Tag Archives: Gerard Malanga

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″

Elephant

1. ELEPHANT, No. 1, edited by John Perreault
New York City: John Perreault, Summer 1965
First edition, saddle stapled in illustrated wrappers, 7” x 8.5”, 72 pages, mimeograph printed.

  • Contents:
    1. Kathleen Fraser – “Trench Coat”
      Kathleen Fraser – “Little Poem for Frank”
      Kathleen Fraser – “Talking”
      Kathleen Fraser – “Medium-Size Poem for Joe”
      Kathleen Fraser – “Telegram”
      Kathleen Fraser – “Francine”
      Kathleen Fraser – “The Reason for Violence”
      Joseph Ceravolo – “Habitations”
      Robert Newman – “In Killyville U.S.A.”
      Robert Newman – “Snowdown”
      Ted Berrigan – “Homage to Charles Olson”
      Ted Berrigan – “On the Level of Everyday”
      John Perreault – “Shoe”
      James Brodey – “Conclusion”
      James Brodey – “4 to Kevin’s Joe”
      James Brodey – “10/23/63”
      James Brodey – “Bach’s Harpsichord Concerto, No. 3 in D Major”
      James Brodey – “Energy”
      James Brodey – “The Mindbenders”
      John Perreault – “Readymade: Flag”
      Gerard Malanga – “The Pleasure Seekers”
      Gerard Malanga – “Harakiri”
      Andy Warhol – “The Model that Models for Buick ‘65 Buick”
      Aram Saroyan – [untitled] “A cup of coffee…”
      Aram Saroyan – “French Poets”
      Aram Saroyan – [untitled] “Today, May 6th 1965…”
      Rosemary Ceravolo – “My Mother”
      Rosemary Ceravolo – “Poem” (“Do you love me…”)
      Rosemary Ceravolo – “America”
      Michael Benedikt – “Bonfire of Kings”
      Sotere Torregian – “Poem” (Against the world’s snarl…”)
      Sotere Torregian – “The Letters”
      Sotere Torregian – “Branch Brook Park 10/43”
      Sotere Torregian – “April”
      Sotere Torregian – [untitled] “Poetry should be written…”
      Erik Kiviat – “Waysong”
      John Perreault – “Readymade: The Meaning of Existence”

2. ELEPHANT, No. 2, edited by John Perreault
New York City: John Perreault, Winter 1965
First edition, side-stapled with illustrated cover, 8.5” x 11”, 62 pages, mimeograph printed. Cover art by John Perreault.

  • Contents:
    1. Allan Kaplan – “I Have a French Mind”
      Allan Kaplan – “The Highriser”
      Allan Kaplan – “Long Island”
      Allan Kaplan – “Poem” (“How many hours…”)
      Allan Kaplan – “My Wife’s House”
      Aram Saroyan – “Placid Teas”
      Aram Saroyan – [untitled] “Walking I am reading…”
      Jack Anderson – “The Hurricane Lamp”
      Jack Anderson – “Giovanni in Summer”
      Jack Anderson – “On the Road to the Eye Hospital”
      James Brodey – “Ordinary”
      James Brodey – “2/11/64”
      James Brodey – “One Poem from The Undice”
      Tony Towle – “Scrap Paper”
      Joseph Ceravolo – “from Habitations”
      Michael Silverton – “Notes from Lake Chud”
      Michael Silverton – “I Would Love You More”
      Michael Silverton – “Dance Beans”
      Michael Silverton – “We Have Black Walnuts”
      Kathleen Fraser – “Anthropology”
      Gerard Malanga – “Burning Days”
      Timothy Baum – “Homage to Jane Austen”
      Ted Berrigan – “American Express”
      Ted Berrigan – “After Breakfast”
      Michael Benedikt – “The Patient Yak”
      Sotere Torregian – “Give Back the Human”
      Sotere Torregian – “We are Living in the Overlap”
      Sotere Torregian – “Poem” (“The mad epithaliums…”)
      Robert Newman – “Survival Facilities”
      John Perreault – “Blue Air”
      John Perreault – “My Shortness”
      John Perreault – “Haircut”
      John Perreault – “Through this Spanish City We Row like the Weather”

3. ELEPHANT, No. 3, edited by John Perreault
New York City: John Perreault, Winter 1966
First edition, side-stapled with illustrated cover, 8.5” x 11”, 48 pages, mimeograph printed. Cover art by John Perreault. Illustration by Hugo Mujica

  • Contents:
    1. Joseph Ceravolo – “Help”
      Joseph Ceravolo – “Poem” (“Who has the nerves…”)
      Joseph Ceravolo – “Poem” (“You are mine…”)
      Joseph Ceravolo – “Snowy Saturday”
      Joseph Ceravolo – “Poem” (“What do you know…”)
      Ruth Krauss – “Miracle or Goodbye My Poets’ Storefront”
      Ruth Krauss – “A Play, Drunk Boat”
      Ruth Krauss – “Torch Song”
      Ruth Krauss – “Horse Opera with Wings”
      Ruth Krauss – “A Poem-Play, Onward”
      David Shapiro – “A Poem for Joseph Ceravolo”
      Aram Saroyan – “Waht”
      Regina Snyder – “Mandala”
      Jack Anderson – “Weather Report”
      Jack Anderson – “Castanets”
      Jack Anderson – “Precipitation Monday”
      Anne Waldman – “On the Open Sea”
      Anne Waldman – “The Distinct Absence”
      Lewis Warsh – “Suspect”
      Lewis Warsh – “The Report Card”
      James Brodey – “San Francisco, Condensed”
      Sotere Torregian – “From the Uncollected Poems of John Wesley Hardin”
      Sotere Torregian – [untitled] “And cork Paris world magic…”
      Michael Silverton – “Poem in Seven Sections called ‘The Days’”
      Thomas Clark – “The Yearbook”
      Thomas Clark – “The Whispering Lights”
      John Perreault – “Apocalypse”
      Clark Coolidge – “The Repeat Paper”
      Timothy Baum – “Automatic Thought Sequence for Alvin Greenstein’s Birthday”
      Ted Berrigan – “Corporal Pellegrini”
      Ted Berrigan – “Tobacco”
      John Perreault – “Zion”
      John Perreault – “An Interview with Joseph Ceravolo”

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

C: A Journal of Poetry

cover of C: A JOURNAL OF POETRY, Vol. 1, No. 5, edited by Ted Berrigan, October/November 1963.

C: A Journal of Poetry first appeared in May of 1963, edited by Ted Berrigan and published by Lorenz Gude. The format borrowed the production example of the recently published one-off magazine, The Censored Review, edited by Ron Padgett. It became an influential showcase for the work of New York School poets and artists — like Berrigan himself, along with Ron Padgett, Joe Brainard, Kenneth Koch, James Schuyler, John Ashbery, Dick Gallup, David Shapiro, and others.

>>> further reading >>>

C: A Journal of Poetry

C: A Journal of Poetry first appeared in May of 1963, edited by Ted Berrigan and published by Lorenz Gude. The format borrowed the production example of the recently published one-off magazine, The Censored Review, edited by Ron Padgett. It became an influential showcase for the work of New York School poets and artists — like Berrigan himself, along with Ron Padgett, Joe Brainard, Kenneth Koch, James Schuyler, John Ashbery, Dick Gallup, David Shapiro, and others.

Berrigan wrote in 1964:
“… the first issue of ‘C’ was deliberately put together by me to reflect the SIMILARITY of the poetry, since I felt the differences to be obvious, and the NEWNESS of such a point of view as we (I) had…(Where I got the title is a secret, but it really isn’t). (I wanted a name without connotations and so, while thinking about Marcel Duchamp, one day said to myself, ‘A’ ‘B’ ‘C’ ‘Voila!’ and there is was. ‘C’ ‘SEE’ ‘SEA’ ‘C# #(AD INFINITUM)’.).”

C, no. 4 was the Edwin Denby issue, which features a silk-screened cover (front and back) by Andy Warhol. The process of making the cover for this issue signifies an important moment in the history of Warhol’s craft; it was the first time the artist used Polaroid photographs as the basis for his silkscreen portraits.

Berrigan continues:
“Andy made a silkscreen of two of the photos, and supervised its application on to the paper, while it was applied in turn by me, Gerry [Malanga], Pat Padgett, Sandy [Berrigan], most of the covers being done by Pat. The idea was for every cover to be different, to utilize inexperience to produce ‘happenings.’” (Ted Berrigan in “Some Notes about ‘C'”, published in Get the Money!, City Lights, 2022)

Contributors to the magazine include John Ashbery, Joseph Ceravolo, John Wieners, Lorenzo Thomas, Barbara Guest, Kenward Elmslie, Frank O’Hara, LeRoi Jones, Harry Fainlight, Ruth Krauss, Gerard Malanga, Harry Mathews, James Schuyler, Edwin Denby, Frank Lima, Tom Veitch, Tony Towle, John Perrault, Ed Sanders, Peter Orlovsky, David Shapiro, Kenneth Koch, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, John Stanton, Jerome Rothenberg, Aram Saroyan, John Giorno, Gregory Corso, and Ken Weaver, among others.

Vol. 1, no. 7 features a cover and a five-page suite of mimeographed prints by Joe Brainard, who provided covers for many other issues. Ron Padgett edited vol. 2, no. 13, which includes a number of translations of Reverdy, Soupault, Apollinaire, and Jacob, and a cover by Joe Brainard. Vol. 2, no. 12 was not produced. Vol. 2, no. 14 is titled Behind the Wheel by Michael Brownstein and has a cover by Alex Katz.


1. C: A JOURNAL OF POETRY, No. 1, edited by Ted Berrigan
New York: Lorenz Gude and Ted Berrigan, May 1963
Side-stapled with printed cover, 8.5” x 14”, 31 leaves printed recto only, mimeograph printed.

Contents:
Dick Gallup – “Endless Resoundings Fill the Room”
Dick Gallup – “Ember Grease”
Dick Gallup – “It’s Everywhere, Like So Much Glue”
Dick Gallup – “Out West and Back East”
Dick Gallup – “Persia is Falling Beneath the Blue Triremes”
Ron Padgett – “Sonnet I” (“Three thoughts about a bad boy…”)
Ron Padgett – “Sonnet II” (“As the blue cup sits…”)
Ron Padgett – “Sonnett III” (“The stone house your father built…”)
Ron Padgett – [untitled] “Most sensual of recluses…”
Joe Brainard – “A Play”
Joe Brainard – “Diary Aug. 4th-15th”
Ted Berrigan – “Poem in the Traditional Manner”
Ted Berrigan – “Poem in the Modern Manner”
Ted Berrigan – “Homage to Beaumont Bruestle”
Ted Berrigan – “Two Scenes (after John Ashbery)”
Ted Berrigan – “Homage to Mayakofsky”
Ted Berrigan – “It is a Big Red House”
Ted Berrigan – “In Place of Sunday Mass”
Ted Berrigan – “From a Secret Journal”
Ted Berrigan – “Sonnet I” (“His piercing pince-nez…”)
Ted Berrigan – “Sonnet II” (Dear Margie, hello…”)
Ted Berrigan – “Sonnet III” (“Stronger than alcohol…”)
Ted Berrigan – “Sonnet IV” (Lord, it is time…”)
Ted Berrigan – “Sonnet V” (“Squawking a gala occasion…”)
Ted Berrigan – “Sonnet VI” (The bulbs burn…”)
Ted Berrigan – “Real Life”
Ted Berrigan – “Penn Station”
Ted Berrigan – “Sonnet XIII”

2. C: A JOURNAL OF POETRY, Vol. 1, No. 2, edited by Ted Berrigan
New York: Lorenz Gude and Ted Berrigan, June 1963

Side-stapled with printed cover, 8.5” x 14”, 28 leaves printed recto only, mimeograph printed.

Note: This issue is dedicated to Pat Mitchell and Ron Padgett as a wedding present.

Contents:
J. Richard White – “The Birth of Lamantia”
J.Richard White – “February in San Francisco”
J. Richard White – “from The Lady”
Joe Brainard – “From a Letter from Joe Brainard to Ted Berrigan/20 May 63”
Ted Berrigan – “Words for Love”
Ted Berrigan – “Doubts (to Dave Bearden)”
Ted Berrigan and Dick Gallup – “I Am Alone. You Are a Jungle. These Are the Ties That Bind”
Sandra Alper – [untitled] “Dear Aunt Rose and Uncle Bert…”
Ron Padgett – “Homage to Max Jacob”
Ron Padgett – “Gamma Rays”
Ron Padgett – “X” (“I hope somebody else writes…”)
Ron Padgett – “Ash Tarzan”
Ron Padgett – “Tristan Tarzan”
Ron Padgett – “The Portable Life of Dr. Reverdy”
Ted Berrigan – “Sonnet XVIII” (“Dear Marge, hello…”)
Ted Berrigan – “Sonnet XXIII” (“On the 15th day of November…”)
Ted Berrigan – “Sonnet XXXII” (“The blue day…”)
Ted Berrigan – “Sonnet XXXVI, Homage to Frank O’Hara” (“It’s 8:54 a.m. in Brooklyn…”)
Ted Berrigan – “Sonnet XXXVIII” (“Sleep half sleep half silence…”)
Ted Berrigan – “Sonnet XL” (“Wan as pale thighs…”)
Ted Berrigan – “Sonnet XLI” (“banging around in a cigarette…”)
Ted Berrigan – “Sonnet XLII” (“She murmurs of signs…”)
Ted Berrigan – “Sonnet LII” (“It is a human universe…”)
Ted Berrigan – “Sonnet LIII” (“The poem upon the page…”)
Joe Brainard – “A Mother’s Love is a Blessing”
Joe Brainard – “Sally”
Joe Brainard – “Poem” (“Last night was blue…”)

3. C: A JOURNAL OF POETRY, Vol. 1, No. 3, edited by Ted Berrigan
New York: Lorenz Gude and Ted Berrigan, July/August 1963

Side-stapled with printed cover, 8.5” x 14”, 30 leaves printed recto only, mimeograph printed. Cover art by Joe Brainard.

Contents:
Theodore Roethke – “The Waking”
Ted Berrigan – “A Sonnet for Dick Gallup / July 1963” (“The logic of grammar is not genuine…”)
John Ashbery – “$$$$$ from Re-Establishing Raymond Roussel”
John Stanton – “Sonnet” (“In this house I feel sad…”)
John Stanton – “Sonnet” (“Is the effort of my poem…”)
Gerard Malanga – “Now in Another Way, for Andy Warhol”
Richard Gallup – “Some Feathers”
Ted Berrigan – “Sonnet XXXI” (“And then one morning…”)
Ted Berrigan – “Sonnet XXXIV” (“Time flies by like a great whale…”)
Ted Berrigan – “Sonnet XXXVII” (“It is night. You are asleep….”)
Ted Berrigan – “Sonnet XLIV” (“The withered leaves fly…”)
Ted Berrigan – “Sonnet XLV” (“What thwarts this fear…”)
Ted Berrigan – “Sonnet XLVII” (“Frances Marion nudges himself…”)
Ted Berrigan – “Sonnet LVIII” (“A glass of chocolate milk…“)
Ted Berrigan – “Sonnet LXXIV (“The Academy of the future…”)
Ted Berrigan – “Sonnet LXXXVIII, A Final Sonnet for Chris” (“How strange to be gone…”)
James Brodey – “Two for Barbara Guest”
Ron Padgett – “Three Sonnets After Frank O’Hara”
Ruth Krauss – “Poem Play: A Beautiful Day”
Ruth Krauss – “A Play: In a Bull’s Eye”
Ruth Krauss – “A Play”
Ruth Krauss – “A Play: There’s a Little Ambiguity Over There Among the Bluebells”
Ron Padgett and Ted Berrigan – “Homage to Pierre Reverdy”
Richard Gallup – “Egg Plants Are Not Green”
unattributed [Ron Padgett and Ted Berrigan] – “Lettuce”
Ron Padgett – “Instead of a Man in Black the Men in Blue”
Ron Padgett – “Choctaw”
Ron Padgett – “Sonnet Written in the Time it Took Lauren Owen to Walk 100 Feet”
Richard Gallup – “Building a house”

4. C: A JOURNAL OF POETRY, Vol. 1,No. 4, edited by Ted Berrigan
New York: Lorenz Gude and Ted Berrigan, September 1963

Side-stapled with printed cover, 8.5” x 14”, 28 leaves printed recto only, mimeograph printed. Cover art by Andy Warhol; each silk-screened cover is unique.

Contents:
Frank O’Hara – “The Poetry of Edwin Denby”
John Wieners – “An Introduction”
Ted Berrigan – “Grace After a Meal”
Frank O’Hara – “Edwin’s Hand”
Edwin Denby – “The Climate”
Edwin Denby – “The Shoulder”
Edwin Denby – “Standing on a Street Corner”
Edwin Denby – “Summer”
Edwin Denby – “The Silence at Night”
Edwin Denby – “City Without Smoke”
Edwin Denby – “Elegy – The Streets”
Edwin Denby – “From a Sonnet Sequence ”
Edwin Denby – “Aaron”
Edwin Denby – “The Friend”
Edwin Denby – “Long Island City”
Edwin Denby – “A Domestic Cat”
Edwin Denby – “Ravenna”
Edwin Denby – “Florence”
Edwin Denby – “Siena”
Edwin Denby – “Rome”
Edwin Denby – “Via Appia”
Edwin Denby – “Villa Adriana”
Edwin Denby – “Naples”
Edwin Denby – “Amalfi”
Edwin Denby – “Paestum”
Edwin Denby – “Syracuse”
Edwin Denby – “Segesta”
Edwin Denby – “Taormina”
Edwin Denby – “Forza d’Agro”
Edwin Denby – “Brindisi”
Edwin Denby – “Athens”
Edwin Denby – “The Parthenon”
Edwin Denby – “Attica”
Edwin Denby – “Mycenae”
Edwin Denby – “Thebes”
Edwin Denby – “Delphi”
Edwin Denby – “Snoring in New York, An Elegy”
Ted Berrigan – “Some Notes”

5. C: A JOURNAL OF POETRY, Vol. 1, No. 5, edited by Ted Berrigan
New York: Lorenz Gude and Ted Berrigan, October/November 1963

Side-stapled in printed and illustrated wrappers, 8.5” x 14”, 39 leaves printed recto only, mimeograph printed. Cover art by Joe Brainard.

Contents:
John Ashbery – “The New Realism”
Ron Padgett – “A Game of Chess”
Joseph Ceravolo – “Passivation”
Sotero Torregian – “Kerygma”
John Wieners – “Prose Poem” (“The soul clings…”)
John Wieners – “Sickness”
John Wieners – [untitled] (“Do not let the silent…”)
John Wieners – “Happiness Is Just a Thing”
Ted Berrigan – “The Frightened City”
Ted Berrigan – “Cathedral Towns”
Ted Berrigan – “New Junket (for Harry Fainlight)”
Ron Padgett – “Wind”
J. Richard White – “What Price Salvation?”
J. Richard White – “Spelunca (for A.R.)”
John Ashbery – “Late December”
John Ashbery – “Copy of a Copy”
John Ashbery – “Undated”
Lorenzo Thomas – “Political Science”
James Schuyler – “The Infant Jesus of Prague”
Harry Fainlight – “Poem II” (“Muezzins, buzzards, newspapers…”)
Barbara Guest – “Olivetti Ode”
Barbara Guest – “Hands”
Kenward Elmslie – “Florida Hillocks”
Kenward Elmslie – “Piazza of the Bananas”
Kenward Elmslie – “Another Island Groupage”
Leroi Jones – “The New World”
Leroi Jones – “The Success”
Leroi Jones – “Predicates/Categories (after M.H.)”
Leroi Jones – “Cant”
Joseph Ceravolo – “Poem” (“There were more dirty…”)
Joseph Ceravolo – “Grass”
Joseph Ceravolo – “Poem” (“Come and go see over there…”)
Joseph Ceravolo – “Poem” (“Lapping water…”)
Joseph Ceravolo – “Funny Day”
Joseph Ceravolo – “Happiness in the Trees”

6. C: A JOURNAL OF POETRY, Vol. 1, No. 6, edited by Ted Berrigan
New York: Lorenz Gude and Ted Berrigan, December 1963/January 1964

Side-stapled in printed and illustrated wrappers, 8.5” x 14”, 32 leaves printed recto only, mimeograph printed. Cover art by Joe Brainard.

Contents:
Ted Berrigan – “Canzone”
Ted Berrigan – “Presence”
Ted Berrigan – “Destination Moom”
Ted Berrigan – “Prose Keys to American Poetry”
Joe Brainard – “Andy Warhol: Andy Do It”
Joe Brainard – “Nancy”
Dick Gallup – “Inside the Park”
Joe Ceravolo – “Stillness”
Joe Ceravolo – “I Am Lonely in My Crib”
Joe Ceravolo – “Five Poems”
Joe Ceravolo – “The Night Passes Through April Wind, No One Wants to Sleep”
Gerard Malanga – “Non-Sonnet IV”
Gerard Malanga – “Non-Sonnet XII”
Robert Dash – “Across the Table”
Harlan Dangerfield – “C’est Toi Qui Dors Dans L’Ombre”
Joe Brainard – “Johnny”
Dick Gallup – “from the Beaumont Series”
Ruth Krauss – “Duet”
Ted Berrigan – “Poem in Honor of Some Bombs”
Harlan Dangerfield – “The Pastor”
Harlan Dangerfield – “Orange Jews”
Lorenzo Toumes – “Enureseis”
Ron Padgett – “The Blind Dog of Venice (To Pat)”
Ron Padgett – “The EMS Dispatch (To Ted)”
Kenward Elmslie – “Blimps”
Kenward Elmslie – “Poem” (“the wooden junk flood…”)
Kenward Elmslie – “Television Scenario: The Users”
Kenneth Koch – “Your Fun is a Snob”
kenneth Koch – “Sweethearts From Abroad”
Kenneth Koch – “Rapping Along”
Kenneth Koch – “The Cat’s Breakfast”
Kenneth Koch – “Sun Out”
Kenneth Koch – “The Dead Body”
Ted Berrigan – “In Every Victim Awaits the Guest of Honor”
Ted Berrigan – “It Makes You Think,”
Ron Padgett – “The Complete Works: A Story-Poem (To Joe)”

7. C: A JOURNAL OF POETRY, Vol. 1, No. 7, edited by Ted Berrigan
New York: Lorenz Gude and Ted Berrigan, February 1964

Side-stapled in printed and illustrated wrappers, 8.5” x 14”, 44 leaves printed recto only, mimeograph printed. Cover art by Joe Brainard.

Contents:
Ted Berrigan – “Some Troubles”
Tom Veitch – “Cremations”
Joe Ceravolo – “A Story from the Bushmen”
Joe Ceravolo – “Warmth”
Joe Ceravolo – “Ending”
Joe Ceravolo – “The More You Take It”
Ted Berrigan – “Sonnet LXXIII”
Ted Berrigan – “Sonnet LXXVI”
Ted Berrigan – “Sonnet LXXVIII”
Ted Berrigan – “Sonnet LXXX”
Ted Berrigan – “Sonnet LXXXI”
Ted Berrigan – “Sonnet LXXXII”
Ted Berrigan – “Sonnet LXXXIV”
Ted Berrigan – “Sonnet LXXXVII”
Ron Padgett – “After the Broken Arm”
Ron Padgett – “I’d Give You My Seat If I Were Here”
Ron Padgett – “Sonnet / To Andy Warhol”
Ron Padgett – “Rome”
Ron Padgett – “Nothing in That Drawer”
John Wieners – “The Windows”
Guillaume Apollinaire – “Les Fenetres”
Tony Towle – “Prologue”
Tony Towle – “Apology”
Tony Towle – “Thoughts Near the George Washington Bridge”
Tony Towle – “Somebody Else, Black Poems, Brown Poems”
Lorenzo Thomas – “Gilbert and Sullivan”
Lorenzo Thomas – “Another Abstract Etc”
Lorenzo Thomas – “The Conscience of Cole Porter”
Frank Lima – “Abuela’s Wake”
Frank Lima – “In Memory of Eugene Perez (drowned may 25, ’62)”
John Perreault – “John Perreault”
Frank O’Hara – “Yesterday Down at the Canal”
Frank O’Hara – “Poeme en Forme de Saw”
Frank O’Hara – “To Jane: And in Imitation of Coleridge”
James Schuyler & Kenward Elmslie – “Unpacking the Black Trunk”
James Schuyler – “Poem” (“I do not always understand what you say”)
James Schuyler – [untitled] (“In the café I sat…”)
James Schuyler – [untitled] (“August, smelling of ripe grapes…”)
Edwin Denby – “Sonnet 30” (“Roar drowns the reproach…”)
Frank O’Hara – “Political Poem on a Last Line of Pasternak’s”
Frank O’Hara – “The Lay of the Romance of the Associations, to Kenneth Koch”
Frank O’Hara – “Commercial Variations”
Frank O’Hara – “34 mile wind”
Frank O’Hara – “Rhapsody”
Frank O’Hara – “Those Who Are Dreaming, A Play about St. Paul”
Harry Fainlight – “Ah, London”
Harry Fainlight – “Pastorale”
Harry Fainlight – “The Bayswater Road”
Harry Fainlight – “Meeting”
Harry Fainlight – “Lyric”
Harry Fainlight – “Echo & Co.”
Harry Fainlight – “28”
Harry Fainlight – “You Have Wasted Your Life”
James Schuyler – “The Home Book”
Dick Gallup – “Recoting”

8. C: A JOURNAL OF POETRY, Vol. 1, No. 8, edited by Ted Berrigan
New York: Lorenz Gude and Ted Berrigan, April 1964

Side-stapled in printed and illustrated wrappers, 8.5” x 14”, 40 leaves printed recto only, mimeograph printed. Cover art by Ted Berrigan and Joe Brainard.

Contents:
Edwin Denby – “Sonnet 20” (“the grand republic’s Poet is…”)
Ron Padgett – “In His Distant Camp, Ted Awaits the Priests”
Ted Berrigan – “Mess Occupations, after Henri Michaux”
Harlan Dangerfield – “The voyage of the Argonauts, for Lionel Trilling”
David Shapiro – “from We Are Gentle, Part I”
Ted Berrigan – “Invention, to John Ashbery”
Tom Veitch – “from Literary Days”
Ted Berrigan, Ron Padgett, Peter Orlovsky, and Gerry Malanga – “Boils”
Harry Fainlight – “Theme and Variation, Tangier 1963”
Harry Fainlight – [untitled] “The chant, le chant, the song…”
Harry Fainlight – “Childhood”
Al Fowler – “Poem” (“what matter of luxury is this?”)
Tom Veitch – “A letter from Tom Veitch / April 5, 1962”
Joseph Ceravolo – “Book III: The Concluding Book”
Dick Gallup – “Eskimos again”
Ed Sanders – “from The Gobble Gang Poems”
Ron Padgett – “Some Bombs (Mistranslations), after Reverdy”
J. Richard White – “Prick Song”
J. Richard White – “February in San Francisco”
J. Richard White – “Poem for Things”
J. Richard White – “San Francisco Ephemeris”
J. Richard White – “Early Sunday Afternoon”
J. Richard White – “Conversation”
Ted Berrigan – “Il Penseroso”
Ted Berrigan – “Stop Stop Six”
Ted Berrigan – “Then I’d cry”
Ted Berrigan – “Fauna time”
Ted Berrigan – “The Upper Arm, for Andy Warhol”
Ted Berrigan – “Sonnet XXVI” (“One Sonnet for Dick”)
Kenneth Koch – “A Poem of the Forty-Eight States”
Ron Padgett – “Rain Dunce, after Ted”
Dick Gallup – “Hygiene Sonnet”
Frank O’Hara – “Hatred”
Ted Berrigan – “Reeling Midnight, to Pierre Reverdy”
Tom Veitch – “from The Jolly Abyss”
Joe Brainard – “Spooky-Wooky-Wooky”

9. C: A JOURNAL OF POETRY, Vol. 1, No. 9, edited by Ted Berrigan
New York: Lorenz Gude and Ted Berrigan, Summer etc. 1964

Side-stapled in printed and illustrated wrappers, 8.5” x 14”, 67 leaves printed recto only, mimeograph printed. Cover art by Joe Brainard.

Contents:
Ron Padgett – “Y..R D..K”
Ron Padgett – “Begun”
Ron Padgett – “The Rodent”
Ron Padgett – “Jimmy”
Ron Padgett – “To Henry James”
Ted Berrigan and Ron Padgett – “Looking For Chris”
Ted Berrigan and Ron Padgett – “Teresa (A Play)”
Ted Berrigan and Ron Padgett – “Seventeen (A Play for Kay Boyle)”
Ted Berrigan and Ron Padgett – “Seventeen (A Play)”
Ted Berrigan and Ron Padgett – “Teres”
Ted Berrigan and Ron Padgett – “Seventeen (A Play for Signor Melone of Venice)”
Ted Berrigan – “On His Own”
Ted Berrigan – “The Dance of the Broken Bomb”
Ted Berrigan – “Putting Away”
Ted Berrigan – “Owe”
Ted Berrigan – “We Are Jungles”
Joe Ceravolo – “What Is That Flying Away?”
Dick Gallup – “Life in Darkness”
John Stanton – “From Newstand Report”
Joe Brainard – “Sally”
William Burroughs – “Intersections Shifts and Scanning from Literary Days by Tom Veitch”
Tom Veitch – “from The Jolly Abyss”
David Shapiro – [untitled] (“Light became audible…”)
David Shapiro – [untitled] (“The most terrible spasms…”)
Tony Towle – “Attached Poem”
Tony Towle – “Poems (to Joe LeSueur)”
Tony Towle – “Skylarks”
Harry Fainlight – “Juvenglandia”
Harry Fainlight – “To the Autumn Sunbeam God”
John Ashbery – “White”
John Ashbery – “Vocalise”
John Ashbery – “Evening Quatrains”
Kenneth Koch – “At the Railway Station”
Kenneth Koch – “Dostoevski’s The Gambler”
Kenneth Koch – “Triste E Una Donna”
Kenneth Koch – “Morro Rock”
Kenneth Koch – “Schweitzerreich”
Kenneth Koch – “Mateeyanah”
Kenneth Koch – “Wahego”
Kenneth Koch – “In Harmonium”
Kenneth Koch – “Chiaroscuro”
Kenneth Koch – “Heanorupeatomos”
Kenneth Koch – “An X-Ray of Utah”
Kenneth Koch – “Religiously”
William Burroughs – “Givers of Winds Is My Name”
Barbara Guest – “Strum Night”
Barbara Guest – “Looking at Flowers Through Tears”
Tristan Tzara – “Dada Proverb”
Allen Ginsberg – “The Change: Kyoto-Tokyo Express July 18, 1963”
Kenneth Koch – “The Return of Yellow May”
Kenneth Koch – “The Revolt of the Giant Animals”
Kenneth Koch – “The Building of Florence”
Kenneth Koch – “The Beverly Boys Summer Vacation”
Frank O’Hara – “For the Chinese New Year and For Bill Berkson”

10. C: A JOURNAL OF POETRY, Vol. 1, No. 10, edited by Ted Berrigan
New York: Lorenz Gude and Ted Berrigan, February 14, 1965

Side-stapled in printed and illustrated wrappers, 8.5” x 14”, 74 leaves printed recto only, mimeograph printed. Cover art by Joe Brainard.

Contents:
Francis Picabia – “Poop”
Dick Gallup – “Fits of Candor (A Manifesto)”
Dick Gallup – “The Return of Philista”
John Giorno – “Washington, July 5”
Harlan Dangerfield – “Inside Speech”
Giuseppe Ungaretti – “December”
Ted Berrigan – “Brett”
Ron Padgett – “Brett (A Play)”
Giuseppe Ungaretti – “After Breakfast”
Ron Padgett – “Richard Cory”
John Stanton – “Revised Poem”
Giuseppe Ungaretti – “Montana”
Aram Saroyan – “Poem” (“I stand last night…”)
Al Katzman – “From the Poetry Machine”
John Giorno – “Blandford, England, Sept. 23”
Ron Padgett – “December”
Tom Veitch – “Yes, I Am William Burroughs…”
Jeff Giles – “To the Imperial Wizard”
James Schuyler – “A Grave”
Aram Saroyan – “Moving”
Philippe Soupalt – “Georgia” (trans. By Peter Schjeldahl)
David Shapiro – “Dirge (South Africa)”
David Shapiro – “From Five Songs”
Gregory Corso – “from The Mutation of the Spirit”
Tom Veitch – “Precipice: A Story”
Les Gottesman – “The Day Before the Windowshade Fell”
Les Gottesman – “Apologies for the Angry Postcard”
Ron Padgett – “Principia Mathematica”
Louis Nasper – “Anecdote of Mumbly at Home”
John Perreault – “Homage to _______________”
Louis Nasper – “Ragtime Cowboy Joe”
Peter Schjeldahl – “Sonnet 16” (“Darkness rises from the sewers…”)
Peter Schjeldahl – “Sonnet 20” (“I cannot go on like this…”)
Richard Huelsenbeck – “We Hardly”
Aram Saroyan – “My arms are warm”
Ron Padgett – “Falling in Love in Spain or Mexico”
Jeff Giles – “Prison of Souls”
Dick Gallup – “Pomp Ilk”
Ted Berrigan – “Mother Cabrini (a play)”
Aram Saroyan – “Poem” (“In the corner of my room an American!”)
Szabo – “My First Story”
Harlan Dangerfield – “Poem” (“I don’t belong to you…”)
Kenward Elmslie – “Preface to “The Champ””
Kenward Elmslie – “The Champ”
Pierre Reiter – “Craze Man Wiliiker”
Douglas MacArthur – “Memoirs”
Ted Greenwald – “Secret Wallpaper”
David Shapiro – “The Pirates”
Giuseppe Ungaretti – “A Memory Filled with White”
Harlan Dangerfield – [untitled] (“There was an old prude from St. Paul…”)
Harlan Dangerfield – [untitled] (“A young maid awalking alone…”)
Ted Berrigan – “The Groundhog”
Richard Kolmar – “Song”
Max Jacob – “To Modigliani, to Prove to Him That I’m a Poet”
Ron Padgett – “The Fernandez”
Kenneth Koch – “Miss America”
Joe Brainard – “Did Daniel Webster and Rufus Choate Plan to Enter Medicine”
James Schuyler – “The Custard Sellers”
Michael McClure – “Ghost Tantra #9”
Tom Veitch – “Excerpt from The Jolly Abyss”
Hasheesh Fudge – “Recipe Department”
[unattributed] – “When the mercenaries ran away…”
Larry Swingle – “Ten When My Eyes Were Hurting”
Ron Padgett – “A Man Saw a Ball of Gold”
Frank O’Hara – “John Button Birthday”
Joseph Ceravolo – “Can’t Keep”
Bruce Kawin – “Sestina with a Lost Line”
Aram Saroyan – “Poem” (“A new telephone on the table”)
Richard Kolmar and Aram Saroyan – “The Bermudas”
John Ashbery – “Balance of Payments”
Tony Towle – “Supplements”
Frank O’Hara – “Ave Maria”
John Dent – “Fits of Affection”
John Ashbery – “The Ecclesiast”
Frank Lima – “The Woman”
Ted Berrigan – “In Three Parts”
John Ashbery – “Fortune”
Dick Gallup – “Revolting (A one act play)”
Kenneth Koch – “The Courtier”
Kenneth Koch – “En L’an Trentisme de Mon Eage”
The Poem Machine – “Leapfrog (for Jim Sears)”
John Ashbery – “Hoboken”
Ed Sanders – “from Aphrodite”
Philip Whalen – “The Ode to Music (for Morton Subotnick)”
William Burroughs – “Fits of Nerves with a Fix”
Joseph Ceravolo – “Street”
Charles Olson – “Ed Sanders’ Language”
Joseph Ceravolo – “Music”

11. C: A JOURNAL OF POETRY, Vol. 2, No. 11, edited by Ted Berrigan
New York: Lorenz Gude and Ted Berrigan, Summer 1965

Side-stapled in printed and illustrated wrappers, 8.5” x 14”, 56 leaves printed recto only, mimeograph printed. Cover art by Joe Brainard.

Contents:
Ron Padgett and Ted Berrigan – “On Frank O’Hara’s Birthday”
Ken Weaver – “Adios Lecture”
Aram Saroyan – “Police Lock”
Tom Veitch – “The Luis Armed Story”
Ted Berrigan – “from Looking For Chris”
Dick Gallup – “from The Bingo”
Ron Padgett – “from Motor Maids Cross the Continent”
Barbara Guest – “Another Daddy”
Barbara Guest – “A ‘Adventures of Tin-Tin’ Story”
John Stanton – “Selections from a Novel”
Kenward Elmslie – “Barbie and Ken”
Edwin Denby – [untitled] “New York, smog dim under August…”
Edwin Denby – [untitled] “Neighbor sneaks refuse to my roof…”
Edwin Denby – [untitled] “In tooth and claw red, not nature…”
Edwin Denby – [untitled] “Disorder, mental, strikes me…”
Edwin Denby – [untitled] “In a hotelroom a madman…”
Edwin Denby – [untitled] “Nocturnal void lower Fifth…”
Edwin Denby – [untitled] “Drenched saw Doris home…”
Edwin Denby – “Sonnet 18” (“Sunday on the Senator’s estate…”)
Edwin Denby – “Sonnet 19” (“The size balls are sudden…”)
Edwin Denby – “Sonnet 20” (“The grand republic’s Poet is…”)
Edwin Denby – “Sonnet 21” (“Blue grey ridge…”)
Edwin Denby – “Sonnet 23” (“Heavy bus slows…”)
Edwin Denby – “Sonnet 24” (“New year’s near…”)
Edwin Denby – “Sonnet 30” (“Roar drowns the reproach…”)
Kenneth Koch – “from The Red Robins”
Harlan Dangerfield – “Frost”
Harlan Dangerfield – “Saturday Night at the Movies”
Tom Veitch – “A Fine Thing”

Note: C: A JOURNAL OF POETRY Vol. 2 No. 12 was never issued.

12. C: A JOURNAL OF POETRY, Vol. 2, No. 13, edited by Ron Padgett
New York: Lorenz Gude and Ted Berrigan, May 1966

Side-stapled in printed and illustrated wrappers, 8.5” x 14”, 31 leaves printed recto only, mimeograph printed. Cover art by Joe Brainard.

Contents:
Stéphane Mallarmé – “In Praise of the Postal System”
Dick Gallup – “From The Bingo”
Théophile Gautier – “Mortality”
Théophile Gautier – “The Suitor”
John J. Murphy – “from Julius Caesar”
Pierre Reverdy – “The Heavenly Skater”
Pierre Reverdy – “At Dawn”
Pierre Reverdy – “The Traveller and His Shadow”
Pierre Reverdy – “Fetish”
Pierre Reverdy – “Natural Greatness”
Pierre Reverdy – “The Hard Heart”
Ted Berrigan – “from Clear the Range”
Phillipe Soupault – “The Great Melancholy of an Avenue”
William Saroyan – “Fragment”
Theresa Mitchell – “Saving Japan”
Harry Mathews – “The Sad Birds”
Joe Brainard – “Brunswick Stew”
Max Jacob – “Alas!”
Kenward Elmslie – “History of France”
Max Jacob – “Valiant Warrior on Foreign Soil”
Guillaume Apollinaire – “Julie ou j’ai prete ma rose”
Guillaume Apollinaire – “Corona di Cazzi”
Guillaume Apollinaire – “Epithalame”
Guillaume Apollinaire – “In Vase Proepostero”
Guillaume Apollinaire – “Petit Balai”
Guillaume Apollinaire – “Le teint”
Guillaume Apollinaire – “VIII” (“Linda la noire aux paumes roses…”)
Guillaume Apollinaire – “CartesPostales”
Guillaume Apollinaire – “Le Chat”
Guillaume Apollinaire – “Le Negre”
Guillaume Apollinaire – “Quelques Distiques Pour Plaire a Dupuy”
Guillaume Apollinaire – “Bibilographie”
Guillaume Apollinaire – “Justification”
Ron Padgett – “The Julie or the Rose Newsletter”

13. Brownstein, Michael. BEHIND THE WHEEL
New York: C Press, 1967

Side-stapled in printed and illustrated wrappers, 8.5” x 14”, 26 leaves printed recto only, 200 copies, mimeograph printed. Cover art by Alex Katz, production by Ron Padgett. Published as C: A Journal of Poetry, No. 14, edited by Ted Berrigan.

Contents:
Michael Brownstein – “No Empty Hands”
Michael Brownstein – “Nations”
Michael Brownstein – “Sunny Barn, Special Guests”
Michael Brownstein – “Behind the Wheel”
Michael Brownstein – “The Plains of Abraham”
Michael Brownstein – “Large Blue”
Michael Brownstein – “Fingertips”
Michael Brownstein – “Janice”
Michael Brownstein – “Lily Flower”
Michael Brownstein – “Waitress”
Michael Brownstein – “News”
Michael Brownstein – “Florence Was Fine in the Summertime”
Michael Brownstein – “Clean & Clear”
Michael Brownstein – “Poem” (“Yours the taught climb…”)
Michael Brownstein – “Navel”
Michael Brownstein – “Pond”
Michael Brownstein – “A Final Storm”
Michael Brownstein – “Coincidences”
Michael Brownstein – “Moving You Along”
Michael Brownstein – “Massachusetts”
Michael Brownstein – “Against the Grain”
Michael Brownstein – “Typhoon”
Michael Brownstein – “A Modern Instance ”
Michael Brownstein – “Pounds and Ounces”

 

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

Piero Heliczer – Film

>> return to PIERO HELICZER main page >>

SECTION D:
This index includes films by Piero Heliczer, with a short section at the end highlighting films that Piero Heliczer appears in


Films by Piero Heliczer: 

1. THE AUTUMN FEAST (1961) [film on Ubu Web]
Format: 8mm, 14 minutes, black and white and color, silent / sound on tape
Writer/Director: Piero Heliczer
Cinematography: Jeff Keen
Cast: Piero Heliczer, Kate Heliczer, Jacqueline Keen and others
Music: Angus MacLise – cembalum, Tony Conrad – mandolin, Piero Heliczer – flute

Note:  a deliberately non-synchronous film, shot in 8mm with the sound on tape. Piero Heliczer reads his poem “The Autumn Feast,” and the visuals interact with, but do not represent what is read.

“A grown up fantasy based on Guy Fawkes Day, the great children’s holiday of England, which is a combination of Halloween and the Fourth of July.” – Piero Heliczer.

“The Autumn Feast lays bare (there should be something that rhymes with hair here or bare there) the mythic structure behind the orange domes and cardboard battlements and gilded gables of our Pasty National Howard Johnsons Baghdad. It rubs the very noses of our mannequins in our mold and sends us spinning into the street – undone and toothless” – Jack Smith

2. THE SOAP OPERA (c. 1964)
Format: 16mm, 13 minutes, silent
Cinematography: Piero Heliczer
Cast: Piero Heliczer, Angus MacLise, Jack Smith, Marian Zazeela, LaMonte Young and others.

“This is basically a documentary on the beginnings of the cultural revolution on the Lower East Side, New York. While finishing this film, Piero Heliczer starred in Jack Smith’s FLAMING CREATURES and later in Bill Vehr’s AVOCADA.” – The Film-Makers Coop

“Also known as THE HOME OPERA and THE PANIC OPERA. At home in a small loft in the early days of the Golden Age of the Lower East Side. With Piero Heliczer, Angus Maclise, Jack Smith, LaMonte Young, Marian Zazeela and others.” – Piero Heliczer.

3. DIRT (1965) [film on Ubu Web]
Format: 8mm, 12 minutes, color/black and white, silent with sound on tape
Writer/Director: Piero Heliczer
Producer: Andy Warhol
Cast: John Cale, Storm De Hirsch, Bobby Driscoll [Nun], Dee Dee Driscoll, Rose Feliu-Pettet [Bride], Charles Henri Ford, Julie Garfield, Kate Heliczer, Sally Kirkland, Gretl Learned, Angus MacLise, Gerard Malanga, Jack Martin, Ann Mattingley, Barbara Maultsby, Jonas Mekas, Mario Montez, Irene Nolan, Bobby Notkoff, Barbara Rubin, Edie Sedgwick, Harry Smith, Jack Smith, Charles Stanley, Andy Warhol, La Monte Young, Marian Zazeela
Music: Marc Antoine Charpentier: Kyrie and Credo from the mass, “Assumpta Est Maria”
Filming location: New York City

Note: planned as a three hour epic, but when finished was only 12 minutes: also known as BATH SEQUENCE.

“Two nuns take a bath, then meet a sailor on the Staten Island Ferry. With Irene Nolan, Gretl Learned, Angus Maclise, Mario Montez and others.” – Piero Heliczer.

“Among all the new movies (it has been quiet lately on the underground scene) Piero Heliczer’s Dirt touched me most deeply. Its beauty is very personal and lyrical. And every frame of it is cinema. I can do not justice to this beautiful work in one paragraph. It was shot on 8mm and much of its beauty and its cinema come from 8mm properties of camera and film. It is all motion. Together with Brakhage’s Songs, Branaman’s abstractions and Ken Jackob’s not yet released work, Heliczer’s Dirt is one of the four works that use 8mm film properly and for art’s sake” – Jonas Mekas, Village Voice.

4. THE LAST RITES (1965)

5. SATISFACTION (c. 1965)
Format: 16mm, 10 minutes, color/black and white, silent with sound on tape
Writer/Director: Piero Heliczer
Cinematography: Piero Heliczer
Cast: John Cale, Sally Kirkland [The Nun], Angus MacLise, Gerard Malanga [Flash Gordon], Mario Montez, Irene Nolan [School Girl], Barbara Rubin [The Nun], Jack Smith [God], Frances Stillman [The Nun]
Music: The Rolling Stones (“Satisfaction”)
Sound Engineer: Tony Conrad

“A nun goes to Heaven and arrives there at the same time as Flash Gordon. With Sally Kirkland (as the Nun), Irene Nolan (as the School Girl), Frances Stillman and Barbara Rubin (as Nuns), Gerard Malanga (as Flash Gordon, Jack Smith (as God), Jack Martin, Angus Maclise, Mario Montez, and others.” – Piero Heliczer.

6. VENUS IN FURS (1965)
Format: 16mm, 16 minutes, color, silent with sound on tape
Director: Piero Heliczer
Cinematography: Piero Heliczer
Cast: John Cale, Piero Heliczer, Angus MacLise, Lou Reed, Barbara Rubin, The Velvet Underground
Music: The Velvet Underground (“Heroin”, “Venus in Furs” with Piero Heliczer on saxophone)
Sound Engineer: CBS-TV News

“This companion film to SATISFACTION is set at the opposite solstice and recapitulates part of DIRT. With Julie Garfield and Barbara Rubin (as Nuns), Chas Stanley (as Death), Margaret Boyce Cam (as the Nurse), Lou Reed, John Cale, Angus Maclise and others. A chess game under the bridge becomes a party in Hell. A must for lepidopterists.” – Piero Heliczer.

7. JOAN OF ARC
Format: 16mm, 11.5 minutes, color, silent with sound on tape
Cast: Arnold Rockwood (as the Policeman), Jack Smith (as LBJ), Rene Ricard, Ira Cohen, Wm. de Vore, Gerard Malanga, Tuli Kupferberg (as Bonnie Prince Charlie), Jose Rodriguez Soltero (as the Priest), Angus MacLise, Irene Nolan (as Marlene Dietrich), Chas Henry Ford, Jane Waldren, Wendy Norins, Andy Warhol, and many others
Music: Tony Conrad

“The story of Joan of Arc as applied to the present revolution in arts and mores. The Gothic is applied to the War in Vietnam. The film is experimental in the sense that in it the visual becomes tactile. With Arnold Rockwood (as the Policeman), Jack Smith (as LBJ), Rene Richard, Ira Cohen, Wm. de Vore, Gerard Malanga, Tuli Kupferberg (as Bonnie Prince Charlie), Jose Rodriguez-Soltero (as the Priest), Chas. Henri Ford, Jane Waldren, Wendy Norins and many others.” – Piero Heliczer.

8. THE STONE AGE
Format: 16mm, 24 minutes, color/black and white, silent with sound on tape
Cast: Tom Raworth, Mary and Gudmundur Gudmunsson Erro, Agneta Freiberg, Jane Fagin, Michael Malce, Francois le Coeur, Jackie Curtis, Viva, Michal Auder, Terence Ork, Mario Anniballi, Jud & Jeni Yalkut, Marion Brown, Mossa Bildner, Dexter Kelly, Betsy Greenstein, Gerorge Whitman, Alferdo Leonardi, Patti-Lee Chenis, Cornelia Wessels, Joseph Arak, Jose Rodriguez-Soltero, Rolando Pena, Suzanne de Maria, Lohr Wilson, Jerry Benjamin, Jack Smith (as Casanova), Michael Snow (as Aristotle), Gerard Malanga (as Orfeo) and many others
Music: Claudio Monteverdi (“Orfeo – Act III”)

9. HARUNOBU
Format: 8mm, 5 minutes, color, silent with sound on tape
Cast: Antoine Perich and others

“The action takes place in a pissoir in june/1958 the weather is very good every now and then it/ rains very hard at night there is lightning in/ the day time bright sun without rain bows the / day is bright as urine/ some of the action takes place on the outer/ surface of the pissoir shell/ harunobu wears a white noh mask and/ reddish black wig her japanese dress is white/ lack and red like a st raphael advertisement/ jean sebastien bach/ gregory shaxper/ with antoine perich and others.” – Piero Heliczer.

10. BESSIE SMITH (1967)
Format: 16mm, 6 minutes, color, silent with sound on tape

“Photographed by gerard malanga in the subways of new york (actually the set of the blue centaur left over from the economy cutbacks at mgm and paramount/ joseph smith; patti lee chenis/ barrabas son to joseph smith: bill iwata/ captain john smith/ captain smiths band white masks mustaches armored round quattrocento helmets/ angel black face wears a checkered ginham dress/ band of angels/ johann sebastian back wears a wig in blackface looks a lot like george washington two fingers of his left hand are missing/ bessie smith: lily ocasio/ joseph smith and barabbas smith are played by one man preferably buster keaton/ angel and bach are played by one man preferably django reinhardt/ captain smiths band is played by the band of angels.” – Piero Heliczer.

11. THE NAKED LUNCH (1968)
Format: 1/4″ magnetic tape, 30 minutes

“A film for tape recorder no projector needed/ sound by wm burroughs.” – Piero Heliczer.

12. ST. THERESE DE L’ENFANT JESUS
Format: 16mm, 40 minutes, black and white, silent

13. ROBIN HOOD
Format: 16mm, 39.5 minutes, black and white, silent


Film with Appearances by Piero Heliczer: 

1. BENGASI (1942)
Director: Augusto Genina
Writers: Edoardo Anton, Ugo Betti, Alessandro De Stefani, Augusto Genina
Piero Heliczer (as Sandrino Berti (aka “Pucci”))

2. ACQUE DI PRIMAVERA (1942)
Director: Nunzio Malasomma
Writers: Nunzio Malasomma, Sergio Pugliese
Piero Heliczer (as “un altro bambino”)

3. FLAMING CREATURES (1963)
Format: 16mm, 45 minutes, black and white, mono
Writer/Director: Jack Smith
Cinematography: Jack Smith
Cast: Francis Francine (as himself), Sheila Bick (as Delicious Dolores), Joel Markman (as Our Lady of the Docks), Mario Montez (as The Spanish Girl (aka Dolores Flores)), Arnold Rockwood (as Arnold), Judith Malina (as The Fascinating Woman), Marian Zazeela (as herself), Beverly Grant (as Whirling Dervish), Piero Heliczer (as himself)
Music: Tony Conrad
Filming Location: New York City

“An experimental film that features graphic sexual imagery, an earthquake, and a lipstick commercial.”

4. COUCH (1964)
Format: 16mm, 54 minutes, black and white, silent
Director: Andy Warhol
Producer: Andy Warhol
Cast: Bingingham Birdie, Rufus Collins, Gregory Corso, Allen Ginsberg, Kate Heliczer, Pierre Helzicer, Jane Holzer, Jack Kerouac, Mark Lancaster, Joseph LeSeuer, Naomi Levine, Gerard Malanga, Taylor Mead, Billy Name (as Billy Linich), Ivy Nicholson, Ondine, Peter Orlovsky, John Palmer, Amy Taubin, Gloria Wood

The couch at Andy Warhol’s Factory was as famous in its own right as any of his Superstars. In Couch, visitors to the Factory were invited to “perform” on camera, seated on the old couch. Their many acts-both lascivious and mundane-are documented in a film that has come to be regarded as one of the most notorious of Warhol’s early works. Across the course of the film we encounter such figures as poets Allen Ginsberg and Gregory Corso, the writer Jack Kerouac, and perennial New York figure Taylor Mead.

5. SCREEN TEST(1965)
Format: 16mm, 3 minutes, black & white, silent
Director/Producer: Andy Warhol
Cinematography: Gerard Malanga

Piero Heliczer, dressed in a broad-brimmed black hat and high collar, is placed in front of a plastic sheeting. He slowly smokes a cigarette, occasionally blowing a smoke ring. Towards the end of the roll he smiles, closes his eyes and sticks his tongue out at the camera

Note:between 1964 and 1966 Andy Warhol made about 500 different Screen Tests of various personalities who visited his atelier Factory.

6. BROTHEL (1966)
Format: 16mm, 45 minutes, color, mono
Director/Writer: Bill Vehr
Producer: Bill Vehr
Cinematrography: Bill Vehr
Cast: Mario Montez, Jack Smith, Piero Heliczer, Tosh Carillo, Francis Francine

Brothel is a 45-minute color film starring Mario Montez, Jack Smith, Piero Heliczer, Tosh Carillo, and Francis Francine. Filmmaker Carl Linder was particular taken with Vehr’s film, describing the film’s protagonist as “neo-romantic, Beardsley-esque phantoms from an Oscar Wilde garden.”

7. HOMEO (1967) [link to Dailymotion]
Format: 16mm, 38 minutes, color
Director: Étienne O’Leary
Cast: Michel Asso, Michel Auder, Yves Beneyton, Dennis Berry, Juliet Berto, Margareth Clémenti, Pierre Clémenti, Francis Conrad (as Konrad), Billy Copley, François De Menil, Barbara Girard, Michèle Giraud, Piero Heliczer, Nicole Laguigner, Taylor Mead

O’Leary’s second film is a disjointed collage of beautifully shot footage: cityscapes, signs and billboards, nudes and cameos by other French actors/filmmakers of the day.

8. NO PRESIDENT (1967)
Format: 16mm, 50 minutes, black and white
Director: Jack Smith
Cast: Tally Brown, Tosh Carillo, Doris Desmond, Charles Henri Ford (as Lady Dracula), Bill Fortenberry, Francis Francine, Piero Heliczer, Donna Kerness, Nancy King, Robert Lavigne, Gerard Malanga, Joel Markman, Gay Martini, Mario Montez, Irving Rosenthal

Note: original title was “The Kidnapping of Wendell Willkie by the Love Bandit”

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)