Tag Archives: Gregory Corso

CALL IT BIG TABLE

September 28, 2022 jason

BIG TABLE, No. 1, edited by Irving Rosenthal and Paul Carrol.

“Big Table was launched in Spring 1959 following the suppression of the Winter 1958 issue of The Chicago Review. An exposé in the Chicago Daily News revealed editors Irving Rosenthal’s and Paul Carroll’s plans to publish work by William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and other Beat writers, and the administration quashed the magazine…”

— from A Secret Location on the Lower East Side

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Big Table

“Big Table was launched in Spring 1959 following the suppression of the Winter 1958 issue of The Chicago Review. An exposé in the Chicago Daily News revealed editors Irving Rosenthal’s and Paul Carroll’s plans to publish work by William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and other Beat writers, and the administration quashed the magazine.

Rosenthal and Carroll, along with other Chicago Review editors, resigned and with the suppressed material started Big Table. The first issue was edited by Rosenthal and Carroll, though Carroll had to withdraw his name in order to avoid being fired by Loyola University where he was employed. This issue contained work by Jack Kerouac (who named the magazine in a telegram: “CALL IT BIG TABLE”), Edward Dahlberg, and Burroughs (a section from Naked Lunch), and was summarily impounded by the US Post Office.

The lawsuit was unsuccessful and Big Table continued through 1960 and five issues. Rosenthal left the magazine after the first issue and Carroll stayed on as editor for the duration, publishing such writers and artists as Paul Bowles, Antonin Artaud, Leon Golub, John Logan, Robert Duncan, Denise Levertov, Robert Fulton, Harry Callahan, Douglas Woolf, Aaron Siskind, Paul Blackburn, Franz Kline, Diane di Prima, and Gregory Corso.”

— from A Secret Location on the Lower East Side

1. BIG TABLE, No. 1, edited by Irving Rosenthal and Paul Carroll
Chicago: Big Table, Spring 1959
First edition, sewn signatures bound in printed wrappers, 5.5″ x 8″, 158 pages, printed by The Profile Press of New York.

Contents:
1. Irving Rosenthal – “Editorial”
  Jack Kerouac – “Old Angel Midnight”
  Edward Dahlberg – “Further Sorrow of Priapus”
  Edward Dahlberg – “The Garment of Ra”
  William S. Burroughs – “Ten Episodes from Naked Lunch”
  Gregory Corso – “Power, for Allen Ginsberg”
  Gregory Corso – “Army”
  Gregory Corso – “Police”

2. BIG TABLE, No. 2, edited by Paul Carroll
Chicago: Big Table, Summer 1959
First edition, sewn signatures bound in printed and illustrated wrappers, 5.5″ x 8″, 124 pages. Cover art by Leon Golub.

Contents:
1. John D. Keefauver – “The Daring Old Maid on the Flying Trapeze”
  Serge Essenin – “The Tramp’s Confession”
  Lawrence Alloway – “Heroes & Monsters & Mothers”
  Leon Golub – “Plate: Horseman”
  Leon Golub – “Plate: Burnt Man”
  Allen Ginsberg – “Kaddish”
  John Logan – “Fire”
  Antonin Artaud – Three Exhortations”
  Alan Ansen – “Anyone Who Can Pick Up a Frying Pan Owns Death”
  Paul Bowles – “Burroughs in Tangier”
  William S. Burroughs – “In Quest of Yage”
  Gael Turnbull – “The Priests of Paris”
  Brother Antoninus – “Zone of Death”
  Andre Breton – “Despair”
  Leon Golub – “Plate: Birth VII”
  Leon Golub – “Plate: Orestes”
  Edward Dahlberg – “Because I Was Flesh”
  Paul Blackburn – “The Signals”
  Margarita Liberaki – “Wedding”
  Leon Golub – “Plate: Abraham Lincoln”
  Leon Golub – “Plate: Columnar Head”
  Lawrence Ferlinghetti – “The Great Chinese Dragon”

3. BIG TABLE, Vol. 1, No. 3, edited by Paul Carroll
Chicago: Big Table, 1959
First edition, sewn signatures bound in printed and photo-illustrated wrappers, 5.5″ x 8″, 120 pages. Cover photograph by Aaron Siskind.

Contents:
1. Allen Ginsberg – “Kaddish”
  John Rechy – “The Fabulous Wedding of Miss Destiny”
  Robert Duncan – “Evocation”
  John Ashbery – “How much longer will I be able to inhabit the Divine Sepulcher”
  John Ashbery – “April Fool’s Day”
  Aaron Siskin – “Terrors & Pleasures of Levitation: four plates”
  Edward Dahlberg – “Because I was Flesh”
  Robert Creeley – “The Way”
  James Wright – “A Whisper to the Ghost who woke Me”
  Paul Carroll – “Father”
  Norman Mailer – “Quick & Expensive Comment on the Talent in the Room”
  Paul Blackburn – “Banyalbufar”
  Edward Dorn – “The Air of June Sings”
  Renee Riese Hubert – “Sizes”
  Peter Orlovsky – “First Poem”
  Lawrence Ferlinghetti – “Her”
  Jean Genet – “The Beggars of Barcelona”

4. BIG TABLE, Vol. 1, No. 4, edited by Paul Carroll
Chicago: Big Table, Spring 1960
First edition, sewn signatures bound in printed and illustrated wrappers, 5.5″ x 8″, 144 pages. Cover art by Robert Fulton.

Contents:
1. William S. Burroughs – “But is all Back Seat of Dreaming”
  Richard G. Stern – “Two Talking”
  John Ashbery – “Europe”
  Douglas Woolf – “Wall to Wall”
  Franz Kline – “Plate: Mister”
  John Logan – “from Monologues of The Son of Saul”
  Robert Creeley – “The Awakening, for Charles Olson”
  Robert Creeley – “The Wife”
  Robert Creeley – “The Memory”
2. Robert Creeley – “The Snow”
  Harold Norse – “I Am in the Hub of the Fiery Force”
  Harold Norse – “The Fire Sermon”
  James Wright – “Snow Storm in the Mid-West”
  James Wright – “A Young One in a Garden”
  Lawrence Ferlinghetti – “New York – Albany”
  Paul Blackburn – “The Idiot”
  Paul Blackburn – “Homage to the Spirit”
  Frank O’Hara – “Les Luths”
  Frank O’Hara – “Joe’s Jacket”
  Robert Duncan – “Four Pictures of the Real Universe”
  Denise Levertov – “The Rainwalkers”
  Gregory Corso – “Rembrandt – Self Portrait”
  Gregory Corso – “Emily Dickenson”
  Gregory Corso – “Walk”
  Kenneth Koch – “Lunch”
  Allen Ginsberg – “Message”
  William Hunt – Song from the End of the Earth”
  Michael McClure – “Two Poems from a Small Secret Book”
  Bill Berkson – “Poem”
  Paul Carroll – “34′-23′-35′”
  Diane Di Prima – [untitled] “I am a woman and my poems…”
  Philip Lamantia – “Still Poem 8”
  Philip Lamantia – “Cool Apocalypse”
  David Meltzer – “from Notes for a History”
  Gary Snyder – “The Manichaeans”
  Leroi Jones – “For Hettie in her Fifth Month”
  Charles Olson – “Maximus, to Gloucester, Sunday, July 19”
  Robert Creeley – “Olson & Others”
  Allen Ginsberg – “Notes on Young Poets”
  Paul Blackburn – “Writing for the Ear”
  Paul Carroll – “Five Poets in their Skins”

5. BIG TABLE, Vol. 2, No. 5, edited by Paul Carroll
Chicago: Big Table, 1960
First edition, sewn signatures bound in printed and illustrated wrappers, 5.5″ x 8″, 128 pages. Cover art by Harry Callahan.

Contents:
1. Douglas Woolf – “Stand Still”
  Frank O’Hara – “Naptha”
  Edward Dahlberg – “Because I was Flesh”
  Frederick Tristan – “The Bread Tree”
  Frederick Tristan – “The Whole Sea is yet to Come”
  Robert Duncan – “Apprehensions”
  Paul Bowles – “He of the Assembly”
  Kenneth Koch – “Farms’ Thoughts”
  John Rechy – “Between two Lions”
  Bill Berkson – “Poem for Frank O’Hara”
  Pablo Neruda – “Lone Gentleman” (trans. Clayton Eshleman)
  Pablo Neruda – “Death” (trans. Clayton Eshleman)
  John Updike – “Archangel”
  John Ashbery – “Night”
2. John Ashbery – “A Last Word”
  Harold Rosenberg – “from Arshile Gorky”
  David Meltzer – “Rain Poem”
  David Meltzer – “Heroes: Zap, the Zen Monk”
  Alain Robbe-Grillet – “Scene”
  John Schultz – “Witness”

Online Resources:

From a Secret Location – Big Table

Reality Studio – Big Table

References Consulted:

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

Loujon Press

Jon and Louise “Gypsy Lou” Webb. Photographer unknown.

In the Fall of 1961, Jon and Louise “Gypsy Lou” Webb published the first issue of their avant-garde poetry and prose magazine, The Outsider. Handset and letterpress printed, the journal straddled the line between traditional books and modern works of art, and the journal made an outsized impact on the literary world, shining a light on the talents of Beat Generation, Black Mountain and other avant-garde and counterculture poets, writers, and artists of the era.

In all, Loujon Press published three issues of The Outsider (one a double issue), and two books each by poet Charles Bukowski and novelist Henry Miller. These publications received at least as much praise for their quality as physical artifacts as they did for the poems and prose that made up their editorial matter. It seems like a small catalogue, but the remarkable artistry, craftsmanship, and pioneering spirit have earned the press a much larger place in history.

As art writer Nathan Martin commented, “Loujon operated during a particular moment in the history of artistic publishing in America … and remains a distinctive and compelling entity at the intersection of fine-press publishing, counterculture literature, and the French Quarter from which it emerged.”

Loujon Press Checklist:

1. The Outsider, Vol. 1, No. 1, edited by Jon Edgar Webb
New Orleans: Loujon Press, Fall 1961
First edition, side-stapled and bound into printed and photo-illustrated wrappers, 6” x 9”, 101 pages, 3100 copies, letterpress printed with handset type on a C&P handpress by Jon and Louise Webb. Associate Editor: Louise “Gypsy Lou” Webb; Advisory Editors: Marvin Bell, Margaret Randall, Jory Sherman, Edwin Morgan, Melville Hardiment, Sinclair Beiles; Consultant: Walter Lowenfels; illustrations: F. Salantrie.

Ephemera:
1. 1. 1. Prospectus. 5.75” x 17.75” sheet folded once to make four pages, lists contributors and includes order form.

Offprints:
1. 1. Corso, Gregory. “The American Way” [offprint of page 9] [1]
  2. Bukowski, Charles. “A Charles Bukowski Album” [offprint of pages 47-54] (Krumhansl 6)
  3. Miller, Henry. Letters To Lowenfels. [offprint of pages 63-66] [2] (Shifreen & Jackson A140)
  4. Burroughs, William S. Operation Soft Machine. [offprint of pages 73-77] [3]
  5. McClure, Michael. Spontaneous Hymn To Kundalini [offprint of page 46] [4]

Contents:
1. Edson, Russell. “Editorial” – 1:1, 3
2. Webb, Jon Edgar. “The Editor’s Bit: Public Square” – 1:1, 4
3. Beiles, Sinclair. “Metabolic C Movies” – 1:1, 5
4. Gordon, Stuart. “Metabolic C Movies” – 1:1, 5
5. Corso, Gregory. “The American Way” – 1:1, 9
6. Webb, Jr., Jon Edgar. “A Peek Over The Wall” – 1:1, 15
7. Giudici, Ann. untitled [“Be careful when you step…”] – 1:1, 17
8. Giudici, Ann. untitled [“I was a child…”] – 1:1, 17
9. Giudici, Ann. untitled [“Can you pause and stay…”] – 1:1, 18
10. Di Prima, Diane. “Lord Jim” – 1:1, 19
11. Grant, John. “On The Dot” – 1:1, 20
12. Haines, Paul. “…Had Spent Laughing” – 1:1, 23
13. Snyder, Gary. “Xrist” – 1:1, 24
14. Turnbull, Gael. “A Hill” – 1:1, 25
15. Olson, Charles. untitled [“Borne down by…”] – 1:1, 26
16. Dorn, Edward. “Like A Message On Sunday” – 1:1, 27
17. Ginsberg, Allen. “The End (to Kaddish)” – 1:1, 28
18. Orlovsky, Peter. “Snale Poem” – 1:1, 29
19. Hughes, Langston. “Doorknobs” – 1:1, 30
20. Martinez, Juan. “Work Song” – 1:1, 31
21. Sorrentino, Gilbert. “Ave Atque Vale” – 1:1, 35
22. Lowenfels, Walter. “Good-Bye Jargon, Elegy for a Small Press” – 1:1, 36
23. Lowenfels, Walter. “Welcome Home to Cubby” – 1:1, 37
24. Corman, Cid. “Post Mortem” – 1:1, 38
25. Corman, Cid. “Sempre D’amore” – 1:1, 38
26. Ferlinghetti, Lawrence. “Underwear” – 1:1, 39
27. Bremser, Ray. “On Prevalence” – 1:1, 42
28. Randall, Margaret. “Series of Seven” – 1:1, 43
29. Brand, Millen. “Swinging Off Swamp Creek” – 1:1, 44
30. Creeley, Robert. “The End of the Day” – 1:1, 45
31. Creeley, Robert. “Mind’s Heart” – 1:1, 45
32. Creeley, Robert. “The Bird” – 1:1, 45
33. McClure, Mike. “Spontaneous Hymn to Kundalini” – 1:1, 46
34. Bukowski, Charles. “Hooray Say The Roses” – 1:1, 48
35. Bukowski, Charles. “Pay Your Rent or Get Out” – 1:1, 48
36. Bukowski, Charles. “Shoes” – 1:1, 49
37. Bukowski, Charles. “I Am With the Roots of Flowers” – 1:1, 50
38. Bukowski, Charles. “Go With the Rockets & the Blondes” – 1:1, 51
39. Bukowski, Charles. “A Real Thing, a Good Woman” – 1:1, 51
40. Bukowski, Charles. “To a High Class Whore I Refused” – 1:1, 52
41. Bukowski, Charles. “Old Man, Dead in a Room” – 1:1, 52
42. Bukowski, Charles. “Love in a Back Room on the Row” – 1:1, 53
43. Bukowski, Charles. “Nothing Subtle” – 1:1, 53
44. Bukowski, Charles. “And Then: Age” – 1:1, 53
45. Sward, Robert. “Momma–, Mountain” – 1:1, 55
46. Ristau, Harland. “M’sippi Town” – 1:1, 56
47. Wilson, Colin. “Some Comments On The Beats & Angries” – 1:1, 57
48. Sherman, Jory. “Dear Liz” – 1:1, 60
49. Hedley, Leslie Woolf. “Naked In My Century” – 1:1, 62
50. Miller, Henry. “Letters To Lowenfels” – 1:1, 62
51. Jones, LeRoi. “The Southpaw” – 1:1, 67
52. Jones, LeRoi. “Bo Peep” – 1:1, 67
53. Jones, LeRoi. “X” – 1:1, 67
54. Jones, LeRoi. “Boswell” – 1:1, 68
55. Jones, LeRoi. “Dr. Jive” – 1:1, 68
56. Bell, Marvin. “Portrait of a Skeleton” – 1:1, 69
57. Bell, Marvin. “Winter Poem” – 1:1, 69
58. Epstein, Lester. “Demonstrate Your Culture…” – 1:1, 70
59. Epstein, Lester. “Moment” – 1:1, 71
60. Epstein, Lester. “Cold Coffee” – 1:1, 71
61. Zahn, Curtis. “Reprimand For A Compromised Love-Object” – 1:1, 72
62. Burroughs, William S. “Operation Soft Machine” – 1:1, 74
63. Kaja. “from: The Emerald City, For Gregory Corso” – 1:1, 78
64. Crews, Judson. “Rel Bore Speng Lule” – 1:1, 79
65. Crews, Judson. “Pastoral” – 1:1, 79
66. Thompson, Tracy. “Stranger” – 1:1, 79
67. Carroll, Paul. “What Did Your Face Look Like…” – 1:1, 80
68. Oden, G. C. “Lay Your Head Here” – 1:1, 81
69. May, James Boyer. “The Salutary Snare, for Colin Wilson” – 1:1, 82
70. Schleifer, Marc D. “Here & There, for Marian’s Show” – 1:1, 82
71. Pfisterer III, Frederick. “Dolorous Somewhere Behind” – 1:1, 83
72. Frumkin, Gene. “The Fat Pigeon” – 1:1, 84
73. Williams, Jonathan. “The Big House, For Sherwood Anderson” – 1:1, 84
74. Corrington, William. “Hard Man” – 1:1, 85
75. Boyle, Kay. “Print from a Lucite Block” – 1:1, 85
76. Blackburn, Paul. “Death Watch: Veille D’hiver” – 1:1, 86
77. Eshleman, Clayton. “Red Shoes (from Songs For Exile)” – 1:1, 86
78. Kupferberg, Tuli. “Great” – 1:1,87
79. Moraff, Barbara. “A Little Spur” – 1:1, 88
80. Abrams, Sam. “Bodies Only” – 1:1, 88
81. McGuire, Terence. “Mid-Morning” – 1:1, 88

2. The Outsider, Vol. 1, No. 2, edited by Jon Edgar Webb
New Orleans: Loujon Press, Summer 1962
First edition, side-stapled and bound into printed and photo-illustrated wrappers, 6” x 9”, 112 pages, 3100 copies, letterpress printed on a 8″ x 12″ C&P new series motorized press by Jon and Louise Webb. Associate Editor: Louise “Gypsy Lou” Webb; illustrations: Ben Tibbs, Frank Salantrie, Malcolm Paul Newman.

Offprints:
1. 1. Burroughs, William S. Wilt Caught In Time. [offprint of pages 3-4] [4]
  2. Miller, Henry. The Henry Miller To Lowenfels Letters. [offprint of pages 73-80] 2 (Shifreen & Jackson A140)

Contents:
1. Burroughs, William S. “Wilt Caught In Time” – 1:2, 3
2. Masters, R. E. L. “Editorial” – 1:2, 5
3. Webb, Jon Edgar. “The Editor’s Bit” – 1:2, 6
4. Bukowski, Charles. “Sick Leave” – 1:2, 7
5. Johnson, Kay. “from: The Fourth Hour” – 1:2, 8
6. Oppenheimer, Joel. “A Long Way” – 1:2, 10
7. Oppenheimer, Joel. “The Present” – 1:2, 11
8. Nemerov, Howard. “The Iron Characters” – 1:2, 13
9. Edson, Russell. “There Was” – 1:2, 14
10. Eigner, Larry. untitled [“the sky cross the desert…”] – 1:2, 15
11. Eigner, Larry. untitled [“visiting yesterday…”] – 1:2, 16
12. Eigner, Larry. untitled [“An easy death…”] – 1:2, 17
13. Eigner, Larry. untitled [“all these cripples…”] – 1:2, 18
14. Eigner, Larry. untitled [“that’s odd…”] – 1:2, 19
15. Dorn, Edward. “The Argument Is” – 1:2, 20
16. Corso, Gregory. “Poems From Berlin, First Week’s
17. Impression” – 1:2, 21
18. Bremser, Ray. “On The Nature” – 1:2, 24
19. Mayes, Richard. “Lament” – 1:2, 28
20. Johnson, Kay. “Poems From Paris” – 1:2, 29
21. Frumkin, Gene. “The Poet On His Lunch Hour” – 1:2, 34
22. Morgan, Edwin. “Jean Genet: A Legend, To Be Legible” – 1:2, 35
23. Hollo, Anselm. “They Fatted The Calf” – 1:2, 40
24. Stoloff, Carolyn. “Something Diseased” – 1:2, 42
25. Jacobson, David B. “Lecture” – 1:2, 42
26. Bukowski, Charles. “To A Lady Who Believes Me Dead” – 1:2, 43
27. Johnson, Kay. “Quick, Someone’s Coming” – 1:2, 44
28. Webb, Jon Edgar. “Suddenly Over” – 1:2, 45
29. Major, Clarence. “Dream In Ruins” – 1:2, 45
30. Field, Edward. “Ah, Linger A While, Thou Art So Fair” – 1:2, 46
31. Mason, Mason Jordan. “Mysterious As Any Woman Be” – 1:2, 47
32. Hazard, Geoffrey. “The Dubliner” – 1:2, 47
33. Moraff, Barbara. “Dear Solomon” – 1:2, 48
34. Musial, Frank. “Room” – 1:2, 48
35. Giudici, Ann. “Remember?” – 1:2, 49
36. Oden, G. C. “Low Calvary” – 1:2, 49
37. Bell, Marvin. “Pipecleaner, For Thin Dorothy” – 1:2, 50
38. Kaja. “from: The Emerald City, For Gregory Corso” – 1:2, 50
39. Genet, Jean. “from: Le Pecheur Du Suquet” – 1:2, 52
40. Purdy, A. W. “Love Poem” – 1:2, 53
41. Madaio, Louise. “The Wine Is Red (from Black Olives)” – 1:2, 55
42. McGrath, Thomas. “from: Letter To An Imaginary Friend” – 1:2, 59
43. Corrington, William. “Surreal For Lorca” – 1:2, 61
44. Williams, Jonathan. “The Anchorite” – 1:2, 62
45. Lowenfels, Walter. “Editorial” – 1:2, 64
46. Lamantia, [Philip]. “Last Days Of San Francisco” – 1:2, 66
47. Kerouac, Jack. “Sept. 19, 1961 Poem” – 1:2, 68
48. Margoshes, Dave. “Denise Levertov” – 1:2, 71
49. Margolis, William J. “from: The Mendicant Notebook, Vi (For Maxine)” – 1:2, 72
50. Miller, Henry. “The Henry Miller To Lowenfels Letters” – 1:2, 73
51. Finlay, Ian Hamilton. “Art Student” – 1:2, 81
52. Tagliabue, John. “Now And Then In The Fluorescence A Slight Jerking Motion” – 1:2, 82
53. Tagliabue, John. “’I Got Important Contacts’ Willy Loman Says” – 1:2, 82
54. Tagliabue, John. “Side Show / U.S.A.” – 1:2, 83
55. Tagliabue, John. “Those Mysterious Events That Stir Us” – 1:2, 83
56. Tagliabue, John. “Tall Blonde Girl And Ballet Dancer – 1:2, 83
57. Patchen, Kenneth. “letter to the editor and untitled paintings” – 1:2, 84
58. Micheline, Jack. “Street Call New Orleans” – 1:2, 94
59. Allen, Richard B. “Oldest of the Living Old” – 1:2, 97
60. Borenstein, Larry. “Oldest of the Living Old” – 1:2, 103
61. Jaffee, Allan & Sandra. “Oldest of the Living Old” – 1:2, 103
62. Russell, Bill. “Oldest of the Living Old” – 1:2, 104
63. Hentoff, Nat. “Oldest of the Living Old” – 1:2, 104
64. Wilson, John S. “Oldest of the Living Old” – 1:2, 107
65. Sperling, Jr., Godfrey. “Oldest of the Living Old” – 1:2, 107
66. Hobson, Wilder. “Oldest of the Living Old” – 1:2, 107
67. Giudici, Ann. “Didn’t He Ramble, For Steve Angrum” – 1:2, 111

3. The Outsider, Volume 1, Number 3, edited by Jon Edgar Webb
New Orleans: Loujon Press, Spring 1963
First edition, side-stapled and bound into printed and photo-illustrated wrappers, 6” x 9”, 138 pages, 2100 copies, letterpress printed by Jon and Louise Webb. . Associate Editor: Louise “Gypsy Lou” Webb; illustrations: Jackson Hensley, Ben Tibbs, Frank Salantrie.

Offprints:
1. 1. Miller, Henry. The Henry Miller To Lowenfels Letters. [offprint of pages 79-85] [5]

Contents:
1. Webb, Jon Edgar. “Editorial: The Editor’s Bit” – 1:3, 0
  Patchen, Miriam. “Letters to the editors” – 1:3, 2
  Patchen, Kenneth. “Editorial” – 1:3, 3
  Johnson, Kay. “The White Room” – 1:3, 7
  Snyder, Gary. “Some Square Comes” – 1:3, 15
  Snyder, Gary. “Madly Whirling Downhill” – 1:3, 15
  Kearns, Lionel. “Stress-Axis Poems” – 1:3, 16
  Creeley, Robert. “More On Kearns” – 1:3, 20
  Woolf, Douglas. “Visitation” – 1:3, 22
  McClure, Michael. ” -Three Mad Sonnets (from 13 Mad Sonnets)” – 1:3, 29
  Sward, Robert. “Donna Is Her Name” – 1:3, 31
  Sward, Robert. “Museum” – 1:3, 32
  Sward, Robert. “Mr Attis & Lady C” – 1:3, 31
  Burroughs, William. “Take It To Cut City – U.S.A.” – 1:3, 35
  Boyd, Sue Abbott. “Journey” – 1:3, 40
  Boyd, Sue Abbott. “The Following Morning” – 1:3, 40
  Weeks, Robert Lewis. “Grand Opening” – 1:3, 41
  Layton, Irving. “On Re-Reading The Beats” – 1:3, 42
  Genet, Jean. “A Colloquy (from Le Pecheur Du Suquet)” – 1:3, 44
  Fisher, Roy. “Chirico” – 1:3, 46
  Fisher, Roy. “Something Unmade” – 1:3, 47
  Webb, Jon Edgar. “The Girl There” – 1:3, 49
  Wakowski, Diane. “The First Day” – 1:3, 54
  Norse, Harold. “The Pine Cone” 1:3, 55
  Solomon, Carl. “The Madman In The Looking Glass” – 1:3, 56
  Cuscaden, R. R. “Charles Bukowski: Poet In A Ruined Landscape” – 1:3, 62
  Corrington, William. “Charles Bukowski: Three Poems” – 1:3, 66
  Bukowski, Charles. “The Tragedy Of The Leaves” – 1:3, 67
  Bukowski, Charles. “The Priest And The Matador” – 1:3, 68
  Bukowski, Charles. “Old Man, Dead In A Room” – 1:3, 71
  Bukowski, Charles. “The House” – 1:3, 72
  Bukowski, Charles. “Event” – 1:3, 73
  Bukowski, Charles. “Dinner, Rain & Transport” – 1:3, 74
  Bukowski, Charles. “Letters to the editors” – 1:3, 77
  Miller, Henry. “The Henry Miller Lowenfels Letters” – 1:3, 79
  Eigner, Larry. “Then:” – 1:3, 86
  Corrington, William. “Communion (from Prayers For Mass In The Vernacular)” – 1:3, 87
  Jouffroy, Alain. “Fatherland” – 1:3, 88
  Hollo, Anselm. “Thalidomide” – 1:3, 90
  Moraff, Barbara. “Two For Syd” – 1:3, 97
  Motley, Willard. “The Burial” – 1:3, 98
  Miller, Raeburn. “The Drowned Boy” – 1:3, 101
  Rubin, Larry. “Etiquette For Americans” – 1:3, 102
  Neish, Alex. “Review: Naked Lunch” – 1:3, 104
  Charters, Samuel B. “Jazz In New Orleans: 1899 To 1957” – 1:3, 109
  Borenstein, E. L. “Jazz In New Orleans: 1957 To 1963” – 1:3, 117

4. Bukowski, Charles. It Catches My Heart In Its Hands / New & Selected Poems 1955-1963
New Orleans: Loujon Press, October 1963
First edition, sewn signatures in printed wraparound jacket, designed and printed by Jon Edgar Webb and Louise Webb, introduction by William Corrington, illustration by Frank Salantrie, dedicated to “Gypsy Lou” Webb, 7.5” x 10”, 102 pages, 777 copies, letterpress printed, published as Gypsy Lou Series #1.
(Dorbin A5)

Ephemera:
1. 1. Publication announcement: 5” x 10.25”, with Miller quote (Shifreen & Jackson B145)

Contents:
1. “The Tragedy Of The Leaves”, “I Cannot Stand Tears”, “Shoes”, “A Real Thing, A Good Woman”, “To The Whore Who Took My Poems”, “Worm”, “The State Of World Affairs From A 3rd Floor Window”, “The Japanese Wife”, “For Marilyn M.”, “The Life Of Borodin”, “Winter Comes In A Lot Of Places In August”, “No Charge”, “Truth’s A Hell Of A Word”, “The Sun Wields Mercy”, “A Literary Romance”, “Reprieve And Admixture”, “Conversation In A Cheap Room”, “Letter From The North”, “Okay, But Later”, “A Minor Impulse To Complain”, “The Dog”, “Nothing Subtle”, “The Twins”, “The Day It Rained At The Los Angeles County Museum”, “2 P.M. Beer”, “Hooray Say The Roses”, “The Sunday Artist”, “Old Poet”, “To A High Class Whore I Refused”, “Dinner, Rain And Transport”, “Poem For These 4”, “Regard Me”, “I Am With The Roots Of Flowers”, “The Race”, “Vegas”, “Pay Your Rent Or Get Out”, “Love Is A Piece Of Paper Torn To Bits”, “The House”, “I Wait In The White Rain”, “The Kings Are Gone”, “It Is Not Much”, “Side Of The Sun”, “The Talkers”, “A Pleasant Afternoon In Bed”, “9 Rings”, “Blasted”, “A Song For Sadists With A Place To Sit Down”, “The Priest And The Matador”, “Love And Fame And Death”, “My Father”, “People Come Thru…”, “The Gift”, “The Bird”, “The Singular Self”, “Counsel”, “The Ox”, “Wrong Number”, “Sundays Kill More Men Than Bombs”, “A Farewell Thing While Breathing”, “A Rat Rises”, “A 350 Dollar Horse And A Hundred Dollar Whore”, “Bull”, “I Write This Upon The Last Drink’s Hammer”, “The Virgins Of Christmas”, “I Think Of Hemingway”, “Old Man, Dead In A Room”

5. Bukowski, Charles. Crucifix In A Deathhand / New Poems 1963-65
New York: Lyle Stuart, April 1965
First edition, sewn signatures in printed wraparound jacket, designed and printed by Jon Edgar Webb and Louise Webb, etchings by Noel Rockmore, dedicated to Marina Louise Bukowski, 8.5” x 12.25”, 102 pages, 3100 copies, letterpress printed, published as Gypsy Lou Series #2.
(Dorbin A6)

Ephemera:
1. 1. Publication announcement: 5.25” x 10”, with Miller quote (Shifreen & Jackson B164)
  2. Order form: 5” x 8.25”

Contents:
1. “Sound Down the Street”, “I Think of Mice Cooling It”, “Butterfly”, “Sing to Gods or Kangaroos”, “View from the Screen”, “Not with Boldness”, “Crucifix in a Deathhand”, “When the Berry Bush Dies I’ll Swim Down the Green River with My Hair on Fire”, “Mother and Son”, “Sunflower”, “Grass”, “Fuzz”, “Seahorse”, “A Report upon the Consumption of Myself”, “No Lady Godiva”, “The Workers”, “Beans with Garlic”, “Mama”, “Machineguns, Towers and Timeclocks”, “Good Morning, Brother, How Are You?”, “Something for the Touts, the Nuns, the Grocery Clerks and You”, “The Loss, The Loss, The Loss”, “Sway with Me”, “Lack of Almost Everything”, “No Argument”, “No. 6”, “This”, “Don’t Come Round but if You Do”, “Startled Into Life like Fire”, “Stew”, “Qp”, “Lilies in My Brain”, “Itch, Come and Gone”, “I Am Dead but I Know the Dead Are Not Like This”, “Swept Away in Orangepeel And Whistle Yowl”, “At the End of Feet The Blackbird Walks”, “Let Them Go”, “Like a Violet in the Snow”, “All I Ask Is a Faint Chance”, “Letter from Too Far”, “See this Flower!”, “Pansies”, “I Was Born to Hustle Roses Down the Avenues of the Dead”, “Farewell, Foolish Objects”, “Man in the Sun”, “I Kneel”, “The Swans Walk my Brain in April it Rains”, “The Girls on Sunset Blvd.”, “Woman”, “Confession for those Who Do Not Breathe at Funerals”, “Like All The Years Wasted”, “They, all of Them, Know”, “A Nice Day”.

6. Miller, Henry. Order And Chaos Chez Hans Reichel
Tucson: Loujon Press, December 1966
First edition, perfect bound in printed wraparound jacket in printed slipcase, leather editions bound by the Schuberth Bookbindery of San Francisco, introductory statement by Karl Shapiro, introduction by Lawrence Durrell, photograph of Miller by Ina Paulandre tipped in, 9” x 9.75”, 87 pages, 1425 copies, letterpress printed, published as Gypsy Lou Series #3.
(Shifreen & Jackson A157a-g)

Variant Issues:
1. 1. Crimson Oasis limited issue: 26 lettered copies signed, quarter leather binding (Shifreen & Jackson A157a)
  2. Blue Oasis limited issue: 99 copies signed, quarter leather binding (Shifreen & Jackson A157b)
  3. Cork issue: 1399 copies (Shifreen & Jackson A157c)
  4. Orange Oasis limited issue: 3 copies (Shifreen & Jackson A157d)
  5. Black Oasis limited issue: 11 copies lettered using letters to spell HENRY MILLER, quarter leather binding, bound in postcard from Miller to Jon Webb (Shifreen & Jackson A157e)
  6. Green Oasis limited issue: 11 copies lettered using letters to spell HENRY MILLER, quarter leather binding (Shifreen & Jackson A157f)
  7. Cork issue: 26 lettered copies (Shifreen & Jackson A157g)

Ephemera:
1. 1. Publication announcement: 20” x 26” featuring a photograph of Miller and his bicycle (Shifreen & Jackson B181)
  2. Award announcement: 8.5” x 10”, printed in brown ink, TDC [Type Director’s Club] awards for typography, type direction, and design (see Shifreen & Jackson A157c)
  3. Award announcement: 8.5” x 9”, same as above but printed in blue ink and with slightly different text

7. The Outsider, Vol. 2, No. 4/5, edited by Jon Edgar Webb
New Orleans: Loujon Press, Winter 1968-69
First edition, issued in both wrappers and hardcover in printed dust-wrapper and photo-illustrated paper wrappers, 7.25” x 10.25”, 200 pages, 500 copies. Associate Editor: Louise “Gypsy Lou” Webb, illustrations: Ben Tibbs, Frank Salantrie, Kelsie Harder. Laid into this edition is “a sprig of flora from within a mile of Geronimo’s grave”, picked by Gypsy Lou and sealed in wax paper with letterpress printed partial wrap-around band.

Ephemera:
1. 1. Order form: 5” x 8.25”

Contents:
1. Kaprow, Allan. “Moving, A Happening” – 2:4/5, 0
  Goodger-Hill, Trevor. “Editorial” – 2:4/5, 1
  Plymell, Charles. “In Kansas” – 2:4/5, 2
  Taylor, David. “Panda” – 2:4/5, 3
  Edson, Russell. “The Toy Maker” – 2:4/5, 19
  Edson, Russell. “The Cult” – 2:4/5, 19
  Perchik, Simon. untitled [“He Wants To Know…”] – 2:4/5, 20
  Perchik, Simon. untitled [“The Kids Were First…”] – 2:4/5, 20
  Major, Clarence. “Weak Dynamite” – 2:4/5, 22
  Wantling, William. “That Night” – 2:4/5, 24
  Bartlett, Elizabeth. “The Walnut Tree” – 2:4/5, 26
  Greenberg, Alvin. “Taking A Stand” – 2:4/5, 27
  Severy, Bruce. “How We Do Things” – 2:4/5, 28
  Severy, Bruce. “Mud” – 2:4/5, 28
  Severy, Bruce. “From 400 Yards” – 2:4/5, 28
  Goodger-Hill, Trevor. “A Personal History” – 2:4/5, 30
  Creighton, John. “Green Hides, Lines To A Pale Lady” – 2:4/5, 32
  Eigner, Larry. untitled [“March The Route…”] – 2:4/5, 35
  Eigner, Larry. untitled [“The Great American Ballot-Box…”] – 2:4/5, 36
  Bukowski, Charles. “Kaakaa & Other Imolations” – 2:4/5, 37
  Bukowski, Charles. “Beef Tongue, for J.T.” – 2:4/5, 39
  Bukowski, Charles. “Like A Flyswatter” – 2:4/5, 41
  Bukowski, Charles. “The Last Round” – 2:4/5, 42
  Di Prima, Diane. “From: Spring and Autumn Annals: A Celebration for Freddie” – 2:4/5, 45
  Levertov, Denise. “Late June 1968” – 2:4/5, 51
  Levertov, Denise. “Not to Have” – 2:4/5, 51
  Durrell, Lawrence. “?” – 2:4/5, 52
  Mccord, Howard. “Descent into Birth” – 2:4/5, 53
  Meltzer, David. “This is a Nation of Keepers Who Had No Time to Become Gods” – 2:4/5, 54
  Cooperman, Stanley. “New York: February, 1968” – 2:4/5, 55
  Cooperman, Stanley. “Cappelbaum’s Halloween” – 2:4/5, 56
  Katz, Steve. “One Kind of Tune” – 2:4/5, 58
  Katz, Steve. “& A More Similar Tune” – 2:4/5, 58
  Randall, Margaret. “Erongaricuaro, for My Friends at the Molino” – 2:4/5, 59
  Wright, Jay. “Pastel” – 2:4/5, 60
  Morris, Richard. “Foreword to Keslie Artwork” – 2:4/5, 61
  Harder, Kelsie. untitled [“Cartoons”] – 2:4/5, 61
  Hamburger, Michael. “Travelling” – 2:4/5, 77
  Stoloff, Carolyn. “Wind and the Earth” – 2:4/5, 79
  Grapes, Marcus J. untitled [“It Came on Me…”] – 2:4/5, 80
  Grapes, Marcus J. untitled [“An Old House…”] – 2:4/5, 80
  Grapes, Marcus J. untitled [“Oh It Wasn’t So Much…”] – 2:4/5, 81
  Grapes, Marcus J. untitled [“Too Many Years Pass…”] – 2:4/5, 82
  Grapes, Marcus J. untitled [“Leaving This Clumsy Town…”] – 2:4/5, 82
  Grapes, Marcus J. untitled [“Could I Believe…”] – 2:4/5, 83
  Grapes, Marcus J. untitled [“Heaped Between The Letters The Postcards…”] – 2:4/5, 83
  Grapes, Marcus J. untitled [“The Madness Is Power And What…”] – 2:4/5, 83
  Grapes, Marcus J. untitled [“I Spoke To Jenny…”] – 2:4/5, 84
  Grapes, Marcus J. untitled [“Legendary Men In The Forest…”] – 2:4/5, 84
  Grapes, Marcus J. untitled [“And When They Killed Him…”] – 2:4/5, 84
  Grapes, Marcus J. untitled [“Finding New Bones…”] – 2:4/5, 85
  Grapes, Marcus J. untitled [“Some Jerk With Baltic-Brained…”] – 2:4/5, 86
  Grapes, Marcus J. untitled [“This Tender Minute…”] – 2:4/5, 86
  Grapes, Marcus J. untitled [“Some Of Us…”] – 2:4/5, 87
  Haines, John. “Under The Barracks” – 2:4/5, 88
  Haines, John. “In The Styrofoam Mountains” – 2:4/5, 88
  Haines, John. “From The Rooftops” – 2:4/5, 89
  Kelly, Robert. “Landing Cod (From The Common Shore)” – 2:4/5, 90
  Gast, David K. “Teresa” – 2:4/5, 93
  Patchen, Miriam. untitled [“Letter To The Editors”] – 2:4/5, 94
  Sandberg, David. untitled [“Please Do Not Ring Or Knock…”] – 2:4/5, 96
  Thomas, Norman. untitled [“If You Visit Patchen…”] – 2:4/5, 97
  Antoninus, Brother. untitled [“Word Of The Outsider’s Homage…”] – 2:4/5, 98
  Ginsberg, Allen. untitled [“I Met Kenneth Patchen At City Lights…”] – 2:4/5, 99
  May, James Boyer. untitled [“Kenneth Patchen’s Physical Presence…”] – 2:4/5, 100
  Norse, Harold. untitled [“He Is Part Of Youth…”] – 2:4/5, 105
  Brand, Millen. untitled [“I Used To Know Kenneth In The Village…”] – 2:4/5, 106
  Macdiarmid, Hugh. untitled [“I Have Been To The United States…”] – 2:4/5, 108
  Glover, David. untitled [“I Recall The First Thing I Ever Read…”] – 2:4/5, 109
  Rexroth, Kenneth. untitled [“Kenneth Patchen Is One Of…”] – 2:4/5, 112
  Corrington, John William. untitled [“I Still Remember…”] – 2:4/5, 113
  Porter, Bern. untitled [“Kenneth’s Monumental…”] – 2:4/5, 116
  Detro, Gene. “Interview: Patchen Interviewed” – 2:4/5, 117
  Ferlinghetti, Lawrence. untitled [“Kenneth Patchen & E.E. Cummings…”] – 2:4/5, 129
  Yates, Peter. untitled [“Know Him, This Man…”] – 2:4/5, 129
  Meltzer, David. untitled [“Here Is A Man Speaking…”] – 2:4/5, 130
  Young, Lafe. untitled [“Now, Nostalgically, I Realize…”] – 2:4/5, 131
  Conroy, Jack. untitled [“Since My Friend Webb…”] – 2:4/5, 132
  Eckman, Frederick. untitled [“A Decade Ago In A Review…”] – 2:4/5, 133
  Miller, Henry. untitled [“The First Thing One Would Remark…”] – 2:4/5, 134
  Blazek, Douglas. “A Few Small Things” – 2:4/5, 138
  Enslin, Ted. untitled [“As If It Were My Eye…”] – 2:4/5, 139
  Purdy, Al. “The Jackhammer Syndrome” – 2:4/5, 140
  Shelton, Richard. “The Crossing” – 2:4/5, 142
  Shelton, Richard. “& The Scars Will Be Covered” – 2:4/5, 143
  Wild, Peter. “Engine” – 2:4/5, 144
  Wild, Peter. “Snake Skin” – 2:4/5, 144
  Wild, Peter. “Saturday Afternoon On Sugar Loaf Mtn” – 2:4/5, 145
  Miller, Brown. “The Dark Oval” – 2:4/5, 146
  Duberstein, Helen. “Joke” – 2:4/5, 147
  Flaherty, Douglas. “Mrs. Godkin’s Son” – 2:4/5, 148
  Wilson, Keith. “All The Vanished Faces” – 2:4/5, 149
  Wilson, Keith. “The Wind Dragon in Spring” – 2:4/5, 150
  Holland, Barbara A. “Dust-Devil Man” – 2:4/5, 151
  Fowler, Gene. “The Natural History of Woman” – 2:4/5, 152
  Frumkin, Gene. “Poem for Childhood” – 2:4/5, 157
  levy, d.a. “For The Pigs, Rats & Adorable other Beasts of Saintly Cleveland, O” – 2:4/5, 157a
  Merton, Thomas. “Tibud Maclay” – 2:4/5, 158
  Bly, Robert. “Blown-Up German Fortifications Near Collioure” – 2:4/5, 159
  Norse, Harold. “Return to Pompeii” – 2:4/5, 160
  Gardien, Kent. “Poem Based on a List by Luis Bunel” – 2:4/5, 161
  Higgins, Dick. “Four Degrees” – 2:4/5, 164
  Antin, David. “Sociology” – 2:4/5, 166
  Hollo, Anselm. “Bouzouki Music” – 2:4/5, 168
  Krauss, Ruth. “Drunk Boat” – 2:4/5, 169
  Kryss, T.L. “Circus” – 2:4/5, 170
  Kryss, T.L. “The Withered Lemming of the River” – 2:4/5, 170
  Dowden, George. “Morning Song for My Girl by the Sea” – 2:4/5, 171
  Brown, Michael. “The Seventh Month” – 2:4/5, 172
  Kandel, Lenore. “Muir Beach Mythology / September” – 2:4/5, 173
  Perchik, Simon. “Four Photo-Poems” – 2:4/5, 174
  Shustak, Larence. untitled photography – 2:4/5, 175
  Knowles, Allison. “Journal of the Identical Lunch” – 2:4/5, 182
  Williams, Emmett. untitled [“North is this Way…”] – 2:4/5, 184
  Mac Low, Jackson. untitled [“Peace of Resembling…”] – 2:4/5, 186
  Johnson, Kay. “The Emerald City, For Gregory Corso” – 2:4/5, 188
  Cocteau, Jean. “Creation Before Life” – 2:4/5, 190
  Johnson, Ray. “Face Collage” – 2:4/5, 192
  Hansen, Al. “Gat” – 2:4/5, 193

8. Miller, Henry. INSOMNIA OR THE DEVIL AT LARGE
Albuquerque, Loujon Press, 1970
First edition, portfolio case with photo-illustrated sliding lid and housing 12 printed reproductions of Miller watercolors and a spiral bound book, 7 separate issues planned but far fewer were reportedly produced, published as Gypsy Lou Series #4.
(Shifreen & Jackson A175a-h)

Variant Issues:
1. 1. Issue A: 12 copies, with 12 prints plus an original watercolor and book all signed by Miller (Shifreen & Jackson A175a)
  2. Issue B: 26 lettered copies, with 12 prints inscribed to the buyer and the book signed by Miller (Shifreen & Jackson A175b)
  3. Issue C: 192 copies [planned but likely that no more than 10 were published], with 12 prints and the book signed by Miller (Shifreen & Jackson A175c)
  4. Issue D: 192 copies [planned but likely that no more than 10 were published], with 9 of 12 prints and the book signed by Miller (Shifreen & Jackson A175d)
  5. Issue E: 192 copies [planned but likely that no more than 10 were published], with 6 of 12 prints and the book signed by Miller (Shifreen & Jackson A175e)
  6. Issue F: 192 copies [planned but likely that no more than 65 were published], with 3 of 12 prints and the book signed by Miller (Shifreen & Jackson A175f)
  7. Issue G: 192 copies [planned but later increased to 385], with 12 prints unsigned and the book signed by Miller (Shifreen & Jackson A175g)
  8. Economy Issue: 199 copies, with 12 prints and the book without the box (Shifreen & Jackson A175h)

Ephemera:
1. 1. Publication announcement: 19” x 25” (Shifreen & Jackson B213)

Notes:
[1] Though not present in Robert Wilson’s Corso bibliography, this offprint has been examined.
[2] According to a Ken Lopez catalog entry, his copy of the Miller offprint is seven unbound leaves printed on both sides from volumes 1 and 2 of The Outsider and published in a set of 200 in 1963. However, Shifreen & Jackson describe the sets as 13 unbound leaves printed on rectos only.
[3] Listed in Michael McClure’s own online bibliography and confirmed by Denise Enck of Empty Mirror Books, though not present in any printed bibliography to date.
[4] First reference to the Burroughs offprints appear in Jon Edgar Webb: The Editor’s Bit and Obit by Nicky Drumbolis and are further discussed in Signatures, also by Nicky Drumbolis. Subsequent research turns up no extant copies and in later correspondence with Drumbolis, he adds, “In my Signatures study, I infer that the Burroughs piece ‘Operation Soft Machine/Cut’ may have been issued, based on layout; acknowledging further, that no copy had been recorded by Maynard and Miles.”
[5] While the existence of this offprint and another containing the full set of Miller letters from the first 3 issues of The Outsider are noted in Jon Edgar Webb: The Editor’s Bit and Obit, no evidence of these offprints has been identified.

References consulted

Dorbin, Sanford. A Bibliography of Charles Bukowski
Los Angeles: Black Sparrow Press, 1969

Drumbolis, Nicky. Jon Edgar Webb: The Editor’s Bit & Obit
Toronto: ECS, 1993

Drumbolis, Nicky. Signatures
Toronto: Letters, n.d.

Krumhansl, Aaron. A Descriptive Bibliography of The Primary Publications of Charles Bukowski
Santa Rosa: Black Sparrow Press, 1999

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

Shifreen, Lawrence J. and Roger Jackson. Henry Miller: A Bibliography of Primary Sources
Ann Arbor: Roger Jackson, 1993

Wilson, Robert. A Bibliography of Works By Gregory Corso 1954-1965
New York: The Phoenix Bookshop, 1966

William S. Burroughs – Books, Pamphlets, and Broadsides

>> return to WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS main page >>

SECTION A:
This index includes books, pamphlets, and broadsides (excluding foreign language translations, interviews and some miscellaneous prose) from 1957 to 1973: roughly the period of time covered by the Maynard and Miles Bibliography (ref. M&M).

1. Lee, William. JUNKIE
a. First edition:
New York: Ace Books Inc., 1953
Perfect-bound in printed and illustrated wrappers, 4.25” x 6.5”, 320 pages, bound back to back with Maurice Helbrant’s Narcotic Agent. Publisher’s note by Carl Solomon (not credited).
(M&M A1a) *

William Burroughs’ first book, written under the pseudonym ‘William Lee’ (his mother’s maiden name).

According to Beatbooks catalog #92: Ace Books was owned by Carl Solomon’s uncle, A.A. Wyn, a connection made by Allen Ginsberg who was acting as Burroughs’s agent at the time. The publication of Nelson Algren’s novel The Man With The Golden Arm in 1949 inspired a trend for books about junkies, many of them mass-market paperbacks sold in newsagents rather than bookshops, and with commercial success in mind Wyn agreed to publish Burroughs. Though written in a noir-ish hard-boiled style, Junkie is autobiographical (the “Confessions of an Unredeemed Drug Addict”), and lacks the kind of plot that readers of the genre attracted by Al Rossi’s lurid cover art might have expected.

Burroughs’s picaresque and frequently humorous narrative, with its hip talk and junkie jargon, is also told from the detached point of view of the hipster-addict, a neutrality which Wyn sought to counter-balance by yoking it to a reprint of Helbrant’s 1941 account of his “War Against the Dope Menace”. Burroughs was initially appalled at this appendage, but his motivation for writing Junkie was, as he later wrote, money and recognition, though neither were forthcoming at first as the book was largely ignored at the time of publication. More significantly, by mixing an orthodox narrative of drug experiences with occasional forays into set-pieces, or routines, Junkie also paved the way for Naked Lunch.

b. First UK edition:
London: Digit Books, 1957
Perfect-bound in printed and illustrated wrappers, 4.5” x 7.25”, 160 pages.
(M&M A1b) *

According to Beatbooks catalog #92: First UK edition, and the first edition of Junkie as a separate item. Front cover art by Al Rossi, based on his earlier artwork for Ace Books. His sensational back cover art depicts a blonde with hypo and rolled-down stocking, and it was probably this, at least in part, that provoked the British censors to suppress the book after publication and order all the remaining copies to be pulped.

2. Burroughs, William. LETTER FROM A MASTER ADDICT TO DANGEROUS DRUGS
a. First edition:
Shrewsbury: British Journal of Addiction, 1957
Side-stapled sheets, 5.5″ x 8.5″, 13 pages, 50 copies.
(see M&M C1) *

An offprint of the Burroughs article appearing in the January 1957 issue of British Journal of Addiction (Vol. 53, No. 2) edited by John Yerbury Dent (M&M C1). This is Burroughs’ first appearance in print under his own name.

3. Burroughs, William S. THE NAKED LUNCH
a. First edition:
Paris: Olympia Press, July 1959
Sewn signatures bound in printed wrappers in printed and illustrated dust jacket, 4.5″ x 7″, 232 pages, 5000 copies. Dust jacket designed by Burroughs. Issued as No. 76 in the Traveller’s Companion Series. Preliminary issue with price on lower wrapper not canceled with over-stamp.
(M&M A2a)

According to Beatbooks catalog #89: Price on lower wrapper not canceled (copies distributed following the revaluation of the Franc in January 1960 had the printed price stamped over).

b. First US edition, revised:
New York City: Grove Press, 1962
Hardcover in paper and cloth-bound boards with gilt-stamped spine in printed and illustrated dust jacket, 5.5″ x 8″, 256 pages, 3500 copies. Printed prospectus issued.
(M&M A2b)

The contents of this edition differ from the Olympia first edition. This Grove Press edition includes as the Introduction, “Deposition: Testimony Concerning a Sickness” [first published in Evergreen Review, Vol. 4, No. 11 (January-February 1960) (M&M C12)] and, as the Appendix,“Letter from a Master Addict to Dangerous Drugs” [first published in The British Journal of Addiction, Vol. 53, No. 2 (January 1957) (M&M C1)].

According to BeatBooks catalog #20, publication of this edition triggered obscenity trials in Los Angeles and Boston.

4. Burroughs, William S. EXCERPT FROM PANTAPON ROSE
a. First edition:
San Francisco: Wallace Berman, 1959
Broadside, 4″ x 5″, letterpress printed by Wallace Berman.
(see M&M C11)

This broadside is laid into Semina, No. 4, edited by Wallace Berman (M&M C11).

5. Burroughs, William and Brion Gysin. THE EXTERMINATOR
a. First edition:
San Francisco: Auerhahn Press, 1960
Sewn signatures bound in printed and illustrated wrappers, 6.25″ x 9.25″, 64 pages, 1000 copies, letterpress printed, designed and printed by Dave L. Haselwood and James F. McIlroy. Illustrated by Brion Gysin. Printed announcement issued.
(M&M A4a)

The first collection of cut-ups, containing material that Burroughs and Gysin completed before Minutes To Go was published.

b. First edition, second printing:
San Francisco: Dave Haselwood Books, 1967
Sewn signatures bound in printed and illustrated wrappers, 6″ x 9″, 51 pages, 1000 copies. Illustrated by Brion Gysin.
(M&M A4b)

6. Burroughs, William, Sinclair Beiles, Gregory Corso, and Brion Gysin. MINUTES TO GO
a. First edition:
Paris: Two Cities Editions, April 1960
Sewn signatures bound in illustrated wrappers, 5.25″ x 8.25″, 64 pages, 1000 copies. Cover design by Brion Gysin.
(M&M A3a)

This is the second collection of cut-ups to be published.

b. First US edition:
San Francisco: Beach Books, Texts & Documents, 1968
Perfect-bound in printed and illustrated wrappers, 5.25″ x 8.5″, 66 pages, 1000 copies, distributed by City Lights Books.
(M&M A3b)

This edition is a facsimile of the first edition but for the addition of a Claude Pelieu collage.

7. Burroughs, William. THE SOFT MACHINE
a. First edition:
Paris: The Olympia Press, June 1961
Sewn signatures bound in printed wrappers in printed and illustrated dust jacket, 4.25″ x 7″, 184 pages, 5000 copies. Dust jacket designed by Brion Gysin.
(M&M A5a) *

b. First US edition, revised:
New York City: Grove Press, 1966
Hardcover in cloth-bound boards with silver-stamped spine in printed and illustrated dust jacket, 5.5″ x 8″, 184 pages, 18,000 copies. Cover art by Burroughs. Author photo by Charles Henri Ford.
(M&M A5b) *

According to Beat Books catalog #48: Burroughs completely rewrote the text for this edition, partly as a response to criticisms that the first edition had been difficult to read.

According to Am Here catalog #3: This constitutes the revised expanded edition advertised but never published by Olympia.

8. Burroughs, William. THE TICKET THAT EXPLODED
a. First edition:
Paris: Olympia Press, December 1962
Sewn signatures bound in printed wrappers in printed and photo-illustrated dust jacket, 4.25″ x 6.75″, 184 pages, 5000 copies. Dust jacket designed by Ian Sommerville. Illustrated by Brion Gysin.
(M&M A6a)

b. First US edition, revised:
New York City: Grove Press, June 1967
Hardcover in cloth-bound boards with black-stamped spine in printed and illustrated dust jacket, 5.25″ x 8″, 218 pages, 10,000 copies. Dust jacket designed by Kuhlman Associates. Author photo by Martha Rocher.
(M&M A6b) *

The Grove Press edition is a second version, a rearrangement of the first Olympia text with additions and expansions, plus “The Invisible Generation”, a piece incorporating two earlier articles from International Times (see M&M C157 and C162).

9. Burroughs, William. DEAD FINGERS TALK
a. First edition:
London: John Calder in association with Olympia Press, November 1963
Hardcover in cloth-bound boards with gilt-stamped spine in printed and illustrated dust jacket, 5.25″ x 8″, 220 pages, 4000 copies. Cover photos by Ian Sommerville.
(M&M A7a)

Contains sections from The Naked Lunch, The Soft Machine, and The Ticket That Exploded along with some previously unpublished material.

10. Burroughs, William. and Allen Ginsberg. THE YAGE LETTERS
a. First edition:
San Francisco: City Lights Books, November 1963
Sewn signatures bound in printed and photo-illustrated wrappers, 5″ x 7.25″, 68 pages, 3000 copies, letterpress printed at Villiers Publications.
(M&M A8a) *

According to Beatbooks catalog #89: An “early epistolary novel” by Burroughs, “detailing picaresque incidents of search for telepathic-hallucinogenic-mind-expanding drug Yage” (back cover blurb). The letters date from 1953 and record Burroughs’ journeys through the Amazon jungle. Includes two drawings by Allen Ginsberg and his letters to Burroughs from 1960.

11. Burroughs, William S. ROOSEVELT AFTER INAUGURATION
a. First edition:
New York: Fuck You Press, January 1964
Saddle-stapled in printed wrappers, 4.25″ x 5.5″, 24 pages, 500 copies, mimeograph printed by Ed Sanders. Illustrated by Allen Ginsberg.
(M&M A9a)

According to Beatbooks catalog #89: The routine, created by Burroughs and Kells Elvins while students at Harvard and originally intended for inclusion in “The Yage Letters”, was censored by the English printers, and subsequently printed in Floating Bear No. 9 (M&M C33), resulting in its editor LeRoi Jones being jailed.

12. Burroughs, William. THE COLDSPRING NEWS
a. First edition:
Flint: Fenian Head Centre Press, March 1964
Broadside,7.25″ x 12.5″.
(see M&M C124)

This broadside also appears folded and bound into The Spero, Vol. 1, No. 1 edited by Douglas and Kathy Casement (Fenian Head Centre Press, 1965) with the addition of a copyright notice at the bottom. (M&M C124)

13. Burroughs, William S. PRY YOURSELF LOOSE AND LISTEN
a. First edition:
Tangier: Ira Cohen, Spring 1964
Saddle-stapled in printed and illustrated wrappers, 5″ x 8″, 14 pages.
(see M&M C68-C71)

An offprint collecting all the Burroughs appearances in Gnaoua, No. 1, edited by Ira Cohen.

14. Burroughs, William S. NOVA EXPRESS
a. First edition:
New York City: Grove Press, November 1964
Hardcover in cloth-bound boards with black-stamped spine in printed and illustrated dust jacket, 5.5″ x 8.25″, 190 pages, 10,000 copies, printed at The Book Press. Foreword Note by Burroughs. Cover design by Roy Kuhlman. Author photograph by Martha Rocher.
(M&M A10a)

According to Burroughs’ Foreword Note: The section called “This Horrible Case” was written in collaboration with Mr. Ian Sommerville, a mathematician—Mr. Sommerville also contributed the technical notes in the section called “Chinese Laundry”—An extension of Brion Gysin’ cut-up method which I call the fold-in method has been used in this book which is consequently a composite of many writers living and dead.

15. Burroughs, William. VALENTINE’S DAY READING
a. First edition:
New York: American Theatre for Poets, February 1965
Side-stapled in printed cover sheet, 8.5″ x 11″, 14 pages, mimeograph printed.
(M&M F12)

Includes “Transcript of Dutch Schultz’s Last Words” and the first column from The Coldspring News, “On The Back Porch of his Farm”.

16. Burroughs, William. TIME
a. First edition:
New York: “C” Press, 1965
Saddle-stapled in printed and illustrated wrappers, 8.5″ x 11″, 32 pages, 1000 copies (886 in a trade edition; 100 numbered and signed; 10 lettered A-J, hardbound, with original manuscript page by Burroughs and original drawing by Gysin, signed; and four hardcover numbered copies hors commerce). Cover art by Burroughs. Illustrated by Brion Gysin. Edited by Ted Berrigan, Ron Padgett, and Joe Brainard.
(M&M A11a)

b. Pirate edition:
London: Urgency Press Rip-Off, May 1972
Top-stapled with printed cover sheet, 8″ x 13″, 32 pages, 45 copies. Edited by Roy Pennington. Published on the occasion of the Bickershaw Festival.
(M&M A11b)

17. Burroughs, William S. WILT CAUGHT IN TIME
a. First edition:
New Orleans: Loujon Press, c.1965
Broadside, 6″ x 9″, letterpress printed by Jon Edgar Webb and Gypsy Lou Webb.
(see M&M C46)

An offprint of the Burroughs contribution to The Outsider, No. 2, edited by Jon Edgar Webb and Gypsy Lou Webb (M&M C46).

According to Jeff Weddle in “The Loujon Press: An Historical Analysis”: Burroughs’ submission for issue two originally bore the title, “Cuts from ‘Word Line’ William Burroughs for Hassan i Sabbah.” The piece was done using Burroughs’ distinctive, jumbled, “cut-up” technique and had no easily discernible narrative flow or quickly grasped meaning. Perhaps for these reasons, Webb heavily edited and re-titled the piece, casting it as a poem in The Outsider number two. Burroughs’ manuscript bears a notation, again in Webb’s hand, stating that the piece was “condensed and rearranged into “wilt caught in time,” the title under which it appeared in the magazine. While Webb’s version of Burroughs’ piece bears little resemblance to the author’s original submission, no record has been uncovered showing Burroughs’ response to Webb’s heavy editing of his work.

18. Burroughs, William S. HEALTH BULLETIN: APO-33
a. First edition:
New York: Fuck You Press, 1965
Side-stapled sheets with printed and illustrated cover, 8.5″ x 11″, 54 pages, 10-20 copies, mimeograph printed by Ed Sanders.
(M&M A12a) *

According to Sanders “maybe as many as ten or twenty” copies were distributed before he halted publication due to Burroughs’ dissatisfaction with the copy he’d received.

b. Second edition:
San Francisco: Beach Books, Texts, & Documents, 1966
Saddle-stapled in printed wrappers, 8.5″ x 11″, 24 pages, 3000 copies.
(M&M A12b)

This printing is a photo-offset reproduction of Burroughs’ manuscript and scrapbook pages, featuring the three-column cut-up style, compiled by Mary Beach and Claude Pélieu.

19. Burroughs, William S. THE INVISIBLE GENERATION
a. First edition:
London: Project Sigma, December 1966
Broadside, 11.5″ x 17″, 1000 copies, offset printed.
(see M&M C159)

This item was not given a Sigma index number and no evidence exists to show distribution except by International Times itself which provided the offprints. Reprinted from International Times, No. 3 (November 1966) (M&M C157).

20. Burroughs, William S. THE INVISIBLE GENERATION (continued)
a. First edition:
London: Lovebooks Ltd, December 1966
Broadside, 22.5″ x 30.25″, 200 copies, silk-screened, designed by Michael English so that part of the card could be cut out and assembled to make a word-machine. Published as International Times, No. 5.5.
(see M&M C160) *

21. Burroughs, William S., Claude Pélieu, and Carl Weissner. SO WHO OWNS DEATH TV?
a. First edition:
San Francisco: Beach Books, Texts, & Documents, 1967
Saddle-stapled in printed wrappers, 8.5″ x 5.5″, 12 pages, 3000 copies; there was a variant issue of 200 copies on black paper printed in silver ink.
(M&M A13a)

b. Second edition, expanded:
San Francisco: Beach Books, Texts, & Documents, 1967
Saddle-stapled in printed wrappers, 8.5″ x 5.5″, 20 pages, 3000 copies. This expanded edition includes photo-collages by Jean-Jacques Lebel and Liam O’Gallagher.
(M&M A13b)

22. Burroughs, William S. SCIENTOLOGY REVISITED
a. First edition:
New York: Scientology East, c.1968
Saddle-stapled in printed and illustrated wrappers, 5.5″ x 8.5″, 8 pages.
(not in M&M) *

Reprinted from Mayfair, Vol. 3, No. 1 (January 1968) (M&M C187)

23. Burroughs, William S. THE DEAD STAR
a. First edition:
San Francisco: Nova Broadcast Press, November 1969
Broadside (8″ x 26.75″), folded and stapled into printed wrappers, 4.74″ x 8″, 2000 copies. Edited by Jan Herman. Published as Nova Broadcast, No. 5
(M&M A14a)

The first US publication of a piece done in Burroughs’ familiar scrapbook, photo-collage 3-column newspaper style, originally published in Jeff Nuttall’s My Own Mag ‘Dutch Schultz’ issue.

24. Burroughs, William S. THE LAST WORDS OF DUTCH SCHULTZ
a. First edition:
London: Cape Goliard Press, May 1970
Hardcover in cloth-bound boards with red-stamped spine in printed and illustrated dust jacket, 6.25″ x 9.75″, 88 pages. Cover art and illustrations by R.B. Kitaj.
(M&M 17a) *

A film-script inspired by the official transcript of the last words of mobster Dutch Schultz, recorded by a police stenographer as he lay dying in hospital.

25. Burroughs, William S. ALI’S SMILE
a. First edition:
Brighton: Unicorn Books, October 1971
Hardcover in buckram-bound boards with gilt-stamped cover, 6.25″ x 8″, 44 pages, 99 copies numbered and signed, printed by Richard Moseley at Graphic Workshop. Issued in a carton which also contains a 12-inch LP record of Burroughs reading the second draft of the text.
(M&M A19a, G6) *

b. First edition, second printing:
Gottingen: Expanded Media Editions, October 1973
Perfect-bound in printed and illustrated wrappers, 5.75″ x 7.5″, 40 pages. Bilingual edition with German text translated by Carl Weissner. Photographs of the author by Udo Breger. Published as Expanded Media Editions, No. 12.
(M&M D28)

26. Burroughs, William S. THE WILD BOYS: A BOOK OF THE DEAD
a. First edition:
New York: Grove Press, 1971
Hardcover in cloth-bound boards with gilt-stamped spine and blind-stamped front cover in printed and illustrated dust jacket, 5.5″ x 8.25″, 184 pages.
(M&M A20a) *

27. Burroughs, William S. ELECTRONIC REVOLUTION 1970-71
a. First edition:
Cambridge: Blackmoor Head Press, October 1971
Perfect-bound in printed and illustrated wrappers, 8″ x 10.25″, 76 pages, 500 copies. Printed for Henri Chopin and his Collection OU by Ian Ormiston at the Blackmoor Head Press. Cover art by Brion Gysin. Text in English and French; French translation by Jean Chopin. Published as Collection OU, No. 2.
(M&M A21a)

28. Burroughs, William S., Brion Gysin, and Ian Sommerville. LET THE MICE IN, edited by Jan Herman
a. First edition:
West Glover, Vt.: Something Else Press, February 1973
Hardcover in cloth-bound boards with silver-stamped spine and front cover in printed dust jacket, 6.25″ x 9.25″, 74 pages, 500 copies (plus 1000 copies in wrappers), designed and printed by Graham Mackintosh at Noel Young Press in Santa Barbara.
(M&M A22a-b)

Includes texts and cut-ups by Burroughs (“The Invisible Generation”, “Word Authority More Habit Forming Than Heroin”, and “Parenthetically 7 Hertz”), and Ian Sommerville, plus several sepia photographs of the authors, the Dream Machine, etc.

29. Burroughs, William S. EXTERMINATOR! A NOVEL
a. First edition:
New York: Viking Press, August 1973
Hardcover in cloth-bound boards with white-stamped spine and black-stamped front cover in printed and illustrated dust jacket, 5.25″ x 8″, 170 pages, 7500 copies.
(M&M A23a) *

Note: A collection of short routines and other material, mostly from The Wild Boys.

30. Burroughs, William S. WHITE SUBWAY
a. First edition:
London: Aloes Books, September 1973
Perfect-bound in printed and photo-illustrated wrappers, 6.25″ x 8.25″, 74 pages, 1000 copies (25 of which are numbered and signed).
(M&M A24a)

A collection of various pieces, its title taken from a section of The Soft Machine, including cut-up and three-column style texts (“Who Is the 3rd…?”, “The Last Post Danger Ahead”, and “From a Distant Hand Lifted”), originally published in little literary magazines such as Gnaoua, Spero, Underground Telegram, Kulchur, Arcade, Lines, Bulletin from Nothing, and Birmingham Bulletin. Also includes a piece by Alan Ansen, and Paul Bowles’s essay, “Burroughs In Tangier”.

31. Burroughs, William S. MAYFAIR ACADAMY SERIES MORE OR LESS, edited by Roy Pennington
a. First edition:
Brighton: Urgency Press Rip-Off, 1973
Saddle-stapled in printed and photo-illustrated wrappers, 5″ x 8.25″, 104 pages, 650 pages. Printed on different colour papers, stapled and trimmed at the press operated by Bill Butler’s partner, Mike Hughes, above the Unicorn bookshop in Brighton.
(M&M A25a)

Note: Reprints ten of the Burroughs ‘Academy Bulletins’ from Mayfair magazine (there were 21 in the series all together), along with other articles he wrote for them, together with an essay on Burroughs “originally presented as an M.A. thesis in Philosophy” by the book’s publisher, Roy Pennington.

…

[* not in archive]

Pocket Poets Series

>> return to CITY LIGHTS main page >>

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Matrix Press

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

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

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

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

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

PUBLICATIONS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Some pages printed in colored ink.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Drawing by Barry Hall

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

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

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

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

—

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

Bardo Matrix – Books

>> return to BARDO MATRIX main page >>

SECTION A:
This index includes books, chapbooks, and booklets of poetry and prose

1. Maclise, Angus. THE CLOUD DOCTRINE
First edition:
Kathmandu: Dreamweapon Press, 1974
Saddle-stapled in printed and illustrated wrappers, 7.5″ x 10.75″, 16 pages, letterpress printed on handmade paper. Cover woodblock print from a photograph by Ira Cohen.

Note: The Cloud Doctrine was one of the first books produced by the Kathmandu beat poetry presses, and set the template for the books issued in this style.

2. Corso, Gregory. WAY OUT: A POEM IN DISCORD
First edition:
Kathmandu: Bardo Matrix, 1974
Machine-sewn in printed and illustrated wrappers, 8.5″ x 10.75″, 22 pages, 500 numbered copies, letterpress printed on handmade paper by Sharada Printing Press. Published as Starstreams Poetry Series No. 1.

Note: Slip laid-in listing the cast for the first, and only, performance of this poem/play in Kathmandu, Nepal. The cast members included Ira Cohen and Angus MacLise

3. Ford, Charles Henri. 7 POEMS
First edition:
Kathmandu: Bardo Matrix, 1974
Side-stapled in printed and photo-illustrated wrappers, 500 numbered copies, printed by Sharada Printing Press. Cover photo of Ford by Ira Cohen. Published as Starstreams Poetry Series No. 3.

Note: This is the third book in the Starstreams series but Ira Cohen gives it a 1974 publishing date in his publication list which would have it appearing before Cohen’s 7 Marvels, published as number two in the series.

4. Cohen, Ira. POEM FOR LA MALINCHE
First edition:
Kathmandu: Bardo Matrix/Bureau of Surrealist Research, c.1974
Undboud sheets laid into printed wrappers, 500 copies. Cover art by Dana Young (uncredited).

5. Cohen, Ira. 7 MARVELS
First edition:
Kathmandu: Bardo Matrix, 1975
Unbound in printed and illustrated wrappers, 9″ x 11″, 15 leaves of various dimensions, 500 numbered copies, letterpress printed at Sharada Printing Press. Woodblocks hand printed by Nawang Norbu cut by Tibetan craftsmen after Marvel Comix. Colophon illustration designed by John Chick. Published as Starstreams Poetry Series Number 2.

Contents: [untitled] “O Surfer Surfing & Surfed…”, [untitled] “Forests of eyelids…”, “for Geoffrey Humphreys”, “For Frank Herbert & The Bene Tleilaxu Face Dancers”, “Silver Shoetrees in Hermes’ Closet”, [untitled] “1. I have with me the perception…”, [untitled] “The earth-stealers have arrived!”

6. Maclise, Angus. THE SUBLIMINAL REPORT
First edition:
Kathmandu: Bardo Matrix, 1975
Machine-sewn in printed and illustrated wrappers, 8.5″ x 10.75″, 28 pages, 500 numbered copies, letterpress printed on handmade paper. Cover woodblock print from a photograph by Ira Cohen. Published as Starstreams Poetry Series, No. 4

According to Ira Cohen: “The Subliminal Report included two photos printed in silver ink on white machine made paper, one a mylar portrait of Angus taken in New York, the other a stone garuda sinking into the ground in Dhoka Tole just in front of the Raj Photo Shop where the negatives were developed and first printed…There was a very special collaboration going on here between the artists and artisans, Nepalis and foreigners, which was mutually inspiring and gives the books their unique quality. The Subliminal Report was the first book to utilize Bhutanese silk paper as cover stock.”

7. Bowles, Paul. NEXT TO NOTHING
First edition:
Kathmandu: Bardo Matrix, 1976
Machine-sewn in printed and illustrated wrappers, 7.25″ x 9.5″, 24 pages, 500 numbered copies, letterpress printed at Sharada Printing Press. Cover verifax by Maya, frontispiece collage by Dana Young, title page illustration by Sidney Hushour, illustration by Petra Vogt, colophon illustration by Lee Baarslag, back cover image supplied by Bowles. Published as Starstreams 5.

8. Cohen, Ira. POEMS FROM THE COSMIC CRYPT
First edition:
Kathmandu: Kali Press/Bardo Matrix, 1976
Hardcover in paper-bound boards with paper title label, 7.5″ x 9.75″, 90 pages, 500 copies, illustrated by Petra Vogt, introduction by Angus MacLise.

9. Cohen, Ira. OPIUM ELEMENTALS
First edition:
Kathmandu: Bardo Matrix, 1976
Machine-sewn in printed and illustrated wrappers, 12″ x 9.25″, 50 pages, 350 numbered and signed copies, letterpress printed at Sharada Printing Press. Designed and illustrated by Dana Young. Published as A Starstreams Special Edition.

Contents: “Emergent Waxwork” [poem], “The Mirage Poem” [poem]

10. di Prima, Diane. LOBA PART II
First edition:
Pt. Reyes and Kathmandu: Eidolon Editions, 1976
Saddle-stapled in printed and illustrated wrappers, 7.5″ x 10.25″, 36 pages, 550 copies (50 hardbound), letterpress printed on handmade paper. Illustrated by Josie Grant.

From the colophon: printed for Eidolon Editions by Dreamweapon in the Kingdom of Nepal, being the 24th printing of the Independent Presses of Kathmandu…

11. Valenza, Roberto Francisco. THE CLEARING STAGE
First edition:
Kathmandu: Bardo Matrix, 1976
500 copies.

12. Falk, Jane. CKROWWW
First edition:
Kathmandu: Bardo Matrix, 1976
500 copies. Published as Starstreams Poetry Series No. 6.

13. Sagaray [pseud. Jane Falk]. THE WITCH SPEAKS
First edition:
Kathmandu: Snake Tongue, 1976
Machine-sewn in printed and illustrated wrappers, 7″ x 8.25″, 36 pages, 230 numbered copies, letterpress printed on handmade paper by Sharada Printing Press. Cover art by Chandra Man Maskay. Illustrated by author.

14. Gaynor, Iris M. EXITS
First edition:
Kathmandu: Bardo Matrix, 1977
Machine-sewn in printed and illustrated wrappers, 5.5″ x 10.75″, 14 pages, 200 numbered copies, letterpress printed on handmade paper by Sharada Printing Press. Cover art by Lee Baarslag. Published as a Starstreams Special Edition.

15. Cohen, Ira. GILDED SPLINTERS
First edition:
Kathmandu: Bardo Matrix, 1977
500 copies.

Note: cover illustration by Jimmy Thapa

16. Valenza, Roberto Francisco. LOST CONTACT
First edition:
Kathmandu: Bardo Matrix, 1977
250 copies.

—

Bardo Matrix

The Bardo Matrix Press was founded in Kathmandu in the early 1970s by original Velvet Underground drummer, artist, and poet Angus MacLise and poet, photographer, and publisher Ira Cohen as a publishing outgrowth of the Colorado artists’ collective of the same name. MacLise and Cohen commenced to issue pamphlets, booklets, posters, books, and broadsides by not only themselves and their fellow travellers, but also by some of the most important names of post-war literature: Paul Bowles, Gregory Corso, Diane Di Prima, and Charles Henri Ford were among the chosen.

The publications were printed in editions of anywhere from a couple of dozen to a few hundred, usually utilizing fine printing techniques such as wood blocks, letterpress, special inks, and handmade paper. But this was not based on traditional thoughts on fine printing, but rather on the opportunity to create something cheap and beautiful. There was a built-in audience for these publications on “Freak Street” in Kathmandu, where people in the circle of Bardo Matrix operated a small bookshop which did decent business selling wood-block printed headshop posters alongside poetry broadsides, these publications, as well as second-hand English language paperback books.

After the 1979 death of Angus MacLise, the activity of the Bardo Matrix Press quietly faded out. Ira Cohen returned to New York City where he was a highly visible member of the poetic demimonde until his passing in 2011, shortly after he had helped stage an exhibition on the life and work of Angus MacLise.

Bardo Matrix Checklist:

Section A: Books
Section B: Broadsides
Section C: Spirit Catcher Bookshop

· John Chick

Online Resources:

· The Bardo Matrix

· Big Bridge – Ira Cohen: The Great Rice Paper Adventure

· Granary Books – Bardo Matrix Collection

· University of Delaware – Bardo Matrix Press

Piero Heliczer – Publications Edited, Printed, and Published

>> return to PIERO HELICZER main page >>

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[scans of this item at Mimeo Mimeo]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[scans of this item at Brown Digital Repository]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[facsimile at Brown University Library digital repository]

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

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

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

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

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

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

—

verdant press

Tag Archives: Gregory Corso

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Bardo Matrix – Books

Bardo Matrix

Piero Heliczer – Publications Edited, Printed, and Published

verdant_press

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