguised as (e)y(e)] – “Shit Poem for the Mysterious Annburghers”
      Szabo – “Jerk Off Poem”
      Marguerite Harris – “Metaphysic”
      Kent Taylor – “Grandfather’s Speeches”
      Steve Richmond – “Soft Rain”
      D. Blazek – [untitled] “you know what it means…”
      Steve Richmond – [untitled] “out of my…”
      d.a. levy – “Satori while Praying in the Bathroom”
      Marguerite Harris – [untitled] “the old, spoiled blooms…”

3. THE MARRAHWANNA QUARTERLY, No. 3, edited by d.a. levy
Cleveland: Renegade Press, 1965

First edition, side-stapled sheets in printed wrappers, 6.5″ x 8.5″, 20 pages, 200 copies, letterpress and mimeograph printed by d.a. levy. Illustrations by Steve Ferguson. (Lowell B2, T&H P-55)

  • Contents:
    1. Grace Butcher – [untitled] “Not to know yourself…”
      Grace Butcher – [untitled] “Only ask without speaking…”
      Russell Salamon – [untitled] “eloquent and obvious…”
      W.E. Wyatt – “from Songs of the Four Seasons”
      Jeff A. Cook – “To the Ugliest Man”
      Joe Nickell – “Not”
      George Bowering – “The Smile”

4. THE MARRAHWANNAH QUARTERLY, No. 4, edited by d.a. levy
Cleveland: Renegade Press, 1965

First edition, side-stapled in printed wrappers, 8.5″ x 11″, 44 pages, 200 copies, letterpress, mimeograph, and spirit duplicator printed by d.a. levy. (Lowell B2, T&H P-56)

  • Contents:
    1. Charles Bukowski – “The Hell of It Is to Throw Away Rejected Poems That Seem to Say Something Anyhow Even If Perhaps Not Too Well—”
      E.K.Albrecht – “Monday Morning Coffee Break”
      E.K.Albrecht – “Haiku” (“Bright sky watches as…”)
      Thom Szuter – [untitled] “the only…”
      Thom Szuter – [untitled] “air water…”
      Thom Szuter – [untitled] “walking in weeds…”
      d.a. levy – “Fragments from the Notebooks of Bennet Hassink”
      Gonzalo Arango – “Nadaist Manifesto”
      Per H. Berrefjord – “About a God”
      d.a. levy – “10 Reasons to Keep Marijuana Illegal” [editorial]
      Freda Norton – [untitled] “In vacant rooms of green/gray…”
      Freda Norton – “Consecrated”
      Freda Norton – “Where has she Gone?”
      Roger Sauls – “Three Poems from the Asylum”
      Douglas Blazek – “Prose Poem on Why Shout?”
      Douglas Blazek – “Mind if I Put it Straight for Once?”
      Douglas Blazek – “A Giant ‘S’ and a Bolt of Lightning”
      Art Rosh – [untitled] “here my face is full…”
      Art Rosh – [untitled] “The black priests churning…”
      Carol Paul – [untitled] “I went to the pot luck dinner…”

5. THE MARY JANE QUARTERLY, Vol. 2, No. 1, edited by d.a. levy
Cleveland: Renegade Press, 1966

First edition, side-stapled in printed wrappers, 8.5″ x 11″, 52 pages, 200 copies, letterpress and mimeograph printed by d.a. levy. (Lowell B2, T&H P-83).

“This issue of the Marrahwannah Quarterly is dedicated to Guru Ronald Jump / imprisoned for poverty.”

  • Contents:
    1. Kent Taylor – “May 6, 1965”
      Diane Wakoski – “Discrepancies”
      Robert Lowry – “The Midway Stop”
      Sergio Mondragón – “Contacto de los Dedos”
      Sergio Mondragón – “Riesgo”
      Margaret Randall – “Preparation of the Audience”
      Margaret Randall – “Retrato, for Juanita”
      Joe “Ace” Walker – “Schizophrenia”
      John Mongomery – “The Coloratura Note”
      author unknown – “from the Kabbalah” (trans. S.L.M. Mathers)
      Grace Butcher – “The Flats”
      Grace Butcher – “Cave”
      John Harriman – “from the Hashish Poems”
      d.a.levy – [editorial]
      Kay Wood – “Epitaph”
      d.a. levy – “Fragments from the Notebooks of Bennet Hassink (Book 983)”
      Carl Larsen – “Fractions of Light and Water, Fractions of Flesh”
      George Montgomery – “Birthday Night Prayer”
      d.a. levy – “Peyote Invocation”

6. THE MARIJUANA QUARTERLY, Vol. 2, No. 2, edited by d.a. levy
Cleveland: Renegade Press, 1966

First edition, side-stapled sheets in printed cover, 8.5″ x 11″, 54 pages, 200 copies, letterpress and mimeograph printed by d.a. levy. (Lowell B2, T&H P-84)

“This issue is dedicated to John Sinclair,, recently introduced to the art of sodomy by the entire detroit police dept… The Tongue-in Lowecheeks Award goes to the Detroit Gestapo for harassment of poets below & beyond the call of duty…”

  • Contents:
    1. Ray Bremser – “from Poems of Madness”
      Allen Katzman – “from Poems from Oklahoma”
      Rolla Rieder – “Genesis: A Surrealist Line Sequence”
      Rolla Rieder – “For Gene Fowler”
      D.r. Wagner – “Letter No. 16 from the Same Guy who Always Writes to Me because He Thinks I Am or Was His Friend”
      Irene Schram – “E Train”
      Irene Schram – “From under those Graveblocks”
      d.a. levy – “Written on the ‘Day of the Kif Lion’” [editorial]
      Richard Barker – “On our way to Mexico”
      Irene Schram – “I Dream of Horses”
      Bill Wyatt – “Thoughts of Han Shan”
      Bill Wyatt – “Another Winter”
      John Cornillon – [untitled] “Hard cold tar…”
      d.a.levy – “Sitting on a Bench near T Square (for David Meltzer)”
      Jacob Leed – “Through the Door”
      rjs – [untitled] “children wake up…”
      rjs – [untitled] “my friend says i shouldn’t…”
      George Montgomery – “Upon Seeing Sonny and Cher”
      Russell Atkins – “Front Page”
      Richard Barker – “For Ken Kesey and Thirteen Companions”
      D.r. Wagner – “The Old Up the River from New Orleans Bit Again”
      John Cornillon – “Letter Written by a Poet to his Friend Who Is Being Arraigned on Charges of Possessing Marijuana for the First Time that was Never Mailed”
      Irene Schramm – “Hold”
      Barbara A. Holland – “The House of Ice”
      Matt Shulman – [untitled] “I awaited his arrival…”
      Allen Planz – “Poor White”
      Kitty Estrella – [untitled] “I think of myself…”
      Aurelia Ford – “Mabel Mockingpooch”
      d.a. levy – “The Cleveland Scene” [editorial]
      Russell Atkins – “Spyrytual”

7. THE MARIHUANA QUARTERLY, Vol. 2, No. 3, edited by d.a. levy
Cleveland: Renegade Press, 1966

First edition, side-stapled in printed cover, 8.5″ x 11″, 56 pages, 200 copies, letterpress and mimeograph printed by d.a. levy. (Lowell B2, T&H P-85)

“This issue is dedicated to Big Leonard who recently discorporated & went to heaven… The Litany of Ra is dedicated to Adele’s Angels / The Egyptians (MC) & the pacifist segment of the Gooses & all the riders who attended ceremonies at Adele’s Euclid Ave. Temple (/Ride in Peace/) May the Eye of Horus & the Eye of Khepera be opened to you…”

  • Contents:
    1. Mara – [untitled] “cow-lick…”
      Kent and Joan Taylor – [untitled] “boohoo / blue blue…”
      Thom Szuter – [untitled] “sun streak…”
      d.a. levy – [untitled] “flying bull…”
      The Albrechts – [untitled] “grow tesque / metro gnome…”
      Joe Walker – [untitled] “blue mother…”
      Carl Woideck- [untitled] “lick cow…”
      Bill Bisset – [untitled] “th mystery of space deepens…”
      Bill Bisset – [untitled] “suddenly it is late…”
      Bill Bisset – [untitled] “i dont care for yur shit…”
      E.R. Baxter – “Listen River”
      David Sandberg – “Lance, the Cup is Heavy, Drop the Cup!”
      David Sandberg – “Poem for the World’s only Blue Eyed Indian”
      David Sandberg – “Carnival Poem”
      Steve Ferguson – “Poem from Steve”
      John Wherry – “2/6/66”
      Donald Thomas – “A Poem Intitled for Alan D. with Love”
      Alan Dimenstein – “I Got the Happiness Blues”
      D.r. Wagner – “Man Caused by Viruses”
      Sid Rufus – “Which?”
      Walter Lowenfels – “A Passage from a Coming Book”
      George Montgomery – “Involvement”
      Alex Gildzen – “Summer Sunday in Kent”
      Brother James – “Lines”
      Lady Char – “Society”
      W.E. Wyatt – “Poems from the ‘Hash’ Dynasty”
      d.a. levy – “Rectal Eye Vision for Phil Ochs”
      d.a. levy – “Lines for Lady Jane”
      Don Thomas – “Pussy is more than a Dirty Word”
      Edouard Naville – “The Litany of Ra”

8. THE MARIJUANA QUARTERLY, Vol. 2, No. 4, edited by d.a. levy
Cleveland: Renegade Press, 1966

First edition, side-stapled in illustrated cover, 8.5″ x 11″, 60 pages, mimeograph printed by d.a. levy. Illustration by Dagmar.(Lowell B2, T&H P-86)

“This issue is dedicated to Lenny Bruce and Garner Ted Armstrong – Apostles of the post-bomb circus liberation front”

  • Contents:
    1. rjs – “Dear Local Draft Board #32”
      d.a. levy – [book review; The Three Pillars of Zen]
      Allen Ginsberg – “A Glass of Ayahuasca”
      D.r. Wagner – “Chapter CXLIV”
      T.L. Kryss – [untitled] “after eight days…”
      Roger Sauls – “Weed”
      Tristan Corbiere – “Oh, That?”
      Tristan Corbiere – “Guitar”
      Tristan Corbiere – “To my Mouse-Colored Mare”
      Milarepa – “from The Hundred Thousand Songs”
      Rene Char – “from Leaves of Hypnos/A War Journal”
      Junker Vromeer M.D. – The Stasher’s-Paranoia Syndrome” (trans. J.D. Kuch)
      d.a. levy – “Editorial Note on Tarot, Palmistry and The Skull Mandala”
      Carl Woideck – “You Don’t Know What Love Is”
      C.J. Torrance – “Death Song of the Assassin”
      David James – “2nd Poem to Lee”
      Sigmond Raoul – “A Refraction of the Cosmic Lubrator Dedicated to Charlie Parker, the late Alto Saxaphonist”
      Reb Barker – [untitled] “great lionhead…”
      d.a. levy – “Additional Sections for The North American Book of the Dead”
      Malcolm Hall – “Notes for a Future Suicide”
      Dan Georgakas – [untitled] “The purest lay…”
      T.L. Kryss – [untitled] “waiting for the bus…”
      Don Thomas – [book reviews]

9. THE MARRAHWANNAH QUARTERLY, Vol. 3, No. 1, edited by d.a. levy
Cleveland: Renegade Press, 1967

First edition, side-stapled in printed and illustrated covers, 8.5″ x 11″, 24 pages, mimeograph printed by d.a. levy. (Lowell B2, T&H P-125)

  • Contents:
    1. Kent Taylor – “11/30/66”
      d a levy – “The Brotherhood of Bhang” [editorial]
      T.L. Kryss – “Absent Light”
      David W. Harris – “Dog Howl for Mee”
      d a levy – “Another Fragment from the Destroyed Journal”
      Allen Ginsberg – “May 26, 1960”
      Douglas Blazek – “A Primer on Open Skull Pressology”
      Joel Marc Deutsch – “Eyes, for Kent Taylor”
      Joel Marc Deutsch – “Eugene Jolas – “
      Brown Miller – “Letter of Introduction”
      Joel Marc Deutsch – “Just Checking”
      Joel Marc Deutsch – [untitled] “This poem is for you…”
      Joel Marc Deutsch – “Morning Song, 2 Yrs. Later”
      Eugene Jolas – “Daemmerspuk”
      Eugene Jolas – “I Interview Lenin”
      Eugene Jolas – “Rimbaud and the Chauffeur”
      Eugene Jolas – “Panopticon”
      Eugene Jolas – “Astralia”
      Eugene Jolas – “Incantations”
      Eugene Jolas – “Hymn”
      Eugene Jolas – “Mountainwords”
      Brown Miller – “Death and Super-Death”
      Eugene Jolas – “Psalm”
      Eugene Jolas – “Vineyard in the Sun”
      Dave Cunliffe – “Peace Therapy Workings”
      T.L. Kryss – “To Charles Bukowski”
      Kent Taylor – [book review]
      Steve Ferguson – “Poem” (“Iowa is four hundred…”)
      Bill Bisset – [letter]

10. THE KIF QUART-O or THE MAR*AHHHH-WANNNAH QUARTERLY, Vol. 3, No. 2, edited by d.a. levy
Cleveland: Renegade Press, 1967

First edition, side-stapled in silkscreened cover, 8.5″ x 11″, mimeograph printed by d.a. levy. Cover silkscreen by T.L. Kryss. (Lowell B2, T&H P-126)

  • Contents:
    1. author unknown – “In Defense of Smut and Poets”
      d.a. levy – [untitled] “Sargent Burt Miller typical average…”
      K.S. Friedman – “The Bad Rap Jazz Band”
      d.a. levy – “Notes/ Variations on a Short Poem”
      Kent Taylor – “Atro-City”
      Kent Taylor – “A Call to Arms”
      Kent Taylor – “Clear and Cold”
      Kent Taylor – [untitled] “my cat caught her…”
      Kent Taylor – “East to Cleveland”
      Kent Taylor – [untitled] “if the radio collapses the sky…”
      Kent Taylor – “I Feel Like Seven Days”
      Kent Taylor – “9-4-66”
      Kent Taylor – “Road Land”
      Carl Woideck – “For Sandy”
      Carl Woideck – “For Julie”
      Dennis Mazer – [untitled] “In a grass bag…”
      Marion Black – [untitled] “i remember christmas…”
      Kevin McGown – “Shale”
      George Dowden – [untitled] “today yellow sun…”
      E.R. Baxter III – “Patch Lives!”
      E.R. Baxter III – “For My Friend Who Was Almost Destroyed…”
      David W. Harris – “Side 4 – BMI”
      D.r. Wagner – [untitled] “animal rotting on the road…”
      d.a. levy – [book reviews]
      Daneen – “A Break in the Fast”
      d.a. levy – “Egyptian Troll Sheet Number One”
      Steve Richmond – “Struggle”
      Vishwanath – “The Family”
      author unknown – “The Mind”
      John Smith – “Pot Letter”

11. THE MARRAHWANNAH QUARTERLY, Vol. 3, No. 3, edited by d.a. levy
Cleveland: Renegade Press, 1967

First edition, side-stapled in hand-painted wrappers, 8.5″ x 11″, 200 copies, mimeograph printed by d.a. levy. Cover art by Mara. Published as The Concrete Issue. (Lowell B2, T&H P-127)

“This issue dedicated to poet, publisher, martyr: r.j.s.”.

  • Contents:
    1. bp nichol – “Statement”
      d.a. levy – “Why Concrete?”
      T.L. Kryss – “Monsoooooooooon”
      T.L. Kryss – “I Wisht I Cd Play the Beautiful Instrument”
      T.L. Kryss – “Paranoia”
      d.a. levy – “Emergency City Ordinance”
      Bud – [untitled] “He imaginatively apprehends…”
      Julian Kallander – “Forgotten Things”
      D.W. Harris – “Side 10 – New Syndrome”
      D.W. Harris – “Liebestod”
      Russell Atkins – “A Storm Shall Break”
      bp nichol – [untitled] “did you ever…”
      bp nichol – [untitled] “multilingual…”
      Adam Kadmon – [untitled] “eye m struggling…”
      E.S. Harmon – “A Lettre From”
      Allen Ginsberg – [untitled] “censorship of language…”
      Bill Bissett – “Sun”
      Bill Bissett – [untitled] “my lady sd hold it…”
      E.R. Baxter III – “Here on this Page”
      E.R. Baxter III – [untitled] “green grass…”
      E.R. Baxter III – [untitled] “spring is sprung…”
      rjs – “Lines from a Lazy Concrete Poet”
      Bob Cobbing – [untitled] “wan do tree”
      J.D. Kuch – “Poem to Peter Orlovsky”
      D.r. Wagner – “Phantom Beaver Finds Mate”
      Ivo Vroom – [untitled] “wind…”
      bp nichol – “Movie Bill: The Outrage”
      bp nichol – “Homage to Edmund Bergler”
      D.r. Wagner – “Shaking it up with Will”
      D.r. Wagner – “Let’s All Sing like The Birdies Sing”
      d.a. levy – “Solar Swastika”
      d.a. levy – “Visualized Prayer for the American God #6”
      Mara – [untitled] “saule…”
      T.L. Kryss – “Bert Miller does not like…”

12. THE MARRAHWANNAH QUARTERLY, Vol. 3, No. 4, edited by d.a. levy
Cleveland: Renegade Press, 1967

First edition, side-stapled in silkscreen cover, 8.5″ x 11″, mimeograph printed by d.a. levy. Cover silkscreen by T.L. Kryss. (Lowell B2, T&H P-128)

“This issue is dedicated to Trans-Love Energies (Detroit) and the Buddhists of Collinwood”

  • Contents:
    1. Amy Picciano – [untitled] “One came out from a corner…”
      T.L. Kryss – [untitled] “like a nugget of gold…”
      T.L. Kryss – [untitled] “brothers and sisters…”
      T.L. Kryss – “Hemmorhage”
      T.L. Kryss – [untitled] “thirteen tricks…”
      T.L. Kryss – [untitled] “face run…”
      T.L. Kryss – Concrete Poem for Jane Mansfield”
      T.L. Kryss – [untitled] “the hand…”
      T.L. Kryss – [untitled] “the truth about circles…”
      T.L. Kryss – [untitled] “the strange case of…”
      T.L. Kryss – [untitled] “noah spent building the tribes…”
      d.a. levy – “Comments on the Acid Scene”
      d.a. levy – “Psychedelic Information Center”
      d.a. levy – “Comment on the Acid Landscape”
      d.a. levy – “Tantric Strobe”
      Al Bell – “Ing”
      Al Bell – [untitled] “as we walk…”
      George Dowden – “Landscape: 16”
      S.M. Kane – [untitled] “the fire blazes…”
      Gene Bloom – “Paranoia”

13. THE MARRAHWANNAH QUARTERLY, Vol. 4, No. 1, edited by d.a. levy
Cleveland: Renegade Press, Winter 1967-1968

First edition, side-stapled in printed wrappers, 8.5″ x 11″, mimeograph printed by d.a. levy.  (Lowell B2, T&H P-162)

  • Contents:
    1. T.L.Kryss – [untitled] “when you go to san francisco…”
      T.L.Kryss – [untitled] “moon…”
      T.L.Kryss – [untitled] “winter rain and purple rainbow…”
      Rolla Rieder – “Credibility Gaposis”
      Rolla Rieder – “Please Do Not Throw Foreign Articles”
      Rolla Rieder – “Come-On”
      Rolla Rieder – “Illusion”
      W.Y. Evans-Wentz – “The Yoga Philosophy”
      George Montgomery – [untitled] “trip some where…”
      Leon Spiro – [letter]
      Li Po – [untitled] “You ask me…”
      rjs – [untitled] “well you know its not…”
      rjs – [untitled] “yr eyes r a necessari…”
      rjs – [untitled] “how mani desires…”
      rjs – [untitled] “things as they are…”
      d.a. Levy – “Tantric Strobe”
      W.Y. Evans-Wentz – “Forms of Yoga”
      Jiri Valoch – “Two Interlinguistic Poems”

14. THE MARRAHWANNAH QUARTERLY, Vol. 4, No. 2, edited by d.a. levy
Cleveland: Renegade Press, 1967-1968

First edition, side-stapled in printed and hand-painted wrappers, 8.5″ x 11″, 200 copies, mimeograph printed by d.a. levy. Cover art by Toni Thomas and Sandy-Jo Hickle. (Lowell B2, T&H P-163)

  • Contents:
    1. Don Thomas – “Grandfather Poems”
      Don Thomas – “Notes from the Gutter”
      Don Thomas – “M 13”
      Don Thomas – “2 Above, 3 Below”
      Don Thomas – “Homage to Issa”
      Don Thomas – “The Balloon Lady”
      Don Thomas – “A Subway Named Mobius”
      Don Thomas – “The Next to the Last Flight”
      Don Thomas – “Dead Man’s Hand”
      E.R. Baxter III – “All that is Hard is not Concrete”
      E.R. Baxter III – “On the Difficulty of Determining”
      E.R. Baxter III – “A Semi-Concretual Christian Fish Story”
      E.R. Baxter III – “Fire & Brimstone”
      E.R. Baxter III – [untitled] “two crows fly…”
      bjt – “Two Poems & A Statement on Concrete Poetry”
      bjt – “The Naked Body I Luv”
      rjs – “Classified Adverseticement for the Local Industri”
      rjs – [untitled] “walk red green red green”
      d.a. Levy – [book reviews]

Blue Beat

1. BLUE BEAT: A COLLECTION OF RECENT SOUNDS, edited by George Montgomery and Erik Kiviat
New York City: Blue Beat Publications, March 1964
First edition, side-stapled with printed and illustrated cover sheet, 8.5″ x 11″, 42 pages, mimeograph printed. Cover art by Alex Wiener.

  • Contents:
    1. Kirby Congdon – “The Gravy and the Glory”
      Margo Love – “If You Should Leave Me”
      Ray Bremser – “Rain Poem”
      Jim Brody – “Two Tragic Poems”
      Jerry Greenberg – “Occupation – Unemployed”
      Jonas Kover – “Like If I Don’t Stop”
      Jonas Kover – “Paranoia I”
      Judson Crews – “Love without Courage”
      Judson Crews – “Wake”
      Jay Socin – “Prayer”
      Paul Blackburn – “How to Sublet and Apartment to Friends”
      Barbara Moraff – “Bio”
      Barbara Moraff – “Gaussian Noise”
      Alex Wiener – “Under the Stubble and Thumb of Dawn”
      Jack Micheline – “Poem to Greek Sailors”
      Jack Micheline – “The City”
      Bob Blossom – “Here I Walk”
      John Keys – “Poem”
      Carol Berge – “Portrait: West Coast Poet”
      Barbara Jarvik – “Secrets II”
      Barbara Jarvik – “The Walk or Relativity”
      Ted Berrigan – “Mugging Up”
      Gerard Malanga – “Sonnet XXLV”
      Harold Carrington – “…O that Be”
      Stanley Fisher – “Rattlesnake Pad”
      Jerry Greenberg – “New Faces”
      Tuli Kupferberg – “Williamsburg Bridge”
      Charles Guenther – “Poem from Artaud”
      Bob Blossom – “My Uncle Speaks”
      Lynn Fisher – “Vermont”
      Aram Saroyan – “It’s Midnight Again”
      Aram Saroyan – “In My Room”
      Stephen Tropp – “Tarnish”
      Kirby Congdon – “American Saga”
      Ed Sanders – “3 from the Gobble Gang Poems”
      Walter Lowenfels – “A Young Poet Asks”
      Gloria Tropp – “Taylor Mead”
      Bonnie Bremser – “Poem to Lee Forest”
      Allen de Loach – “Censorship”
      Lenore Kandel – “No Clock No Time”
      Al Katzman – “The Difference”
      R.C. Wilson – “Village Madman”
      Szabo – “Poem with a line from Micheline”
      Penrod – “The Traveler and the Satyr”
      Erik Kiviat – “Poem to Francis Bacon”
      George Montgomery – Big Apple, part 4″
little magazines

The Floating Bear

THE FLOATING BEAR: A NEWSLETTER, No. 24, edited by Diane di Prima and LeRoi Jones (New York, September-October 1962)

The subtitle “A Newsletter” is the key to The Floating Bear’s chief contribution to literature of the 1960’s; it was a newsletter, a speedy line of communication between experimental poets. Diane di Prima, in the introduction to the reprint edition of Floating Bear, recalls Charles Olson’s tribute to the magazine: “The last time I saw Charles Olson in Gloucester, one of the things he talked about was how valuable the Bear had been to him in its early years because of the fact that he could get new work out that fast. He was very involved in speed, in communication. We got manuscripts from him pretty regularly in the early days of the Bear, and we’d usually get them into the very next issue. That meant that his work, his thoughts, would be in the hands of a few hundred writers within two or three weeks. It was like writing a letter to a bunch of friends.”

>>> further reading >>>

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

The Floating Bear

The subtitle “A Newsletter” is the key to The Floating Bear’s chief contribution to literature of the 1960’s; it was a newsletter, a speedy line of communication between experimental poets. Diane di Prima, in the introduction to the reprint edition of The Floating Bear, recalls Charles Olson’s tribute to the magazine: “The last time I saw Charles Olson in Gloucester, one of the things he talked about was how valuable the Bear had been to him in its early years because of the fact that he could get new work out that fast. He was very involved in speed, in communication. We got manuscripts from him pretty regularly in the early days of the Bear, and we’d usually get them into the very next issue. That meant that his work, his thoughts, would be in the hands of a few hundred writers within two or three weeks. It was like writing a letter to a bunch of friends.”

One is apt to think of a literary newsletter as a device for talking about poetry but not as a means for transmitting the poem itself; in Floating Bear most of the space was given over to primary work. The first twenty-five issues (up to the point when LeRoi Jones resigned as co-editor) were published over a two year period and comprised 284 pages of poetry, creative prose, and comment. Among the more frequent contributors to Floating Bear during those first two years were Charles Olson, Robert Creeley, Frank O’Hara, Joel Oppenheimer, William Burroughs, Ed Dorn, A.B. Spellman, and George Stanley, as well as editors Diane di Prima and LeRoi Jones.

After 1963, Floating Bear’s function as a swift communicator among poets seems to have diminished (Nos. 29 to 37 appeared over a period of five years). Size and frequency varied widely: No. 27 had 36 pages and included a 19-page section of poems by Philip Whalen; the following numbers had 16 pages and included work by eight authors. The range of contributors widened somewhat during this time, perhaps because a number of guest editors assumed partial responsibility for the magazine’s contents. Billy Linich, Alan Marlowe, Kirby Doyle, John Wieners, and Bill Berkson each appeared on the masthead as guest editor for one of the magazine’s last dozen issues. One last issue (No. 38) appeared in 1971 as a joint issue with Intrepid (its No. 20), and was edited entirely by Diane di Prima.

Floating Bear was supported solely by contributors; it was never offered for sale. Circulation ranged from 117 to 1250 copies over its eight-year span.

– Peter Martin, “An Annotated Bibliography of Selected Little Magazines”, Tri Quarterly 43, Fall 1976.

1. THE FLOATING BEAR: A NEWSLETTER, No. 1, edited by Diane di Prima and LeRoi Jones
New York City: The Floating Bear, February 1961
First edition, corner-stapled sheets, 8.5” x 11”, 8 pages, mimeograph printed.

  • Contents:
    1. Michael McClure – “The Smile Shall Not Be More Mutable than the Final Extinction of Meat. The Smile with Teeth Sunk in Lower Lip”
      Charles Olson – “All My Life I’ve Heard about Many”
      Charles Olson – “A Note on the Above”
      Max Finstein – “Regional Piece”
      Robin Blaser – “Ode for Museums, All of Them!”
      Robin Blaser – “The Flame”
      Robin Blaser – “A Story after Blake”

2. THE FLOATING BEAR: A NEWSLETTER, No. 2, edited by Diane di Prima and LeRoi Jones
New York City: The Floating Bear, February 1961
First edition, corner-stapled sheets, 8.5” x 11”, 8 pages, mimeograph printed.

  • Contents:
    1. Frank O’Hara – “Now That I Am in Madrid and Can Think”
      Frank O’Hara – “Song”
      Frank O’Hara – “Cohasset”
      Frank O’Hara – “Beer for Breakfast”
      Steve Jonas – “No Saints in Three Acts”
      Steve Jonas – “Quest”
      Robert Creeley – “A Quick Graph”
      LeRoi Jones – “Revue”
      The Editors – “Notice”

3. THE FLOATING BEAR: A NEWSLETTER, No. 3, edited by Diane di Prima and LeRoi Jones
New York City: The Floating Bear, March 1961
First edition, corner-stapled sheets, 8.5” x 11”, 12 pages, mimeograph printed.

  • Contents:
    1. Ed Dorn – “The Landscape Below”

4. THE FLOATING BEAR: A NEWSLETTER, No. 4, edited by Diane di Prima and LeRoi Jones
New York City: The Floating Bear, March 1961
First edition, corner-stapled sheets, 8.5” x 11”, 8 pages, mimeograph printed.

  • Contents:
    1. Fielding Dawson – “Oblivion Calling: Daily News”
      Fielding Dawson – “Oblivion Calling: The Dog People”
      Fielding Dawson – “Oblivion Calling: King of Crystal”
      Tony Weinberger – “For Sylvia”
      Tony Weinberger – “A Wildflower”
      Tony Weinberger – “My Beloved/ The Bee Tree/ The Whore”
      Joel Oppenheimer – “A Grace for Painters”
      Joel Oppenheimer – “Statement for Patterson Society”
      Barbara Guest – “What Am I Going to Do after the King and Queen of Nepal”
      William Mcnaughton – “Footnote to Creeley’s Graph”
      The Editors – “Notice”

According to Diane di Prima in notes to Laurence McGilvery’s facsimile edition of The Floating Bear, “Fielding Dawson went to Black Mountain College as a painter, but after he studied with Kline a few months he decided to give up painting, although he still drew a lot. He drew the original emblem for LeRoi’s Totem Press, and he became a prose writer.”

5. THE FLOATING BEAR: A NEWSLETTER, No. 5, edited by Diane di Prima and LeRoi Jones
New York City: The Floating Bear, April 1961
First edition, corner-stapled sheets, 8.5” x 11”, 8 pages, mimeograph printed.

  • Contents:
    1. John Thomas – “Nine Stages of a Journey from Caledonia to Harpers Ferry”
      John Thomas – “My Bird”
      LeRoi Jones – [Letter to Diane di Prima]
      William Burroughs – “Out Show Window and We’re Proud of It”
      William Burroughs – [Letter to Allen Ginsberg]
      Aquarian [Joel Oppenheimer] – “New Flick in Town”
      The Editors – “Notice”

According to Diane di Prima in notes to Laurence McGilvery’s facsimile edition of The Floating Bear, “‘Aquarian; is always Joel Oppenheimer.”

6. THE FLOATING BEAR: A NEWSLETTER, No. 6, edited by Diane di Prima and LeRoi Jones
New York City: The Floating Bear, April 1961
First edition, corner-stapled sheets, 8.5” x 11”, 12 pages, mimeograph printed.

  • Contents:
    1. George Stanley – “1” (“One bird called White…”)
      George Stanley – “2” (“I thought you were savage…”)
      George Stanley – “3” (“At dawn the mosquitoes…”)
      George Stanley – “4” (“What graceless guy…”)
      George Stanley – “5” (“The old train goes…”)
      George Stanley – “6” (“When he asked me…”)
      George Stanley – “7” (“A ball hurted…)
      George Stanley – “8” (“Flit in, little fairy…”)
      George Stanley – “9” (“That sense of indefinite longing…”)
      George Stanley – “10” (“I’m not satisfied with them…”)
      George Stanley – “White Matches”
      George Stanley – “12” (“Simple Simon…”)
      LeRoi Jones – “A Note on the 12 Poems”
      Stan Persky – “Larry Davis Cowboy Poem”
      Stan Persky – “Siege Poem”
      Koenig [LeRoi Jones] – “Note”
      Robert Creeley – “Edward Dorn in the News”
      [Diane] di Prima – [untitled] “arthur machen, what he has hold of…”
      Koenig [LeRoi Jones] – “Note”
      Robert Creeley – “’Statement’ for Patterson Society”
      The Editors – “Notice”

According to Diane di Prima in notes to Laurence McGilvery’s facsimile edition of The Floating Bear, “George Stanley was in New York for a while in 1961. He was a part of Jack Spicer’s very tight circle. Jack had printed a lot of books and a magazine called J, and no copies of his things were allowed to go East. Jack felt the East Coast was Babylon. When George returned to San Francisco he went through a very bad period because Jack and the whole circle ostracized him for having gone to New York and having been published there. They said it was prostitution.”

7. THE FLOATING BEAR: A NEWSLETTER, No. 7, edited by Diane di Prima and LeRoi Jones
New York City: The Floating Bear, May 1961
First edition, corner-stapled sheets, 8.5” x 11”, 12 pages, mimeograph printed.

  • Contents:
    1. Bill Berkson – “’……’ Times”
      Bill Berkson – “How It Goes”
      Bill Berkson – “Hinterland”
      Bill Berkson – “Never”
      Bill Berkson – “You and Me”
      Bill Berkson – “Saturday Afternoon”
      Charles Olson – “Grammar – ‘A Book’”
      The Editors – “Notices”

8. THE FLOATING BEAR: A NEWSLETTER, No. 8, edited by Diane di Prima and LeRoi Jones
New York City: The Floating Bear, May 1961
First edition, corner-stapled sheets, 8.5” x 11”, 12 pages, mimeograph printed.

  • Contents:
    1. A.B. Spellman – “Zapata and The Landlord, for Allen Dulles”
      A.B. Spellman – “The Joel Blues, After and For Him”
      anonymous – “Last Will and Testament of an Urban Herbalist and Agrostologist”
      Joel Oppenheimer – “17-18 April, 1961”
      Ed Dorn – “New York, New York”
      The Editors – “Notice”

According to Diane di Prima in notes to Laurence McGilvery’s facsimile edition of The Floating Bear, “April 17-18, 1961 was the Bay of Pigs fiasco.”

9. THE FLOATING BEAR: A NEWSLETTER, No. 9, edited by Diane di Prima and LeRoi Jones
New York: The Floating Bear, June 1961
First edition, corner-stapled sheets, 8.5” x 11”, 12 pages, mimeograph printed.

  • Contents:
    1. LeRoi Jones – “from The System of Dante’s Hell”
      William Burroughs – “Routine: Roosevelt after Inauguration”
      Philip Whalen – “Itchy”
      unattributed – “Slave Song, 18th Cent.”

According to Diane di Prima in notes to Laurence McGilvery’s facsimile edition of The Floating Bear, “This slave song and the prayer [in issue No. 15] both came from a book on the history of American Negro music that LeRoi was reading then.”

10. THE FLOATING BEAR: A NEWSLETTER, No. 10, edited by Diane di Prima and LeRoi Jones
New York: The Floating Bear, June 1961
First edition, corner-stapled sheets, 8.5” x 11”, 16 pages, mimeograph printed.

  • Contents:
    1. John Wieners – “On January 20th the Snows Began to Melt”
      John Wieners – “You Can’t Kill These Machines”
      John Wieners – “Long Nook”
      John Wieners – [untitled] “And it would be good to stop…”
      John Wieners – “Ode to the Instrument” [Black Mountain, Spring 1955]
      John Wieners – “Ode to the Instrument”
      John Wieners – “Exchange of the Lady’s Handmaids”
      John Wieners – “Objects from Route 70”
      John Wieners – “Message”
      John Wieners – “Play Land’s Aftermath”
      John Wieners – “Second Flight Across Country”
      John Wieners – “After Meditations, for F O’H”
      John Wieners – “That Old Gang of Mine”

11. THE FLOATING BEAR: A NEWSLETTER, No. 11, edited by Diane di Prima and LeRoi Jones
New York: The Floating Bear, July 1961
First edition, corner-stapled sheets, 8.5” x 11”, 10 pages, mimeograph printed.

  • Contents:
    1. Charles Olson – “A Plausible Entry for, like, Man”
      Gil [Sorrentino] – [Letter to LeRoi Jones]
      Peter Hartman – “The Masai ***”
      James VI [King of England] – “from Reulis and Cautelis to be Observit and Eschewit in Scottis Poesie”
      Robert Kelly – “Letter to the Bear. Re: Rome”
      Denise Levertov – “An Argument. (In response to Trobar #2 and Kelly’s ‘Notes on the Poetry of the Deep Image’)”
      Larry Eigner – “Blabbermouth”
      Fred Herko – [Theater Reviews]
      The Editors – “Notices”

12. THE FLOATING BEAR: A NEWSLETTER, No. 12, edited by Diane di Prima and LeRoi Jones
New York: The Floating Bear, August 1961
First edition, corner-stapled sheets, 8.5” x 11”, 12 pages, mimeograph printed.

  • Contents:
    1. John Ashbery – “The Lozenges”
      John Ashbery – “The Suspended Life”
      John Ashbery – “To the Same Degree”
      John Ashbery – “The Ascetic Sensualists”
      A.B. Spellman – “Nocturne for Eric”
      Carl Solomon – “The Bughouse”
      Carl Solomon – “I Was a Communist Youth”
      Carl Solomon – “The Entrance of the Grand Gladiola”
      The Editors – “Notices”

According to Diane di Prima in notes to Laurence McGilvery’s facsimile edition of The Floating Bear, “Allen Ginsberg dedicated ‘Howl’ to Carl Solomon.”

13. THE FLOATING BEAR: A NEWSLETTER, No. 13, edited by Diane di Prima and LeRoi Jones
New York: The Floating Bear, September 1961
First edition, corner-stapled sheets, 8.5” x 11”, 12 pages, mimeograph printed.

  • Contents:
    1. A.B. Spellman – “The Beautiful Day”
      A.B. Spellman – “The Second Beautiful Day”
      A.B. Spellman – “The Beautiful Day, III”
      A.B. Spellman – “The Beautiful Day, IV”
      A.B. Spellman – “The Beautiful Day, V”
      A.B. Spellman – “The Beautiful Day VI”
      A.B. Spellman – “The Beautiful Day VII”
      Joe Early – “Les Enfants du Paradis”
      David Ossman – “Comments on Montage”
      Steve Jonas – “Altar”
      John Thomas – “Alba”
      John Thomas – “Memo for Coffeehouse Psychologists”
      Fielding Dawson – “The Turn of the Wheel”
      The Editors – “Notices”

14. THE FLOATING BEAR: A NEWSLETTER, No. 14, edited by Diane di Prima and LeRoi Jones
New York: The Floating Bear, October 1961
First edition, corner-stapled sheets, 8.5” x 11”, 14 pages, mimeograph printed.

  • Contents:
    1. Michael McClure – “!The Feast!, for Ornette Coleman”
      Philip Whalen – “Goodbye & Hello, Again 6:II:60”

Note: an announcement concerning the arrest of the editors was sent out separately and with some copies of No. 14.

15. THE FLOATING BEAR: A NEWSLETTER, No. 15, edited by Diane di Prima and LeRoi Jones
New York: The Floating Bear, November 1961
First edition, corner-stapled sheets, 8.5” x 11”, 12 pages, mimeograph printed.

  • Contents:
    1. Bruce Boyd – “Canticles for the Hours: Prime”
      Bruce Boyd – “Thread”
      Bruce Boyd – “1.” (“because it wasn’t sugar…”)
      Bruce Boyd – “2.” (“well, old honey, back to the hard sound…”)
      Bruce Boyd – “3.” (“or say that it is not love…”)
      Allen Ginsberg – “History of the Jewish Socialist Party in America”
      author unknown – “Early South Carolina Gullah Prayer”
      Frank O’Hara – “For the Chinese New Year & for Bill Berkson”
      Joseph Lesueur – [Theater Reviews]
      The Editors – “Notices”

16. THE FLOATING BEAR: A NEWSLETTER, No. 16, edited by Diane di Prima and LeRoi Jones
New York: The Floating Bear, December 1961
First edition, corner-stapled sheets, 8.5” x 11”, 12 pages, mimeograph printed.

  • Contents:
    1. George Stanley – [untitled] “They would force scrunched…”
      George Stanley – [untitled] “The sailors in their ship…”
      George Stanley – [untitled] “Myriads now fly down…”
      Dave Ossman and Martin Green – “A Film Form: Outline for a Filmscript”
      Charles Olson – “To Empty the Mind”
      Ron Loewinsohn – “The World of the Lie”
      Ron Loewinsohn – “The Mendacity of Windows”
      Ron Loewinsohn – “The Mendacity of Radio”
      Ron Loewinsohn – “The Mendacity of Sculpture”
      Ron Loewinsohn – “Coda: As Far as the Pass”
      Ron Loewinsohn – [untitled] “On the way back from Chicago (September, ’56)…”
      Marian Zazeela – “The Guggenheim Exhibition of Abstract Expressionists and Imagists (to Dec. 31)”
      Alan Marlowe – “Review”
      G. Sorrentino – “Rollins’ Return”

According to Diane di Prima in notes to Laurence McGilvery’s facsimile edition of The Floating Bear, “Marian Zazeela’s review of the Guggenheim exhibit caused a lot of commotion. After that point a lot of the New York painters who had been helping us with the Bear wouldn’t give us any more money because she suggested that Robert Motherwell was copying from his wife Helen Frankenthaler. Motherwell got very mad at us and wrote me a very nasty postcard.”

17. THE FLOATING BEAR: A NEWSLETTER, No. 17, edited by Diane di Prima and LeRoi Jones
New York: The Floating Bear, January 1962
First edition, corner-stapled sheets, 8.5” x 11”, 12 pages, mimeograph printed.

  • Contents:
    1. Joel Oppenheimer – “A Treatise”
      Hubert Selby, Jr. – “September 24, 1961, A Floating Bear Special”
      Charles Olson – “The Americans”
      Paul Metcalf – “Darlington, South Carolina”
      Max Finstein – “Song”
      Max Finstein – “The Trial”
      Max Finstein – “The Merger”
      Jerry Benjamin – [Theatre Review]
      Fred Herko – “Paul Taylor–A History”
      The Editors – “Notices”

18. THE FLOATING BEAR: A NEWSLETTER, No. 18, edited by Diane di Prima and LeRoi Jones
New York: The Floating Bear, February 1962
First edition, corner-stapled sheets, 8.5” x 11”, 12 pages, mimeograph printed.

  • Contents:
    1. David Meltzer – “Poem to H.P. Lovecraft”
      David Meltzer – “The Struggle / Poems for the Muse”
      David Meltzer – “Heroes: 7 / The Comics”
      Mike Strong – “After”
      Mike Strong – “Overture”
      Mike Strong – “Mornings”
      LeRoi Jones – “Footnote to a Pretentious Book”
      Charles Olson – “In the Face of the Chinese View of the City”
      Joseph Lesueur – “Random Thoughts about Recent Plays, On and Off Broadway”
      George Brecht – “Statement for James Goldsworthy”
      John King [LeRoi Jones] – “Rejoinder: Concerning the Reviews by Miss Zazeela and Mr. Marlowe in FB 16”
      Frank Buck [pseud.; not Identified] – “Consumer’s Guide”

19. THE FLOATING BEAR: A NEWSLETTER, No. 19, edited by Diane di Prima and LeRoi Jones
New York: The Floating Bear, March 1962
First edition, corner-stapled sheets, 8.5” x 11”, 12 pages, mimeograph printed.

  • Contents:
    1. Robert Duncan – “Night Scenes”
      Jonathan Williams – “We Take the Golden Road, to Samar, Kansas…”
      Stuart Perkoff – [untitled] “the Christian philo…”
      Stuart Perkoff – “2.” (“we step & and do not step…”)
      Stuart Perkoff – “3.” (“the river was warm, but not warm enough…”)
      Stuart Perkoff – “Three Prayers”
      Stuart Perkoff – “The Swing”
      Gertrude “Ma” Rainey – “Sissy Blues”
      Diane di Prima – “December, 1961”
      LeRoi Jones – “James Waring and Dance Company”
      Edwin Denby – [Letter to the Editors]
      The Editors – “Notices”

20. THE FLOATING BEAR: A NEWSLETTER, No. 20, edited by Diane di Prima and LeRoi Jones
New York: The Floating Bear, May 1962
First edition, corner-stapled sheets, 8.5” x 11”, 12 pages, mimeograph printed.

  • Contents:
    1. The Editors [LeRoi Jones] – “Hello, Ma I Glad I Win!”
      Bertolt Brecht – “A Letter to His Fascist Friend Arnolt Bronnen in the Summer of 1923”
      Paul Blackburn – “The Cronopios in America–1.”
      J. Williams – “Best Reading List”
      Ed Dorn – “A Wild Blue, Yonder”
      Ed Dorn – “Time Blonde”
      Ed Dorn – “In My Youth I Was a Tireless Dancer”
      Ed Dorn – “The Song Is Ended”
      Ed Dorn – “The Poet Lectures Famous Potatoes”
      Ed Dorn – “Nose from Newswhere”
      Diane di Prima – “from Whale Honey”

21. THE FLOATING BEAR: A NEWSLETTER, No. 21, edited by Diane di Prima and LeRoi Jones
New York: The Floating Bear, August 1962
First edition, corner-stapled sheets, 8.5” x 11”, 12 pages, mimeograph printed.

  • Contents:
    1. Frank O’Hara – “Mary Desti’s Ass”
      Frank O’Hara – “St. Paul and All That”
      Charles Olson – “A Work”
      Norman Solomon – “A Passion Play. 1.”
      Norman Solomon – “962”
      Peter Orlovsky and Allen Ginsberg – “Our Dear Friend Charles”
      Aquarian [Joel Oppenheimer] – “Best Reading List”
      Diane di Prima – “A Concert of Dance–Judson Memorial Church, Friday, 6 July 1962”
      The Editors – “Notices”

22. THE FLOATING BEAR: A NEWSLETTER, No. 22, edited by Diane di Prima and LeRoi Jones
New York: The Floating Bear, August 1962
First edition, corner-stapled sheets, 8.5” x 11”, 12 pages, mimeograph printed.

  • Contents:
    1. David Shapiro – “Lament”
      David Shapiro – “The Bluebird”
      David Shapiro – “The Storm”
      David Shapiro – “Canticle as Grieving”
      David Shapiro – “Poem”
      Yu Suwa – “A Poem, 1961-1962”
      LeRoi Jones – “The Politics of Rich Painters”
      Gary Snyder – “The Curse”
      Joseph Lesueur – “Rotten Apple”
      Steve Jonas – “Green”
      Steve Jonas – “Sub Voce”
      George Stanley – “The Italian”
      Abe Harvard [Peter Hartman] – “In Quest of Ugendun”
      Diane Wakoski – [Letter to the Editors]
      The Editors – “Notices”

According to Diane di Prima in notes to Laurence McGilvery’s facsimile edition of The Floating Bear, “David Shapiro was 16 years old. For his age his stuff was brilliant, and people in Frank O’Hara’s crowd were interested in him. He was a very funny person when I met him because all his 16-year-old, adolescent, New Jersey personality was there on the surface, in spite of the fact that he could make these very far-out images. He kept calling me Miss di Prima and Frank Mr. O’Hara, and Frank finally got very embarrassed about it.”

23. THE FLOATING BEAR: A NEWSLETTER, No. 23, edited by Diane di Prima and LeRoi Jones
New York: The Floating Bear, September 1962
First edition, corner-stapled sheets, 8.5” x 11”, 12 pages, mimeograph printed.

  • Contents:
    1. Kirby Doyle – “from The Happiness Bastard”
      Diane di Prima – “Careers: A Naturalistic Tragedy”
      Frank Lima – “Pudgy”
      James Waring – [Letter to The Floating Bear]
      Anton Webern [Peter Hartman?] – [Letter to the Editors]
      Miles Campion [LeRoi Jones?] – [Letter to the Editors]
      The Editors – “Notices”

24. THE FLOATING BEAR: A NEWSLETTER, No. 24, edited by Diane di Prima and LeRoi Jones
New York: The Floating Bear, September-October 1962
First edition, corner-stapled sheets, 8.5” x 11”, 12 pages, mimeograph printed.

  • Contents:
    1. William S. Burroughs – “Spain & 42 St.”
      William S. Burroughs – “Dead Whistle Stop Already End”
      William S. Burroughs – “Where Flesh Circulates”
      Paul C. Metcalf – “In This Corner: Charles Olson”
      Soren Agenoux – “A Movie Review”
      Johannes Koenig [LeRoi Jones] – “Names & Bodies (Notes)”
      Soren Agenoux – “12 Leçons de Ténèbres”
      George Montgomery – [untitled] “Lemons on barber poles…”
      The Editors – “Notices”

25. THE FLOATING BEAR: A NEWSLETTER, No. 25, edited by Diane di Prima and LeRoi Jones
Topanga: The Floating Bear, November 1962-March 1963
First edition, corner-stapled sheets, 8.5” x 11”, 8 pages plus Auerhahn advertisement flyer, mimeograph printed.

  • Contents:
    1. Lew Welch – “Voice from Rat Flat!”
      Richard Baker – “Struggle”
      Richard Baker – “Beer”
      Dale Landers – “III Of a Growth Of”
      Robert Creeley – “The Skeleton”
      A.B. Spellman – “Baltimore Oriole, for M.R.”
      A.B. Spellman – “A Home Brew”
      The Editors – “Thank Yous”
      [Advertisement for Auerhahn Press]

26. THE FLOATING BEAR: A NEWSLETTER, No. 26, guest-edited by Billy Linich
New York: The Floating Bear, October 1963
First edition, corner-stapled sheets, 8.5” x 11”, 10 pages, mimeograph printed.

  • Contents:
    1. [George Herms] – [untitled] “Wet floor feet faster than wine…”
      [George Herms] – “Tap City Easter Circus Report”
      Michael Katz – “4 Short Stories for Passover”
      John [Wieners] – [untitled] “Mary Butts, inhabit her Ashe family of Rings…”
      Mary Butts – [untitled] “Until they came to the world’s end…”
      John [Daley?] – [Letter to Billy Linich]
      George Brecht – [Note to Billy Linich]
      Kirby Doyle – “Moon Poem, for Jarry Heiserman”
      Ray Johnson – [Letters to Various Persons]
      Ray Johnson – “Where Is the Palace? Iodine.”
      Duke Mantee [LeRoi Jones] – “Voices from the Art World (or, Bright Sayings)”
      The Editors – “Notices”
      [Diane di Prima] – “This Is a Very Strong Appeal for Funds”

27. THE FLOATING BEAR: A NEWSLETTER, No. 27, edited by Diane di Prima
New York: The Floating Bear, November 1963
First edition, corner-stapled sheets, 8.5” x 11”, 34 pages, mimeograph printed.

  • Contents:
    1. Philip Whalen – “The Art of Literature”
      Philip Whalen – “The Saturday Visitations”
      Philip Whalen – “Sunday Afternoon Dinner Fung Loy Restaurant San Francisco”
      Philip Whalen – “Hello to All the Folks Back Home”
      Philip Whalen – “The Art of Literature, 2nd Part”
      Philip Whalen – “Heigho, Nobody’s at Home”
      Philip Whalen – “Ignorantaccio”
      Philip Whalen – “The Art of Literature, #3, A Total Explanation, for Dr. A.”
      Philip Whalen – [untitled] “without gills or lungs or brain…”
      Philip Whalen – “Saturday 15:IX:62”
      Philip Whalen – “Fillmore Hob Nob Carburetor”
      Philip Whalen – “The Art of Literature, Part 4th”
      Philip Whalen – “The Gallery, Mill Valley”
      Philip Whalen – “Applegravy”
      Philip Whalen – “The Professor Comes to Call”
      Philip Whalen – “The Art of Literature, Concluded”
      Philip Whalen – “How We Live the More Abundant Life in America”
      Aquarian [Joel Oppenheimer] – “R I P”
      Ray Johnson – “Review by Ray Johnson (in the Style of Floating Bear)”
      Alan Marlowe – [Theatre Review]
      [Michael Rumaker?] – “Wieners & Stein at Judson”
      Michael Rumaker – “The Island, by Robert Creeley” [book review]
      John Wieners – “The Reporters, A Review by John Wieners”
      John Daley – “Billy Linich’s Party”
      [Author Unknown] – “Mss. Found in the Debris at the Living Theatre: The Journal of an IRS Agent”
      Alan Marlowe and Diane di Prima – [Announcement for the New Choreographers Company]
      The Editors – [Notices]
      Ray Johnson – [Letter to the Floating Bear]

28. THE FLOATING BEAR: A NEWSLETTER, No. 28, edited by Diane di Prima
New York: The Floating Bear, December 1963
First edition, corner-stapled sheets, 8.5” x 11”, 16 pages, mimeograph printed. Cover art by Al Leslie.

  • Contents:
    1. Mary Caroline Richards – “Christmas Sonnet”
      Mary Caroline Richards – “To My New Goat”
      Gregory Corso – “I Dream in Daytime”
      Jack Smith – “Normal Love”
      LeRoi Jones – “In Wyoming Territory (a Title)”
      LeRoi Jones – “In Wyoming Territory (a Veil)”
      LeRoi Jones – “In Wyoming Territory (a Story.”
      LeRoi Jones – “In Wyoming Territory (Music of”
      LeRoi Jones – “In Wyoming Territory (Dance/Like/”
      Edward Field – “Chopin”
      John Wieners – “Journal of the First Night”
      Frank O’Hara – “Pistachio Tree at Château Noir”

29. THE FLOATING BEAR: A NEWSLETTER, No. 29, edited by Diane di Prima
New York: The Floating Bear, March 1964
First edition, corner-stapled sheets, 8.5” x 11”, 20 pages, mimeograph printed. Cover art by George Herms.

  • Contents:
    1. Robert Grosseteste – “On Light or the Beginning of Forms”
      James Waring – [untitled] “Seen anywhere can art avalanche…”
      Julian Beck – “Acrostic for the Community of Poets and Joel Oppenheimer”
      John Thomas – “Some Books”
      Frank O’Hara – “Adventures in Living”
      Gerard Malanga – “Rollerskate”
      Gerard Malanga – “A Magic Realist Painting, for Alan Marlowe”
      John Herbert Mcdowell – “Special to the Floating Bear”
      Morton Feldman – [Letter to the Floating Bear]
      [Gilbert] Sorrentino – “Signal: A New Magazine”
      Fielding Dawson – “I Confess”
      James Waring – “Art Chronicle”
      The Editors – “Notices”

According to Diane di Prima in notes to Laurence McGilvery’s facsimile edition of The Floating Bear, “Jerry Malanga wrote ‘Rollerskate’ as a tribute to Freddie Herko after Freddie’s death. I don’t know if the film it refers to was ever made.”

30. THE FLOATING BEAR: A NEWSLETTER, No. 30, edited by Diane di Prima
New York: The Floating Bear, November 1964
First edition, corner-stapled sheets, 8.5” x 11”, 20 pages, mimeograph printed. Cover art by Jeanne Marlowe.

  • Contents:
    1. Ruth Krauss – “As I Passed the Andy Auto Body Works”
      Alan Marlowe – “A Play”
      author unknown [Peter Abelard?] – “Medieval Latin Song” (trans. Diane di Prima)
      Ferencz Mcnaughton [pseud.?] – “May Meeting with C. Goy”
      Carl Solomon – “Pilgrim State Hospital”
      anon., As Told To Hubert Selby, Jr. – “My Return to Pilgrim State”
      Herbert Huncke – [untitled] “I could not believe we had anything…”
      Gilbert Sorrentino – “For the Floating Bear: Prose of Our Time”
      Allan Kaprow – “from the Construction of Boston”
      James Waring – [Letter to the Floating Bear]
      Alex Katz – [Letter to the Editors]
      Howard Schulman – “Jan Muller (1922-58) at the Guggenheim thru 2/25/62”
      Anne Wilson – “October ‘26 Rauschenberg”

According to Diane di Prima in notes to Laurence McGilvery’s facsimile edition of The Floating Bear, “The cover of Number 30 was done by my daughter Jeannie who was six and a half years old at that time.”

31. THE FLOATING BEAR: A NEWSLETTER, No. 31, guest-edited by Alan Marlowe
New York City: The Floating Bear, June 1965
First edition, corner-stapled sheets, 8.5” x 11”, 16 pages, mimeograph printed. Cover art by Jess Collins.

  • Contents:
    1. author unknown – “Great Prajna Paramita Sutra” (trans. by Shenryu Suzuki)
      John Wieners – “Procrastination”
      John Wieners – “Procrastination”
      John Wieners – “Procrastination”
      John Wieners – “Night Boat to Cairo”
      John Wieners – “The Mole Proposes Solitude”
      John Wieners – “Song Lyric for ‘Shoot the President’”
      Robert Duncan – “Notes from A Reading at the Poetry Center, San Francisco, March 1, 1959”
      The Editors – “Editors Notes”

32. THE FLOATING BEAR: A NEWSLETTER, No. 32, guest-edited by Kirby Doyle
Kerhonkson: The Floating Bear, February 1966
First edition, corner-stapled sheets, 8.5” x 11”, 16 pages, mimeograph printed. Cover art by Robert Branaman.

  • Contents:
    1. Michael McClure – “Cupid’s Grin”
      John Keats – “A Fragment to Fanny”
      Thomas Chatterton – “Last Verses”
      Sharon Morrill – [untitled] “Body dying of chemical injecto…”
      Thomas Traherne – “from The Centuries”
      Yvonne Rainer – “Some Thoughts on Improvisation”
      Kirby Doyle – “Some Notes Toward a Text for the Unyielding Kings of the New Undead”
      Allen Ginsberg – “Psalm IV”
      Diane di Prima – “Buddhist New Year Song”
      Sheri Martinelli – “Duties of a Lady Female”
      Clive Matson – “The Good-Bye Scene”
      The Editors – “Notes”
      The Editors – [Advertisement for the Poets Press]

33. THE FLOATING BEAR: A NEWSLETTER, No. 33, guest-edited by John Wieners
Brooklyn: The Floating Bear, February 1967
First edition, corner-stapled sheets, 8.5” x 11”, 36 pages, mimeograph printed. Cover art by Paolo Lionni.

  • Contents:
    1. [John Wieners] – “Our Unborn Child”
      John Broderick – “My Flowers…” [illustration]
      Jack Spicer – “The Bridge Game”
      Jack Spicer – “Lives of the Philosophers: Diogenes”
      Deedee Doyle [Sharon Morill] – [untitled illustration]
      B. O’Driscoll [Bobby Driscoll] – “Sunday”
      John Wieners – “The Drug Addict’s Dilemma: An Answer to America”
      Sanders Russell – “Two Poems”
      Philip Lamantia – “For Real”
      John Reed – “Three Poems”
      Kirby Doyle – “A Valo Poem”
      David Rattray – [untitled] “If only I could…”
      Edward Freeman – “Prints and Prisons”
      David Posner – “In Memory of a Friend”
      Allen De Loach – “The A Train”
      Bob Hartman – “This is the Flip Side of the Record”
      Robert Grenier – “A Race”
      Charles Doria – “from Christine’s Version”
      Stephen Jonas – “Subway Haiku”
      Alan Marlowe – [untitled] “Lady cat is missing…”
      Irving Rosenthal – “The Mouse King”
      Lewis Lipschitz – [untitled] “When I See the small fish…”
      Howard Schulman – [untitled] “When you breathe on me…”
      Elizabeth Sutherland – “B’s Blues”
      Joan Gilbert – [untitled] “this is the beginning of our end…”
      Jeanne Phillips – [untitled] “today we have the good witch…”
      Jeanne Phillips – “Observations”
      Jan Balas – [untitled] “I know its Thursday…”
      Jan Balas – “Meth Madness after Many Days”
      Diane di Prima – “Song for My Spooks”
      Diane di Prima – “First Snow, Kerhonkson, for Alan”
      Shreela Ray – [untitled] “I saw myself in abyss-green…”
      Shiela Plant – “Term Paper for 8 Year Old”
      Shiela Plant – “Autobiography”
      Shiela Plant – “Adamancy”
      Madeline Davis – “To Ronny”
      Janine Pommey – “On Train to Holland, 12-29-65”
      Janine Pommey – “October, 65, Ibiza Spain”
      Janine Pommey – “Paris 9-64, to Alex:”
      Janine Pommey – “Spring, Paris 65, to Fernando:”
      Janine Pommey – “Two Line Poems Written in Paris ‘65”
      The Editors – “Notices”

34. THE FLOATING BEAR: A NEWSLETTER, No. 34, edited by Diane di Prima
Brooklyn: The Floating Bear, October 1967
First edition, corner-stapled sheets, 8.5” x 11”, 28 pages, mimeograph printed. Cover art by Michael Bowen.

  • Contents:
    1. Jack Spicer – “The Day Five Thousand Fish Died in the Charles River”
      Jack Spicer – “Poem, by a Computer at Mit, Which Was Fed the Elements of English Grammar, and Directed to Produce Sentences”
      Keith Wilson – “Graves Registry XII, Body at Sea”
      Keith Wilson – “Graves Registry XIV, Sea Songs for Women”
      Gary Snyder – [untitled] “Could she see the whole real world…”
      Gary Snyder – “The Coyote Breath”
      Emily Bronte – “Cold in the Earth”
      Stuart Perkoff – [untitled] “what a city is…”
      Rajkamal Chowdhury – “The Cycle or the Yoni-chakra (a Tantric Song)”
      Lorenzo Thomas – “Poem in Lieu of the Marriage of Andrew Zolem”
      Arcane School, N.Y.C. – “Zodiac”
      George Stanley – [untitled] “I thought and thought…”
      George Stanley – [untitled] “the past (as if in parenthesis)…”
      Bertolt Brecht – “Of Poor B. B.” (trans. Jack Collom)
      Frank O’Hara – “Dérangé sur un Pont de l’Adour”
      Frank O’Hara – “Hôtel Particulier”
      Johannes Koenig [LeRoi Jones] – “The Structure of the Academy Is: Against, the Street, or, Versus.”
      Yukio Matsuda – “The Landing” (trans. Syunichi Niikura)
      Yu Suwa – “Jacob’s Ladder” (trans. Syunichi Niikura)
      Atsushi Sekiguci – “New Year Greeting” (trans. Syunichi Niikura)
      Philip Lamantia – “Rest in Peace”
      Jack Kerouac – “How to Meditate”
      Jack Kerouac – “Hitch Hiker”
      David W. Mckain – “Street Corner Song”
      David W. Mckain – “Special Eye”
      David W. Mckain – “Newark Black Survival Committee Press Conference”
      The Editors – “Notices”

35. THE FLOATING BEAR: A NEWSLETTER, No. 35, edited by Diane di Prima
New York: The Floating Bear, April 1968
First edition, corner-stapled sheets, 8.5” x 11”, 26 pages, mimeograph printed. Cover art by John Reed.

  • Contents:
    1. Philip Lamantia – “Inscription for the Vanishing Republic”
      Philip Lamantia – “Orphic Poem”
      Philip Lamantia – “The Call”
      Philip Lamantia – “Politics Poem”
      Philip Lamantia – “Lava”
      Philip Lamantia – “Cool Apocalypse”
      Philip Lamantia – “Visions”
      Philip Lamantia – [untitled] “That I burned by the screech owl castle…”
      Steve Jonas – “A Poem for Tony Sherrod”
      John Thomas – “The Empty Blues”
      Lenore Kandel – “Junk/Angel”
      LeRoi Jones – “Indians”
      LeRoi Jones – “A Traffic of Love”
      LeRoi Jones – “Old Men’s Feet”
      LeRoi Jones – “Nick Charles Meets the Wolf-Man”
      LeRoi Jones – “West of Dodge”
      Michael Rumaker – “The Island, by Robert Creeley” [book review]
      Michael Rumaker – “WFME Interview with Night Editor of Newark Evening News”
      The Editors – “Notices of All Kinds”

36. THE FLOATING BEAR: A NEWSLETTER, No. 36, guest-edited by Bill Berkson
New York City: The Floating Bear, January-July 1969
First edition, corner-stapled sheets, 8.5” x 11”, 40 pages, mimeograph printed. Cover art by Ray Johnson.

  • Contents:
    1. Larry Fagin, Bill Berkson, and Ron Padgett – “Beautiful Music”
      Larry Fagin, Bill Berkson, and Ron Padgett – “Dog Salt”
      Larry Fagin, Bill Berkson, and Ron Padgett – “The Secret of Jane Bowles”
      Max Ernst – “From”
      Michael Brownstein – “Driving Through Belgium”
      Michael Brownstein – “The Shining Hand”
      Michael Brownstein – “Woman Walking Slowly Downstairs and Waving”
      Anne Waldman – “Be Happy O Sad World Be Happy”
      Anne Waldman – “Bright Side”
      Tom Clark – “Where I Live”
      Clark Coolidge – “Nothing at Newbegins”
      Clark Coolidge – “Noun Adder”
      Blaise Cendrars – “Dorypha” (trans. Ron Padgett)
      Bill Berkson – “Forked Dah”
      Bill Berkson – “Stanky”
      David Shapiro – “For the Princess Hello”
      Diane di Prima – “Stone Take”
      Kenneth Koch – “I Am from Argentina”
      John Thorpe – “Shaman’s Pain”
      John Thorpe – “When”
      John Thorpe – “Dust Eater”
      Ron Padgett – “Movable Basketballs”
      Lewis Warsh – “Opening the Day”
      John Ashbery – “Upper Silesia”
      The Editors – “Readables”

37. THE FLOATING BEAR: A NEWSLETTER, No. 37, edited by Diane di Prima
New York City: The Floating Bear, March-July 1969
First edition, corner-stapled sheets, 8.5” x 11”, 24 pages, mimeograph printed. Cover art by Wallace Berman.

  • Contents:
    1. Lenore Kandel – “Hymn to Maitreya in America”
      LeRoi Jones – “What the Arts Need Now”
      Kirby Doyle – “An Unfinished Letter, Amir id-Emaid”
      Kirby Doyle – [untitled] “The belly of the moon…”
      Kirby Doyle – [untitled] “Again the butterfly visits me…”
      Kirby Doyle – [untitled] “I came to the top of this…”
      Kirby Doyle – “Upon Jail”
      Kirby Doyle – “-1- the Alchemist”
      Kirby Doyle – “-2- the Angel”
      Kirby Doyle – “-3- the Singer”
      Kirby Doyle – “-4- the Fallen”
      Kirby Doyle – “-5- the Risen”
      Gary Snyder – “Buddhism & The Coming Revolution”
      Victor Hernandez Cruz – “Poem for the Empire”
      Victor Hernandez Cruz – “Third World”
      Diane di Prima – “Canticle of St. Joan, for Robert Duncan”
      Michael McClure – “Tear Gas”
      Janine Pommy-Vega – “Poem for David”
      Janine Pommy-Vega – “Poem to Pitt/ If That Is Your Name…..”
      Tao Te Ching – “from Tao Te Ching” (trans. Paul Carus)
      Dave Cunliffe and Tina Morris – “Invocation”
      Freewheelin’ Frank [Frank Reynolds] – “’The Hymn’ to ‘Lucifer’”

According to Diane di Prima in notes to Laurence McGilvery’s facsimile edition of The Floating Bear, “The poem by Freewheelin’ Frank [Frank Reynolds] came out of a book that was done here in San Francisco. It was issued as a portfolio and ws the last printing effort of the Free City people; they had been doing a free publishing thing. They did Brautigan’s Please Plant This Book, poems printed on packets of seeds. They also did a dittoed version of Kirby Doyle’s Angelfaint, which he wouldn’t let them release because it had too many typographical errors in it. One thousand copies of it are probably still in Irving Rosenthal’s basement, without covers. Frank’s book was beautifully printed, all on separate sheets in about four colors. Freewheelin’ Frank’s name somehow didn’t get on this poem, so we had to write it in by hand on all the copies.”

References Consulted:

Clay, Steven and Rodney Phillips. A SECRET LOCATION ON THE LOWER EAST SIDE: ADVENTURES IN WRITING, 1960-1980
New York: New York Public Library / Granary Books, 1998

di Prima, Diane and LeRoi Jones. editors. THE FLOATING BEAR: A NEWSLETTER. Numbers 1-37, 1961-1969
La Jolla: Laurence McGilvery, 1973

Online Resources:

· Beat Visions and the Counterculture – Floating Bear
· From a Secret Location – The Floating Bear
· Reality Studio – Floating Bear Archive

Carl Larsen – Contributions to Books and Anthologies

>> return to CARL LARSEN main page >>

SECTION B:
This index includes contributions to books and anthologies

1. FOUR NEW POETS, edited by Leslie Woolf Hedley
brautigan_fourSan Francisco: Inferno Press, 1957
First edition, perfect-bound illustrated wrappers, 5.5″ x 8″, 34 pages.
Contributors include Martin Hoberman, Carl Larsen, Richard Brautigan, and James M. Singer. Brautigan’s first book appearance.

2. EYE POEMS, edited by E.V. Griffith
Eureka: Hearse Press, (c. 1960)
First edition, saddle-stapled wrappers in illustrated wrappers, 5.5″ x 8.5″, 16 pages, 100 numbered copies.
Contributors include Farley Gay, James M. Singer, Kenneth Lawrence Beaudoin, Carl Larsen, E.V. Griffith, Charles Shaw, Shirley Summerfruct, Mason Jordan Mason.

3. BEAT GENERATION COOK-BOOK, edited by Carl Larsen and James M. Singer Jr.
New York: 7 Poets Press, 1961
First edition, saddle-stapled sheets tipped in to illustrated wrappers, 5.75″ x 8.75″, 36 pages, offset printed. Includes printed ads for other 7 Poets Press books including Bukowski’s Longshot Poems for Broke Players.

4. 3 ONE ACT PLAYS, edited by Chris Torrance
Torrance: Hors Commerce Press, July 1964
First edition, side-stapled sheets in printed cover with library-tape binding, 8.5″ x 11″, 150 numbered copies.
Contributors include Kirby Congdon, Carl Larsen, d.a. levy.

5. IN A TIME OF REVOLUTION: POEMS FROM OUR THIRD WORLD, edited by Walter Lowenfels
New York: Vinatage Books, 1969
First edition, paperback original.
Contributors include: Carol Berge, Paul Blackburn, Grace Butcher, Diane Di Prima, Will Inman, Allen Katzman, Bob Kaufman, Tuli Kupferberg, Carl Larsen, d.a. levy, Clarence Major, David Meltzer, George Montgomery, Margaret Randall, Steven Richmond, Ed Sanders, William Wantling.

—

Fuck You/ a magazine of the arts

Fuck You/ a magazine of the arts, published by Ed Sanders from a “secret location on the Lower East Side” of New York City,  was a deliberately provocative mimeographed periodical that ran for 13 issues from 1962 to 1965. Each issue featured line drawings by Sanders and included contributions from such writers and artists as Tuli Kupferberg, Carol Bergé, John Wieners, Andy Warhol, Ray Bremser, Lenore Kandel, Charles Olson, Joel Oppenheimer, Peter Orlovsky, Philip Whalen, Allen Ginsberg, Herbert Huncke, Julian Beck, Frank O’Hara, Leroi Jones, Diane Di Prima, William Burroughs, Gary Snyder, Robert Kelly, Judith Malina, Carl Solomon, Gregory Corso, Robert Duncan, Robert Creeley, Michael McClure, Ted Berrigan, Joe Brainard, Gilbert Sorrentino, and many others.

1. FUCK YOU/ A MAGAZINE OF THE ARTS, No. 1, edited by Ed Sanders
New York: Ed Sanders, February 1962
First edition, side-stapled in printed and illustrated cover, 8.5″ x 11″, 26 pages, mimeograph printed. Cover art and illustrations by Ed Sanders.

From the Editors Note: “Send me your banned manuscripts, your peace-grams, your cosmic data, your huddled masses yearning to be free, your collections of freak-beams, plans for the pacifist holocaust, I lift my speedoprint mimeo beside the golden door…”

Contents:
Jean Morton – “To Us”
Jean Morton – “Prayer”
Ed Sanders – “Soft-Man I”
Ed Sanders – “Soft-Man II”
Ed Sanders – “Soft-Man IIII”
Ed Sanders – “Soft-Man V”
Ed Sanders – “Soft-Man VI”
Allen Hoffman – “Hymn to Amun-Ra-Sanders, The Sun Disc”
Paul Berner – “Freak-Gram: Some Notes on Nonviolent Suicide”
Nelon Barr – “A Bouquet of Fuck Yous”

2. FUCK YOU/ A MAGAZINE OF THE ARTS, No. 2, edited by Ed Sanders
New York: Ed Sanders, April 1962
First edition, side-stapled in printed and illustrated cover, 8.5″ x 11″, 34 pages, mimeograph printed. Cover art and illustrations by Ed Sanders.

From the Editors Note: “Send me yr goddamn manuscripts. Cut me in on yr freak-beams. I’ll print anything.”

Contents:
Margaret X – “Ronnie: An Unapproved Litany”
Eric Weinberger – “Brownsville Jail — Mar. 12, 1962”
Ed Sanders – “Cemetery Hill”
Ed Sanders – “Soft Man VII”
Ed Sanders – “Soft Man VIII”
Ed Sanders – “Soft Man IX”
Robert Brookings Gore – “Fishy”
Robert Brookings Gore – “What?”
Jim Forest – “Notes Written in the Night”
Nelson Barr – “Ash Wednesday Revisited”
Nelson Barr – “A Bouquet of Fuckyous, offering #2”

3. FUCK YOU/ A MAGAZINE OF THE ARTS, No. 3, edited by Ed Sanders
New York: Ed Sanders, June 1962
First edition, side-stapled in printed and illustrated cover, 8.5″ x 11″, 38 pages, mimeograph printed. Cover art and illustrations by Ed Sanders.

From the Editors Note: “Send me yr banned manuscripts, fire me yr cosmic data, visions of the incomprehensible, arcanics, outpukes from the jack-batty, notes from the all, I’ll print anything.”

Contents:
Penny X – “Crotch Poem”
Al Fowler – “Poems, Wargasms, Hymns to Young Men & Women”
Ed Sanders – “Poems”
Ed Sanders – “Soft Man X”
Bob K – “Canticle”
John Harriman – “Two Poems While High”
Nelson Barr – “A Bouquet of Fuckyous”
Tuli Kupferberg – “Pacifist Primer”
Tuli Kupferberg – “6996th Psalm”
Tuli Kupferberg – “Cool”

4. FUCK YOU/ A MAGAZINE OF THE ARTS, No. 4, edited by Ed Sanders
New York: Ed Sanders, August 1962
First edition, side-stapled in printed and illustrated cover, 8.5″ x 11″, 54 pages, mimeograph printed. Cover art and illustrations by Ed Sanders.

From the Editor’s Note: “Send me yr bloody manuscripts! I’ll print anything”

Contents:
Eric Weinberger – [untitled] “For me/ even for me…”
Carol Berge – “Lovesong”
Michael McClure – [untitled] “The mind pain comes over me…”
Taylor Mead – [untitled] “I can’t write…”
C.V.J. Anderson – “August Sixth for Reiko”
John Wieners – “Cocaine”
Ray Bremser – “Lacerations Manuscript”
Ed Sanders – “from On Guerilla Lovefare”
Tuli Kupferberg – “The Man with the Scissors”
John C. Harriman – “3 for Diane Wakoski”
Elin Paulson – [untitled] “in a forever eternity…”
John Keys – “Poem” [“what has made us…”]
John Keys – “New Age of Arm Lifting”
John Keys – “Remembrances of Things Past”
Steve Wever – [untitled] “Your Azzole is…”
Mary E. Mayo – “The Highlanders”
Jackson Mac Low – “Observations in My Neighborhood”
Nelson Barr – “Darkangelgirl”
Nelson Barr – “A Bouquet of Fuckyous, offering #4”

5. FUCK YOU/ A MAGAZINE OF THE ARTS, No. 5, Vol. 1, edited by Ed Sanders
New York: Ed Sanders, December 1962
First edition, side-stapled in printed and illustrated cover, 8.5″ x 11″, 62 pages, mimeograph printed. Cover art and illustrations by Ed Sanders.

From the Editor’s Note: “Barf me your frick data. Retch me in on your bable vectors, your arcanics, your spew, I’ll print anything.”

Contents:
Ed Sanders – “Fuck You, The Talk of the Town”
Charles Olson – “Three Poems from The Maximus Poems”
Lenore Kandel – [untitled] “to fuck with love…”
Al Fowler – “Heroin”
Al Fowler – “Takeoff”
Al Fowler – “Larson O.D.’s; Fowler Scare Shitless”
Al Fowler – “The Hip Lady Pacifist…”
Al Fowler – “Cock City”
Al Fowler – “Caroline”
Al Fowler – “Vision”
Barbara Moraff – [untitled] “Spaniel luz…”
Mark Samara – “Camping Out with Ed Sanders”
Ed Marshall – “Steps of Entering the Skin”
Bonnie Bremser – “Fowl-Play”
Millard Friedman – “Opening”
Ron Rice – [untitled] “Creation from zero…”
Charles Polandik – “Thru Service from New York to Chicago”
Joel Oppenheimer – “A Little Mayan Head”
John Keys – “Revision”
Kirby Congdon – [untitled] “I stagger under the boat…”
John Thomas – “Fat Dr. Bonelli”
Ed Sanders – “Blow Job Poem”
Mary Mayo – “Canticle”
Nelson Barr – “A Bouquet of Fuckyous”

6. FUCK YOU/ A MAGAZINE OF THE ARTS, No. 5, Vol. 2, edited by Ed Sanders
New York: Ed Sanders, December 1962
First edition, side-stapled in printed and illustrated cover, 8.5″ x 11″, 68 pages, mimeograph printed. Cover art and illustrations by Ed Sanders.

From the Editor’s Note: “Skin me with your poetry, your banned manuscripts, your babble, plans for the pacifist holocaust, I’ll print anything.”

Contents:
John Wieners – [untitled] “You talk of going…”
Tuli Kupferberg – “I Say”
Carol Berge – “How to Screw a Bear and Find God”
Taylor Mead – “from His Diary”
Paul Blackburn – “The One-Night Stand”
Barry Wallenstein – “Times of Our Time”
Ray Bremser – “Eternity Grinding Allen’s Giant Beyonds”
Ray Bremser – “Rolling with the Wind”
David Rattray – “In God We Trust”
John Keys – “Poem for Charles Olson come Summer”
Hank Dixon – “Billie the Kid Revisited”
Elin Paulson – “With Love Still”
Pasquale Cocco – [untitled] “I’d love to…”
Bob K. – “from Carolcurla”
Nelson Barr – “Call Me not Back”
Nelson Barr – “Another Bouquet of Fuckyous”
Al Fowler – “Babble”
Al Fowler – “I Want You”
Al Fowler – “Musee de Beaux Enfant”
Al Fowler – “Child”
Al Fowler – “Democracy”
Al Fowler – “Telephone Conversation”
Al Fowler – “The Room. Junk Withdrawal”

7. FUCK YOU/ A MAGAZINE OF THE ARTS, No. 5, Vol. 3, edited by Ed Sanders
New York: Ed Sanders, May 1963
First edition, side-stapled in printed and illustrated cover, 8.5″ x 11″, 80 pages, mimeograph printed. Cover art and illustrations by Ed Sanders.

Contents:
Ed Sanders – “Spurt Spurt”
Lenore Kandel – “Hero the Rider”
Rochelle Owens – “To an Arrogant Fart”
Peter Orlovsky – “Second Sex Experiment”
Jean Forest – “Queen #3”
Carol Berge – “The Love Hang”
Marc Samara – “Camping Out with Taylor Mead”
Joel Oppenheimer – “A Long Testament”
Ray Bremser – “The Cup of Sex”
Robert Kaye – “Mawdroogle”
John Thomas – “Okay Okay”
John Thomas – “For Basho”
Jay Socin – “Graffiti in a Public John”
Al Katzman – “Lament”
Barbara Moraff – “The Abdominal Snowman”
Barbara Moraff – [untitled] “during the past few months…”
Nancy Ellison – “Caca Caca”
John Keys – “Poem for the Aircraft”
Martin Segal – [untitled] “Here I have come…”
Taylor Mead – “Taylor Mead on Dope”
Jackson Mac Low – “19th Light Poem”
Szabo – “Poem for Marilyn”
Nelson Barr – “Bouquet of Fuckyous”

8. FUCK YOU/ A MAGAZINE OF THE ARTS, No. 5, Vol. 4, edited by Ed Sanders
New York: Ed Sanders, Summer 1963
First edition, side-stapled in printed and illustrated cover, 8.5″ x 11″, 74 pages, mimeograph printed. Cover art and illustrations by Ed Sanders.

Contents:
Ed Sanders – “Defiance”
Szabo – “Poem for Hustlers”
Lenore Kandel – “Grant Avenue”
Philip Whalen – “Duerden says: ‘Life is Therapy'”
Paul Blackburn – “Here They Go”
Joel Oppenheimer – “Public Affairs”
Joel Oppenheimer – “Poem in Praise of Perseverance”
John Harriman – “Antoninous Paper Number Two”
Barbara Moraff – [untitled] “im a hip song mistress…”
Barbara Moraff – [untitled] “ground like barren…”
Barbara Moraff – [untitled] “hiking out of sight…”
Barbara Moraff – [untitled] “the reactions…”
George Economou – “Carmen Mentulae”
Carol Berge – “An Answer to one of the Other Women”
Harry Fainlight – “42nd Street”
Rochelle Owens – “Manananimal”
George Montgomery – “Cockman”
Andrew Hoyem – “An Invocation to the Muse in her Low Haunts”
Al Fowler – “Junky II – Speedball”
Al Fowler – “Statutory Rape – (the plea)”
Al Fowler – “Junky”
Ed Sanders – “Three Poems from The Gobble Gang Poems”
Michael McClure – “Fuck Essay”
Nelson Barr – “A Bouquet of Fuckyous, offering #8”

9. FUCK YOU/ A MAGAZINE OF THE ARTS, Number 5, Volume 5, edited by Ed Sanders
New York: Ed Sanders, December 1963
First edition, side-stapled in printed and illustrated cover, 8.5″ x 11″, 90 pages, mimeograph printed. Cover art and illustrations by Ed Sanders.

From the Editor’s Note: “Manuscripts! Manuscripts! puke us your spew, magic, music, loves, logoi, and vapours! Onward in the Re-vectors, all you blazing m.f.’s”

Contents:
Ed Sanders – “Total Assault on the Culture”
Allen Ginsberg – “The Change: Kyoto-Tokyo Express July 18, 1963”
Isis – “Incantation for the REvival of the Dead Osiris”
Robert Kaye – “8th & 42nd”
Robert Kaye – “for Quang Duc”
Robert Kaye – [untitled] “under falling water…”
Robert Kaye – [untitled] “i’m dead…”
Lenore Kandel – “Love Fuck Poem”
Tuli Kupferberg – “A Black & White Manifesto”
Peter Orlovsky – “Allen Jerking Off on Bed”
Mary Mayo – “The Dream of the Starving Birds”
Robert Nichols – “Message”
Robert Nichols – “Bakhunin”
Diane Wakowski – “Ordinary Poem, to Bob”
Julian Beck – [untitled] “horse pimples…”
Julian Beck – “Anarchy”
Julian Beck – [untitled] “that the collective not be…”
John Keys – “Impressions Taken from the Same Canteen”
John Keys – “Erikson”
John Keys – “Lesson 2”
Jim Standish – “Three Poems from the Mushroom Poems”
Harry Fainlight – “O London”
Herbert Huncke – “The Party”
Nelson Barr – “Love Poem”
Nelson Barr – “A Bouquet of Fuck Yous, offering #9”

10. FUCK YOU/ A MAGAZINE OF THE ARTS, Number 5, Volume 6, edited by Ed Sanders
New York: Ed Sanders, April/May 1963
First edition, side-stapled in printed and illustrated cover, 8.5″ x 11″, 108 pages, mimeograph printed. Cover art and illustrations by Ed Sanders.

From the Editor’s Note: “Manuscripts!! we need high level poetic data, music, criticism, reviews, surveys, stories, magic, etc…. while we exist we should like to puke forth some totally mind-stomping issues…”

Contents:
Ed Sanders – “A Call to Action”
Harry Fainlight – “For the Ghost of Hart Crane”
Allen Ginsberg – “Walt Whitman”
Harry Fainlight – “Le Poete a Quatorze Ans”
Harry Fainlight – “Mescaline Notes”
Frank O’Hara – “Un Chant d’Amor”
Frank O’Hara – “In the Movies”
Peter Orlovsky – “Thank God….”
Ray Bremser – “Three Small Prater to the Genii”
Ray Bremser – “Frontal Phrenal Fit”
Al Fowler – [untitled] “are you going to the…”
Al Fowler – “Soup Poem”
Al Fowler – “My Last Shot of Stuff”
Szabo – “The Szabo Poems”
Diane Di Prima – “An Anniversary Poem, for Alan”
Diane Di Prima – “Take 3/16/61”
Diane Di Prima – “Take 3/15/61”
LeRoi Jones – “Houdini”
LeRoi Jones – “Letter to Elijah Muhammed”
LeRoi Jones – “Political Poem”
LeRoi Jones – “Double Feel”
Joel Oppenheimer – “Fragments of a Letter from New York to San Francisco”
Joel Oppenheimer – “For Our Cousins”
Joel Oppenheimer – “Where are My Glasses”
Joel Oppenheimer – “Balso’s Blues”
Carol Berge – “Chant for Half the World”
John Keys – “Star: Saskatchewan Two”
Nancy Ellison – [untitled] “i lie long mornings…”
Nancy Ellison – [untitled] “weed that hides rock…”
Nancy Ellison – [untitled] “i feel my body covered with dust…”
Nelson Barr – [untitled] “wingdlass, stingsalt skald’s brow hornhelmed…”
Nelson Barr – “A Bouquet of Fuckyou’s, offering #10”

11. FUCK YOU/ A MAGAZINE OF THE ARTS, Number 5, Volume 7, edited by Ed Sanders
New York: Ed Sanders, September 1964
First edition, side-stapled in printed and illustrated cover, 8.5″ x 11″, 172 pages, mimeograph printed. Cover art by Robert LaVigne and illustrations by Ed Sanders.

Contents:
Ed Sanders – “Resistance against Goon Squads”
Charles Olson – “West Gloucester”
John Wieners – “The Imperatrice”
John Wieners – “Confession”
John Wieners – “Le Chariot”
John Wieners – [untitled] “And if to die…”
Robert Creeley – “Something”
Robert Creeley – “Two Times”
Allen Ginsberg – “from Long Unfinished Poem”
Robert Duncan – “Old Testament”
Robert Duncan – “New Testament”
William Burroughs – “Fluck you fluck you fluck you”
Norman Mailer – “The Executioner’s Song”
Gary Snyder – “Hymn to the Goddess San Francisco in Paradise”
Gregory Corso – “God is a Masturbator”
Philip Whalen – “Statement of Condition”
Philip Whalen – “The Great Beyond Denver”
Philip Whalen – “Papyrus Catalogue”
Philip Whalen – “Vector Analysis”
Philip Whalen – “Against the Magic War: An Open Letter to Robert Duncan”
Michael McClure – “Airs from a Forgotten Book”
Judith Malina – “On the Day of the Death…”
Harry Fainlight – “The Spider”
Robert Kelly – “In Commentary on the Gospel…”
Robery Kelly – “Poem for Ed Sanders”
Carl Solomon – “Nobody Tells Me the Truth Any More”
Carl Solomon – “Stringing Them Along”
Carl Solomon – “Relationships”
Carl Solomon – “The Delinquents”
Carl Solomon – “The Lunatic and Modern Art”
Arnaut Daniel – “Sirventes”
Arnaut Daniel – “Sirventes” (trans. Paul Blackburn)
Al Fowler – “Junky”
Al Fowler – “Larson O.D.’s; Fowler Scared Shitless”
Al Fowler – “Heroin”
Al Fowler – “Takeoff”
Al Fowler – “The Room. Junk Withdrawal”
Al Fowler – “Junky II – Speedball”
Antonin Artaud – [untitled] “The message of…” (trans. Robert Cordier)
Philip Lamantia – “Blue Grace”
Alden Van Buskirk – “The Ivory Bastard”
Alden Van Buskirk – “Kitchen”
Alden Van Buskirk – “Last Will And”
Alden Van Buskirk – “from Forest Park Fragments”
Alden Van Buskirk – “Lami, Leather Nightingale”

12. FUCK YOU/ A MAGAZINE OF THE ARTS, Volume 5, Number 8, edited by Ed Sanders
New York: Fug Press, March 1965
First edition, side-stapled in printed and illustrated cover, 8.5″ x 11″, 154 pages, mimeograph printed. Cover art by Andy Warhol and illustrations by Ed Sanders.

Contents:
Ed Sanders – “Fuck You – The Talk of the Town”
Lawrence Ferlinghetti – “To Fuck is to Love Again”
Michael McClure – “Poisoned Wheat”
Michael McClure – “Poem Cards”
Ed Sanders – “from the Gobble Gang Poems”
LeRoi Jones – “Word from the Right Wing”
LeRoi Jones – “Western Front”
Allen Ginsberg – “from Journals”
Allen Ginsberg – “Dream”
Ted Berrigan – “Sonnet III”
Ted Berrigan – “Sonnet LXVII”
Ted Berrigan – “Sonnet LXXVI”
Ted Berrigan – “Sonnet LXXVIII”
W.H. Auden -“A Gobble Poem”
Gerard Malanga – “Friends”
Vincent Ferrini – “IHS”
Peter Orlovsky – “Three Pages of Drawings with Notes…”
Harry Fainlight – “Street”
Gergory Corso – “At the Big A”
Claude Pelieu – “Four Shriek Pages…”
Al Fowler – [untitled] “man is the disconnected beast…”
Elise Cowan – [untitled] “A cockroach…”
Elsie Cowan – [untitled] “The first eye opens…”
Elsie Cowan – [untitled] “Easy to love…”
Elsie Cowan – [untitled] “I took the skin of corpses…”
John Keys – “The Relationships”
Robert Kaye – [untitled] “suffering cannot be merited…”
John Francis Putman – “Mythology”
John Francis Putman – “Freebie Peek at Remaindered Girlie Mags”
John Francis Putman – “All Saints Day”
Carol Berge – “Thank You”
Bill Fritsch – [untitled] “I stared into your…”
Al Katzman – “Directions I (for John Keys)”
Al Katzman – “The Bloodletting”
Gerard Malanga – “In the pores of his forehead…”
Gerard Malanga – “Some Thoughts of Jean Shrimpton”
Gerard Malanga – “Charles Olson among the White Trees”
Nancy Ellison – [untitled] “I sing the grave…”
Nelson Barr – “Guernica”

13. FUCK YOU/ A MAGAZINE OF THE ARTS, Volume 5, Number 9
New York: Ed Sanders, June 1965
First edition, side-stapled in printed and illustrated cover, 8.5″ x 11″, 100 pages, mimeograph printed. Cover art and illustrations by Ed Sanders.

Contents:
Ed Sanders – “Notes from the Editor”
Joe Brainard – untitled illustration
Pindar – “The First Olympian Ode”
Tom Veitch – “You Got a Point There, Pop”
Harry Fainlight – “Interregnum”
Harry Fainlight – “Image for Fowler”
Harry Fainlight – “The Question”
Harry Fainlight – “Cruising”
Harry Fainlight – “To Noreen”
Harry Fainlight – “Magic Song”
Gilbert Sorrentino – “from The Perfect Fiction”
John Wieners – “Memories of You”
Alden Van Buskirk – “The Pimple”
Szabo – [untitled] “Billy the Kid, the criminal…”
Taylor Mead – “My Monthly”
Robert Kelly – “Sporting News”
Lenore Kandel – “In the Comics”
David Henderson – [untitled] “David A. Wood…”
Al Fowler – [untitled] “night. in the orchards…”
Janine Pommey – “On Train From Living Theatre Heist to Paris”
Ted Berrigan – “Book Review”

References Consulted:

Clay, Steven and Rodney Phillips. A SECRET LOCATION ON THE LOWER EAST SIDE: ADVENTURES IN WRITING, 1960-1980
New York: New York Public Library / Granary Books, 1998

Marx, Jake. “Index to Fuck You / A Magazine of the Arts” in THE SERIF: QUARTERLY OF THE KENT STATE UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES, Volume VIII, Number 3
Kent: The Kent State University Libraries, September 1971

Online Resources:

· Boo-Hooray – Ed Sanders: Fuck You / A Magazine of the Arts

· From a Secret Location – Fuck You/ a magazine of the arts

· Reality Studio – Fuck You Press Archive

· Ubu Web – Fuck You: A Magazine of the Arts (1962-1965)

d.a. levy

· Jim Lowell’s d.a. levy checklist

· Alan Horvath and Kirpan Press

References Consulted:

THE BUDDHIST THIRD CLASS JUNKMAIL ORACLE: The Art and Poetry of d.a. levy, edited by Mike Golden. NY: Seven Stories Press, 1999.

D.A. LEVY & THE MIMEOGRAPH REVOLUTION, edited by Larry Smith and Ingrid Swanberg. Huron: Bottom Dog Press, 2007

LOOKING FOR D.A. LEVY (RANDOM SIGHTINGS): THE D.A. LEVY BIBLIOGRAPHY, Volume 1 [1963-1966], edited by Kent Taylor and Alan Horvath. Vancouver: Kirpan Press, 2006

LOOKING FOR D.A. LEVY (RANDOM SIGHTINGS): THE D.A. LEVY BIBLIOGRAPHY, Volume 2 [1967-1968], edited by Kent Taylor and Alan Horvath. Vancouver: Kirpan Press, 2008

ZEN CONCRETE & ETC. BY D.A. LEVY, edited by Ingrid Swanberg. Madison: Ghost Pony Press, 1991

Online Resources:

· Cleveland Memory Project
· d.a. levy home page
· Deep Cleveland
· Literary Kicks

Some notes on printing methods:

Mimeograph:
The stencil duplicator or mimeograph machine is a low-cost duplicating machine that works by forcing black ink through a stencil onto levy_greattibetanpaper. The mimeograph process should not be confused with the spirit duplicator process.

Unlike spirit duplicators (where the only ink available is depleted from the master image), mimeograph technology works by forcing a replenishable supply of ink through the stencil master. In theory, the mimeography process could be continued indefinitely, especially if a durable stencil master were used (e.g. a thin metal foil). In practice, most low-cost mimeo stencils gradually wear out over the course of producing several hundred copies. Typically the stencil deteriorates gradually, producing a characteristic degraded image quality until the stencil tears, abruptly ending the print run. If further copies are desired at this point, another stencil must be made.

Spirit Duplicator:
A spirit duplicator (also referred to as a Ditto machine in North America, Banda machine in the UK or Roneo in Australia, France and South Africa) was a printing method invented in 1923. The term “spirit duplicator” refers to the alcohols which were a major component of the solvents used as “inks” in these machines.

The usual wax color was aniline purple (mauve), a cheap, moderately durable pigment that provided good contrast, but masters were also manufactured in red, green, blue, black, and the hard-to-find orange, yellow, and brown. All except black reproduced in pastel shades: pink, mint, sky blue, and so on.

Spirit duplicators had the useful ability to print multiple colors in a single pass, which made them popular with cartoonists. Multi-colored designs could be made by swapping out the waxed second sheets; for instance, shading in only the red portion of an illustration while the top sheet was positioned over a red-waxed second sheet. This was possible because the duplicating fluid was not ink, but a clear solvent.