Tag Archives: Jack Spicer

The Floating Bear

February 3, 2023 jason

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

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little magazines

Adventures in Poetry

December 31, 2022 jason

Published between 1968 and 1975, Adventures in Poetry was edited by poet Larry Fagin and printed and assembled at The Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery.

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Adventures in Poetry

Published between 1968 and 1975, Adventures in Poetry was edited by poet Larry Fagin and printed and assembled at The Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery. Featured in its pages is writing by many poets associated with the first and second generation of the New York School. Surreal and often playful, the work provides a valuable access point into a vibrant and social community of writers who overlapped both in life and on the page.

Alongside poetry and art, Adventures in Poetry also includes a number of journal, diary, and travelogue entries.

1. ADVENTURES IN POETRY, No. 1, edited by Larry Fagin
New York: Adventures in Poetry, March 1968

First edition, side-stapled in printed and photo-illustrated wrappers, 8.5″ x 11″, 70 pages. Cover by Ron Padgett. Illustrations by George Schneeman and Joe Brainard

Contents:
1. Joe Ceravolo – “Night Ocean”
  Joe Ceravolo – “Night Swim”
  Joe Ceravolo – “Consolation”
  Joe Ceravolo – “Panorama”
  Joe Ceravolo – “Separation”
  Joe Ceravolo – “Forgive Me”
  Joe Ceravolo – “Holiday Dinner”
  Joe Ceravolo – “Fog”
  Joe Ceravolo – “Sleep”
  Joe Ceravolo – “Jungle Love”
  Joe Ceravolo – “Nothing”
  James Schuyler – “Amy Lowell Thoughts”
  James Schuyler – “Milk”
  Ted Berrigan – “For Tom Veitch”
  Dick Gallup – “The Boot-Blacks, A Play in Three Acts”
  Anne Waldman – “Economy”
  Anne Waldman – “Getting Light”
  Ron Padgett – “8 Ball”
  Johnny Stanton – “from Mangled Hands”
  Tom Clark – “Bijous”
  John Giorno – “Flavor Grabber”
  Ted Berrigan – “from Clear the Range”
  Guillaume Apollinaire – “Julie or The Rose” (trans. Christine Grodzicki and George Tysh)
  Dick Gallup – “La Boheme”

2. ADVENTURES IN POETRY, No. 2, edited by Larry Fagin
San Francisco: Adventures in Poetry, July 1968

First edition, side-stapled in printed and illustrated wrappers, 8.5″ x 11″, 90 pages. Cover by Joe Brainard. Illustrations by Leon, George Schneeman, Ron Padgett, and Bob Jenney.

Contents:
1. Edwin Denby – “from Scream In A Cave”
  Beaumont & Beaumont – “from Furtive Days”
  Joe Brainard – “Jamaica Diary”
  Lewis Warsh – “New York Diary”
  Tom Clark – “from Riot the Garrick Theatre”
  Dick Gallup – “Life of Tom Veitch”
  Tom Veitch – “from The Transfigured”
  Johnny Stanton – “from The Jissom Trail”
  Kenward Elmslie – “Peaches Littlejohn”
  Anne Waldman – “from The Egypt Journal”
  Ron Padgett & Tom Veitch – “from Star Gut”
  Jim Carroll – “from a diary”
  Ron Padgett – “The New Plagiarism”
  Bill Berkson – “In the American Rain”
  Larry Fagin – “Two Dog Stories”
  John Ashbery & James Schuyler – “from Nest of Ninnies”
  Kenward Elmslie – “Breach Baby”
  Michael Brownstein – “Kites”
  Francis Picabia – “5 Minute Intermission”
  Tom Disch – “Sinking Into Trouble”
  Johnny Stanton – “In the Moonlight”
  Pierre Reiter – “Craze Man Whiliiker”

3. ADVENTURES IN POETRY, No. 3, edited by Larry Fagin
New York: Adventures in Poetry, January 1969

First edition, side-stapled in printed and illustrated wrappers, 8.5″ x 11″, 58 pages, mimeograph printed by Don Santina at the San Francisco Neighborhood Arts Program. Cover by Gordon Baldwin.

Contents:
1. Clark Coolidge – “Amount”
  Francis Picabia – “Drawings by the Girl without a Mother” (trans. Ron Padgett)
  Tom Veitch – “from The Luis Armed Story”
  Aram Saroyan – “Electric Poetry”

4. ADVENTURES IN POETRY, No. 4, edited by Larry Fagin
New York: Adventures in Poetry, Summer 1969

First edition, side-stapled in printed and illustrated wrappers, 8.5″ x 11″, 56 pages. Cover by Ed Ruscha. Illustration by Joe Brainard.

Contents:
1. Ted Berrigan – [untitled] “Thirty-five is gone…”
  Ted Berrigan – [untitled] “Bobbie, when I punch you…”
  Ted Berrigan – “Entrance”
  Ted Berrigan – “El Greco”
  Ted Berrigan – “It’s Important”
  Ted Berrigan – “Grey Morning”
  Ted Berrigan – “Hash for Breakfast”
  Ted Berrigan – “Dial-A-Poem”
  Ted Berrigan – “Cock of the Walk”
  Ted Berrigan – “Anne’s Birthday: April 2nd 1968”
  Kenward Elmslie – “Waking Up”
  John Giorno – “Cunt”
  Lewis Warsh – “Questions of Travel”
  Lewis Warsh – [untitled] “The woodchuck waddles away…”
  Lewis Warsh – “Hatred”
  Lewis Warsh – “Two People”
  Lewis Warsh – “Drops”
  Dick Gallup – “Eskimoes Again”
  Dick Gallup – “Nite Light”
  Dick Gallup – “Add Water to this Urn”
  Dick Gallup – “The Sharpest Knives in the World”
  Dick Gallup – “Life Says OK”
  Dick Gallup – “Dive Bomber”
  Dick Gallup – “Chicken Wire”
  Michael Brownstein – “The Fledgling”
  Michael Brownstein – “The Booklets”
  Michael Brownstein – “In and Out of Paris”
  Michael Brownstein – “In Search of the Miraculous, for Dick Gallup”
  Michael Brownstein – “Sonnet”
  Ted Berrigan – “Babe Rainbow”

5. ADVENTURES IN POETRY, No. 5, edited by Larry Fagin
New York: Adventures in Poetry, January 1970

First edition, side-stapled in printed and illustrated wrappers, 8.5″ x 11″, 124 pages. Cover by George Schneeman. Illustrations by Joe Brainard.

Contents:
1. Tony Towle – “The Insects”
  Tony Towle – “Snow”
  Tony Towle – “We Plunged into the Western Hemisphere”
  Tony Towle – “Poem, the Dramatic Monologue”
  Tony Towle – “Ballade”
  Tony Towle – “Barbarossa”
  Tony Towle – [untitled] “A skylight of wire…”
  Tony Towle – [untitled] “Necessities are lacking…”
  Tony Towle – “Sunday”
  Tony Towle – “Ode”
  Tony Towle – “Yeats”
  Tony Towle – “On Water Island”
  Tony Towle – “Lines”
  Tony Towle – “Scenes from the Life of Christ”
  Ron Padgett – “Reading Proust”
  Frank O’HAra – “To the Poem”
  Frank O’HAra – “Lisztiana”
  Frank O’HAra – “To Edwin Denby”
  Frank O’HAra – [untitled] “There’s nothing worse…”
  Frank O’HAra – “The Arboretum”
  Frank O’HAra – “A Homage”
  Frank O’HAra – “Spleen”
  Frank O’HAra – [untitled] “The stars are tighter…”
  Frank O’HAra – “A Quiet Poem”
  Bill Berkson – “From a Childhood, for Joe Brainard”
  Bill Berkson – “Dangerous Enemies”
  Bill Berkson – “Tastes”
  Anne Waldman – “Brinks of Fame”
  Ron Padgett – “Wax Museum”
  Aram Saroyan – “Introduction”
  Aram Saroyan – [untitled] “Everybody loves…”
  Aram Saroyan – “Gailyn”
  Ted Berrigan – “Tough Brown Coat, for Jim Carroll”
  Ted Berrigan – “To Anne”
  Ted Berrigan – “Like Poem, to Joan Fagin”
  Ted Berrigan – “In Bed”
  Ted Berrigan – “Life in the Future, for Donna”
  Ted Berrigan – “Prose & Poetry, to Alice”
  Ted Berrigan – “Hall of Mirrors, for Kristin Lems”
  Ted Berrigan – “To Southhampton”
  Ted Berrigan – “Ann Arbor Song”
  Joe Brainard – “The Banana Book”
  Ron Padgett – “A Whiff of Mint”
  Richard Fields – “The Yellow-Breasted Bird”
  John Godfrey – [untitled] “The gravity of our situation…”
  John Godfrey – “Rolling April”
  John Godfrey – “First Taste”
  John Godfrey – “Year Out”
  John Godfrey – “A Woman More Graced”
  John Godfrey – “Touch”
  John Godfrey – “Rain Waste”
  Anne Waldman – “Under the Influence of”
  Anne Waldman – “Up Here, as in India”
  Aram Saroyan – “Pool of Fluff”
  Aram Saroyan – “A Cartoon of Energy”
  Aram Saroyan – “Aunt & Uncle”
  Aram Saroyan – “My Orchestra is Ready”
  Aram Saroyan – “A Joint open Hearing”
  Harris Schiff – “Cross Country”
  Ron Padgett – “The Story of St-Pol Roux”
  Ted Berrigan – “London Air”
  Kenward Elmslie – “Chinese Creep”
  Clark Coolidge – [untitled] “one bow who…”
  Clark Coolidge – [untitled] “for set via…”
  Charles North – “After Vaughan”
  John Ashbery – “100 Multiple-Choice Questions”
  Jim Brodey – “Graveside”
  Jim Brodey – “God Help Us”
  Jim Brodey – “Red Lilac”
  Jim Brodey – “Heart-Send”
  Jim Brodey – “Heartfield, to Ron Cooper”
  Jim Brodey – “Thought-Cycle”
  Jim Brodey – “Imitation Brodey”
  Ted Greenwald – “Chat”
  Ted Greenwald – “The Such Thing”
  Ted Greenwald – “Tropical Dispatch, for Peter S.”
  Ted Greenwald – “Having a Wonderful Time”
  Ron Padgett – “Obscure Destinies”

6. ADVENTURES IN POETRY, No. 6, edited by Larry Fagin
New York: Adventures in Poetry, June 1970

First edition, side-stapled in printed and illustrated wrappers, 8.5″ x 11″, 64 pages. Cover by Jim Dine.

Contents:
1. Michael Brownstein – “Something for Everybody
  James Schuyler – “Buildings”
  James Schuyler – “Sometimes”
  James Schuyler – “Alice Faye at Ruby Foo’s”
  James Schuyler – “An East Window on Elizabeth Street, for Bob Dash”
  James Schuyler – “Spring”
  James Schuyler – “Scarlet Tanager”
  James Schuyler – [untitled] “Gulls loudly insist…”
  James Schuyler – [untitled] “Swimming in the memorial park pond…”
  James Schuyler – “Closed Gentian Distances”
  James Schuyler – “A Sun Cab”
  Scott Cohen – “Car”
  Scott Cohen – “Jane”
  Scott Cohen – “Bill Monroe’s Instrumentds”
  Peter Schjeldahl – “Night Again”
  Peter Schjeldahl – “Girl”
  Peter Schjeldahl – “Night Letter”
  Peter Schjeldahl – “God”
  Peter Schjeldahl – “M”
  Peter Schjeldahl – “For the Night Riders”
  Peter Schjeldahl – “To Speak is to Lie”
  Tom Clark – “A Sailor’s Life”
  Hiton Obenzinger – “Motto over a Dorr”
  Hiton Obenzinger – “From a Fork”
  Michel Brownstein – “Footprints on the Moon”
  Frank Lima – “Underground with the Oriole, for Joe & Rosemary”
  Frank Lima – “Salad Exit”
  Frank Lima – “February ’68”
  Frank Lima – “Demitasse, for Patsy Southgate”
  Frank Lima – “Prospero”
  Frank Lima – “Harbor”
  Trevor Winkfield – Robinson Crusoe”
  Blaise Cendrars – “Roof Garden” (trans. Ron Padgett)
  Blaise Cendrars – “On the Hudson” (trans. Ron Padgett)
  Blaise Cendrars – “Amphitryon” (trans. Ron Padgett)
  Blaise Cendrars – “Office” (trans. Ron Padgett)
  Blaise Cendrars – “Girl” (trans. Ron Padgett)
  Blaise Cendrars – “Young Man” (trans. Ron Padgett)
  Blaise Cendrars – “Work” (trans. Ron Padgett)
  Blaise Cendrars – “Trestle Work” (trans. Ron Padgett)
  Blaise Cendrars – “The Thousand Islands” (trans. Ron Padgett)
  Blaise Cendrars – “Laboratory” (trans. Ron Padgett)
  Tom Veitch – “Cooked Zeros”

7. ADVENTURES IN POETRY, No. 7, edited by Larry Fagin
New York: Adventures in Poetry, February 1971

First edition, side-stapled in printed and illustrated wrappers, 8.5″ x 11″, 62 pages. Cover by Aram Saroyan.

Contents:
1. Aram Saroyan – “from The Letter Book”
  John Giorno – “from The American Book of the Dead”
  Clark Coolidge – [untitled] “ace act ado”
  Clark Coolidge – [untitled] “gee get gib”
  Clark Coolidge – [untitled] “pro pea pee”
  Joe Brainard – “Muy Malo”
  Joe Brainard – “At Day’s End”
  Joe Brainard – “Short Story”
  Joe Brainard – “1970”
  Joe Brainard – “Real Life”
  Joe Brainard – “Art”
  Joe Brainard – “Henry”
  Joe Brainard – “Rim of the Desert”
  Joe Brainard – “Life”
  Joe Brainard – “How to Be Alone Again”
  Joe Brainard – “Friday, Nov. 27, 1970”
  Joe Brainard – “Thursday, December 8, 1970”
  Vincent Katz – “Pro Football”
  Bernadette Mayer – “from Moving”
  Byrd Hoffman – [untitled] “And now in saying something…”

8. ADVENTURES IN POETRY, No. 8, edited by Larry Fagin
New York: Adventures in Poetry, Summer 1971

First edition, side-stapled in printed and illustrated wrappers, 8.5″ x 11″, 60 pages. Cover by Rudy Burckhardt.

Contents:
1. Dick Gallup – “Charged Particles”
  Lewis Warsh – “True Colors”
  Ron Padgett and Joe Brainard – “Cherry”
  Steve Malmude – “To Portland”
  Andrei Codrescu – “Unchosen Things”
  Andrei Codrescu – “Thru a Grill”
  Andrei Codrescu – “Comedia dell’Arte”
  Andrei Codrescu – “To your Father”
  Andrei Codrescu – “Cossey at the Bots”
  Andrei Codrescu – “Debts”
  Richard Kolmar – “Voluntary”
  Richard Kolmar – “Part of an Elegy”
  Glen Baxter – “Symbar”
  Glen Baxter – “From the Barge”
  Glen Baxter – “Apponitmantes”
  Glen Baxter – “Ack-acks”
  Glen Baxter – “Utopia Parkway”
  Philip Whalen – “Scenes of Life at the Capital”

9. ADVENTURES IN POETRY, No. 9, edited by Larry Fagin
New York: Adventures in Poetry, Spring 1972

First edition, side-stapled in printed and illustrated wrappers, 8.5″ x 11″, 125 pages. Cover art by John Giorno.

Contents:
1. Jennifer Bartlett – “from Jennifer Losch: A Biography”
  Glen Baxter – “Morbihan”
  Glen Baxter – “Chauderon”
  Joe Brainard – “Poem” (“Kaleidoscopic umbrellas…”)
  Rebecca Brown – “The Day I Crossed Traffic against Traffic”
  Rebecca Brown – “Dissatisfaction”
  Michael Brownstein – “What America’s Thinking”
  William Burroughs – “Distant Heels”
  Clark Coolidge – “Basil Rathbone’s Bathrobe”
  Edwin Denby – “Army Songs”
  Jim Dine – “The Short History of New York”
  Joe Brainard – “A True Story”
  Louis Eilshemius – “An Unusual Inventor”
  Kenward Elmslie – “Eventual Bruises”
  Kenward Elmslie – “Ground Hog Day Pensee”
  Mary Ferrari – “The Blue and Yellow”
  Gilbert and George – “We are only Human Sculptors”
  Allen Ginsberg – “New England in hte Fall: Autumn Gold”
  John Godfrey – “Idiots”
  John Godfrey – “Sympathetic Fallacy”
  Joe Brainard – “No Story”
  Ted Greenwald – [untitled] “shut down…”
  Ted Greenwald – [untitled] “our faces…”
  Ted Greenwald – “Comb”
  Ted Greenwald – [untitled] “poems pile up…”
  Alice Hedges – “The Door”
  John Koethe – “Some”
  Valery Larbaud – “La Neige”
  Glen Baxter – “Glove Soup”
  Steve Malmude – “Companion Poems”
  Steve Malmude – “Stove & Lamp”
  Harry Mathews – “The Dream-Work”
  Bernadette Mayer – “3 X’s”
  Pat Nolan – “Vision”
  Pat Nolan – “A Controlled Habit”
  Joe Brainard – “What’s Cooking”
  Charles North – “To The Book”
  Charles North – “Elizabethan and Nova Scotian Music”
  Charles North – “Naming Colors”
  Hilton Obenzinger – “The Brunt”
  Peter Orlovsky – [untitled] “A Year and 1/2 Ago”
  Maureen Owen – “Digging Sassafras in July”
  Maureen Owen – “O Propitious Constellation!”
  Ron Padgett – “Gentlemen Prefer Carrots”
  Jonathan Rosenstein – “Vacuum”
  Jonathan Rosenstein – “The Bullring”
  Jonathan Rosenstein – “Popcorn”
  Jonathan Rosenstein – “Coffee Service”
  Jonathan Rosenstein – “Heh-Heh”
  Jonathan Rosenstein – “Charm”
  Harris Schiff – [untitled] “twilight…”
  Harris Schiff – [untitled] “the battery…”
  Harris Schiff – “Memorial for Paul Blackburn Oct 31 1971”
  Harris Schiff – “Too, for Bernadette Mayer”
  Joe Brainard – “Grandmother”
  Peter Schjeldahl – “Theater”
  Peter Schjeldahl – “Great Poet”
  Peter Schjeldahl – “Trepanation”
  Peter Schjeldahl – “Russian Escape”
  Peter Schjeldahl – “Dynamite”
  James Schuyler – “A Vermont Diary”
  Richard Snow – “Philo Vance”
  George Stanley – “Pitchfork”
  Tony Towle – “On Spring Street”
  Anne Waldman – “Little Poem in Search of the Past”
  Anne Waldman – [untitled] “if you do this…”
  Lewis Warsh – “Single File”
  Joseph White – [untitled] “turn the day over…”
  Joseph White – [untitled] “while tearing up the platform…”
  Joseph White – [untitled] “out to the corner…”
  Joseph White – [untitled] “the back of a drawing…”
  B. Wilkie – “Notes on My Work, 1971”
  Joe Brainard – “Poem” (“Roses are red…”)

10. ADVENTURES IN POETRY, No. 10, edited by Larry Fagin
New York: Adventures in Poetry, 1973

First edition, side-stapled in printed and illustrated wrappers, 8.5″ x 11″, 94 pages. Cover taken from a “Tijuana Bible”.

Contents:
1. This is the anonymous issue published without author, editor, publication and publisher names.

11. ADVENTURES IN POETRY, No. 11, edited by Larry Fagin
New York: Adventures in Poetry, Spring 1974

First edition, side-stapled in printed and illustrated wrappers, 8.5″ x 11″, 121 pages. Cover art by Rory McEwen.

Contents:
1. Anne Waldman – “Fast Speaking Woman”
  Michael McClure – “from Fleas”
  Fielding Dawson – “from Oz – with an X”
  Clark Coolidge – “Coda to The Maintains”
  Bruce Boyd – “Introduction”
  Ron Padgett – “Wilson ’57”
  John Wieners – “A Superficial Estimation”
  Tony Towle – “Autobiography”
  Joe Ceravolo – “Water Over Stones”
  James Schuyler – “A Treasury of Birthday Thoughts”
  Ebbe Borregaard – “October Seventh Poem”
  Guillaume Apollinaire – “Zone” (trans. Ron Padgett)

12. ADVENTURES IN POETRY, No. 12, edited by Larry Fagin
New York: Adventures in Poetry, Summer 1975

First edition, side-stapled in printed and illustrated wrappers, 8.5″ x 11″, 94 pages. Cover art unattributed.

Contents:
1. Gregory Corso – “Verse”
  Ron Padgett – “Excerpt from a Work in Progress” (“And they’re off…”)
  Alverna Brodecky – “Letter”
  Frank O’Hara – “To Norman, En Voyage”
  Joseph LeSueur – “A Note on the Preceding Poem”
  Jack Spicer – “Babel 3”
  Jack Spicer – “Dardenella”
  Jack Spicer – “Lives of the Philosophers: Diogenes”
  Jack Spicer – [untitled] “Lack of oxygen…”
  Jack Spicer – [untitled] “Invisible zombies…”
  Jack Spicer – “Spider Song”
  John Wieners – “There are Very Important Minutes”
  John Wieners – “I’ve Lived Here Longer than Anybody Else…”
  John Wieners – “Greer”
  John Wieners – “Home Surgery at Merchant Marine”
  Bobbie Louise Hawkins – “Phone Call”
  Bobbie Louise Hawkins – “Conversation between Five Women”
  Charles North – “Two Pathetic Songs”
  Steve Malmude – “Dedication”
  Steve Malmude – “Duchess”
  John Ashbury – “Once Upon a Time”
  Stanley Kunitz – “A Blessing of Women”
  David Meltzer – “from Harps”
  Mary Ferrari – “Fiery Easter, 1972”
  Mary Ferrari – “The Earth Within”
  Mary Ferrari – “The Lamp”
  Kenneth Koch – “The Apes of Banzona”
  Red Grooms – [untitled] “House painted…”
  Red Grooms – [untitled] “Cloud look down…”
  Bill Zavatsky – “Tonight”
  Bill Zavatsky – “Announcement”
  Bill Zavatsky – “The New Capitalism”
  Bill Zavatsky – “The Influence of Flowers”
  Helen Adam – “Cheerless Junkie’s Song”
  Allen Ginsberg – “End Vietnam War”
  Ted Greenwald – “The Coast”
  Tony Towle – “Quotes”
  Alfred Starr Hamilton – “Tenement”
  Alfred Starr Hamilton – “The Flag”
  Alfred Starr Hamilton – “Pink Ants”
  Alfred Starr Hamilton – “Lime Honey”
  Alfred Starr Hamilton – “Night”
  Lewis MacAdams – “Ohio Blue Tip”
  Ed Sanders – “The Critic”
  Ed Sanders – “The 34th Year”
  John Godfrey – “Morning Poem”
  John Godfrey – “Evening Song”
  Valery Larbaud – “Private Devotions” (tans. Ron Padgett and Bill Zavatsky)
  Ron Padgett and Bill Zavatsky – “Notes”
  Michael Palmer – “Without Music, 2”
  Dale Herd – “My Old Man”
  Dale Herd – “Blood”
  Dale Herd – “Welfare”
  Simon Schuchat – “Poem” (“the leaves are turning…”)
  Carter Ratcliff – “Arrivederci, Modernismo”
  Son House – “Dry Spell Blues”

Online Resources:

From a Secret Location – Adventures in Poetry

—

little magazines, Magazine Wars

The Spicer Circle’s J

August 4, 2022 jason

Cover of Jack Spicer’s J, No. 4. San Francisco 1959

Jack Spicer’s J ran for eight issues: Nos. 1–5 were edited by Spicer in North Beach where contributions were left in a box marked “J” in The Place, a bar on Grant Avenue in San Francisco; Nos. 6 and 7 (an Apparition of the late J) were edited by George Stanley in San Francisco and New York City respectively while no. 8 was edited by Harold Dull in Rome. Spicer believed that poetry was for poets and the magazine had a small circulation but cast a long shadow.

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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

Jack Spicer – Miscellaneous Prose

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Section E:
This index collects contributions of essays, letters to editors, and prose to periodicals and other publications

1947

1. THE OCCIDENT, edited by Charlotte McCord *
Berkeley, Fall 1947

Spicer contribution: “Miller: Remember to Remember” [essay]

1949

2. THE OCCIDENT, edited by Lynne Brown
Berkeley, Fall 1949

Spicer contribution: “The Poet and Poetry: A Symposium” [essay]

1952

3. LANGUAGE: JOURNAL OF THE LINGUISTIC SOCIETY OF AMERICA, Vol. 28, No. 3, Part 1
Baltimore, July-September 1952

Spicer contribution: “Correlation Methods of Comparing Ideolects in a Transition Area” [essay] [co-authored with David W. Reed]

1957

4. THE BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY QUARTERLY, Vol. 9, No. 1, edited by Zoltan Haraszti *
Boston: Trustees of the Public Library of the City of Boston, January 1957

Spicer contribution: “A Correction” [commentary] “Wimpfeling’s Adolescentia, 1505” [commentary]

5. THE BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY QUARTERLY, Vol. 9, No. 4, edited by Zoltan Haraszti *
Boston: Trustees of the Public Library of the City of Boston, October 1957

Spicer contribution: “The Legend of St. Meinrad, 1567” [commentary]

1962

6. FOOT, No. 2, edited by Richard Duerden and William Brown
San Francisco: Foot Magazine, 1962

Spicer contribution: “Correspondence (Jack Spicer)” [letter]

1977

7. BOUNDARY 2, Vol. 6, No. 1, edited by William V. Spanos *
Binghamton: SUNY, Fall 1977

Spicer contribution: “A Plan for a Book on Tarot” [prose]

1987

8. LINE, No. 9, edited by Roy Miki
Burnaby: Simon Fraser University, Spring 1987

Spicer contribution: “Letters to Robin Blaser 1955-1958” [letters]

—

[* not in archive]

Jack Spicer – Contributions to Periodicals

>> return to Jack Spicer main page >>

Section D:
This index collects contributions of poems, stories, letters (poetic), and a play to periodicals; reference is made to Sanford Dorbin’s A Checklist of the Published Writings of Jack Spicer (California Librarian, October 1970).

1946

1. THE OCCIDENT, edited by Jocelyn Willat
Berkeley, Winter 1946

Spicer contribution: “To the Semanticists” [poem], “The Chess Game” [poem], “A New Testament” [poem]
(Dorbin B1-B3)

1947

2. CONTOUR QUARTERLY, Vol. 1, No. 1, edited by Chris Maclaine
Berkeley, April 1947

Spicer contribution: [untitled] “After the ocean, shattering with equinox…” [poem], “4 A.M.” [poem], “Chinoiserie” [poem]
(Dorbin B4-B6)

1948

3. BERKELEY MISCELLANY, No. 1, edited by Robert Duncan
Berkeley, 1948

Spicer contribution: “A Night in Four Parts” [poem], “Troy Poem” [poem], “Sonnet” [poem]
(Dorbin B8-B10)

1949

4. BERKELEY MISCELLANY, No. 2, edited by Robert Duncan
Berkeley, 1949

Spicer contribution: “The Scroll-Work on the Casket” [story]
(Dorbin B11)

1954

5. OCCIDENT, edited by Richard Rummonds
Berkeley: Associated Students of the University of California, Spring 1954

Spicer contribution: “On Reading Last Year’s Love Poems” [poem], “The Inheritance: Palm Sunday” [poem]
(not in Dorbin)

1955

6. CITY LIGHTS, No. 5, edited by Peter Martin
San Francisco: City Lights, Spring 1955

Spicer contribution: “On Watching a TV Boxing Match in October” [poem]

1956

7. AUDIENCE, Vol. 4, Number 2 *
Cambridge: Audience, 1956

Spicer contribution: “Five Words for Joe Dunn on his 22nd Birthday” [poem]

1957

8. EVERGREEN REVIEW, Vol. 1, No. 2, edited by Barney Rosset and Donald Allen
New York City, 1957

Spicer contribution: “Berkeley in Time of Plague” [poem], “The Dancing Ape…” [poem], “Troy Poem” [poem], “The Scroll-Work on the Casket” [story], “Hibernation – After Morris Graves” [poem], “Psychoanalysis: An Elegy” [poem], “The Song of the Bird in the Loins” [poem]
(Dorbin B14-B18)

9. MEASURE, No. 1, edited by John Wieners
Boston, Summer 1957

Spicer contribution: “Song for Bird and Myself” [poem]
(not in Dorbin)

1959

10. BEATITUDE, No. 3, published by John Kelly
San Francisco, 23 May 1959

Spicer contribution: “Fifteen False Propositions about God” [poem]
(Dorbin B19)

11. BEATITUDE, No. 6, published by John Kelly
San Francisco, [June] 1959

Spicer contribution: “Epithalamium” [poem] [co-authored with Bruce Boyd, Ronald Primack, and George Stanley]
(Dorbin B20)

12. J, No. 1, edited by Jack Spicer
San Francisco, 1959

Spicer contribution: “Hokkus” [poem]
(not in Dorbin)

13. J, No. 2, edited by Jack Spicer *
San Francisco, 1959

Spicer contribution: [untitled] “Down to new beaches where the sea…” [poem], “Epilog for Jim” [poem]
(Dorbin B21-B22)

14. J, No. 3, edited by Jack Spicer
San Francisco, 1959

Spicer contribution: [untitled] “The slobby sea where you float in…” [poem], “Last Hokku” [poem]
(Dorbin B23-B24)

15. J, No. 4, edited by Jack Spicer
San Francisco, [October] 1959

Spicer contribution: “Jacob” [poem]
(Dorbin B25)

16. J, No. 5, edited by Jack Spicer
San Francisco, 1959

Spicer contribution: “Fifth Elegy” [poem]
(Dorbin B26)

1960

17. BEATITUDE, No. 17, edited by Bob Kaufman
San Francisco: City Light Books, Oct-Nov 1960

Spicer contribution: [untitled] “When I hear the word Ferlinghetti…” [poem]
(Dorbin B29)

1961

18. J, No. 8, edited by Harold Dull *
San Francisco, 1961

Spicer contribution: “A Translation for Jim” [poem], “A Translation for Jeorge” [poem]
(Dorbin B27-B28)

1962

19. THE SAN FRANCISCO CAPITALIST BLOODSUCKER – N, edited by George Stanley
San Francisco, Spring 1962

Spicer contribution: “Three Marxist Essays” [poem]
(Dorbin B32)

20. MEASURE, No. 3, edited by John Wieners
Boston, Summer 1962

Spicer contribution: “Central Park West” [poem]
(not in Dorbin)

1964

21. OPEN SPACE, No. 0, edited by Stan Persky
San Francisco, January 1964

Spicer contribution: [untitled] “This ocean, humiliating in its disguises…” [poem] [collected in Language]
(Dorbin B33)

22. OPEN SPACE, No. 1, edited by Stan Persky
San Francisco, February 1964

Spicer contribution: “Sporting Life” [poem] [collected in Language]
(Dorbin B34)

23. OPEN SPACE, No. 2, edited by Stan Persky
San Francisco, February 1964

Spicer contribution: “This is Submitted for your Valentine Contest” [poem], [untitled] “I hear a banging on the door of night…” [poem] [collected in Language]
(Dorbin B35-B36)

24. OPEN SPACE, No. 3, edited by Stan Persky
San Francisco, March 1964

Spicer contribution: [untitled] “Just because baseball is not poetry…” [statements], “Predictions” [collected in Language], [untitled] “The log in the fire…” [poem] [collected in Language], [untitled] “Finally the messages penetrate…” [poem] [collected in Language], “Dear Ferlinghetti” [letter]
(Dorbin B37-B41)

25. OPEN SPACE, No. 4, edited by Stan Persky
San Francisco, 1964

Spicer contribution: [untitled] “Heroes eat soup…” [poem] [collected in Language], [untitled] “Smoke signals…” [poem], [untitled] “A redwood forest…” [poem] [collected in Language], [untitled] “The whorship of beauty…” [poem] [collected in Language]
(Dorbin B42-45)

26. OPEN SPACE, No. 5, edited by Stan Persky
San Francisco, 1964

Spicer contribution: [untitled] “Pull down the shade of ruin, rain verse…” [poem], [untitled] “If your mother’s mother had not riven, mother…” [poem], [untitled] “What in sight do I have…” [poem], [untitled] “It comes May and the summers renew themselves…” [poem], [untitled] “Thanatos, the death-plant in the skull…” [poem] [collected in Language]

27. OPEN SPACE, No. 6, edited by Stan Persky
San Francisco, June 1964

Spicer contribution: [untitled] “1st SF home rainout since. Bounce…” [poem] [collected in Language], [untitled] “The country is not very well defined…” [poem] [collected in Language], [untitled] “I squint my eyes to cry…” [poem] [collected in Language], [untitled] “The metallurgical analysis of the stone that…” [poem] [collected in Language]

28. OPEN SPACE, No. 7, edited by Stan Persky
San Francisco, July 1964

Spicer contribution: “Love Poems” [poem] [collected in Language], “Protestant Letter” [letter]

29. OPEN SPACE, No. 8, edited by Stan Persky
San Francisco, August 1964

Spicer contribution: “Intermission I-III” [poem] [collected in Language], “Transformations I- III” [poem] [collected in Language]

30. OPEN SPACE, No. 9, edited by Stan Persky
San Francisco, September 1964

Spicer contribution: “Morphemicks, 1-4” [poem] [collected in Language]

31. OPEN SPACE, No. 10, edited by Stan Persky
San Francisco, October 1964

Spicer contribution: “Phonemics” [poem] [collected in Language]

32. OPEN SPACE, No. 11, edited by Stan Persky
San Francisco, November 1964

Spicer contribution: “Graphemics, 1-5” [poem] [collected in Language]

1965

33. THE WIVENHOE PARK REVIEW, No. 1, edited by Thomas Clark and Andrew Crozier
Essex: University of Essex, Winter 1965

Spicer contribution: “15 False Propositions about God” [poem]

34. WORK, No. 2, edited by John Sinclair
Detroit: Artists Workshop Press, Fall 1965

Spicer contribution: “Graphemics, 10” [poem] [collected in Language]
[not in Dorbin checklist]

35. COW, No. 1, edited by Luther T. Cupp
San Francisco: Cow, 1965

Spicer contribution: “Dear Sister Mary” [letter]

1966

36. WHE’RE, No.1, edited by Ron Caplan
Detroit: Artists’ Workshop, Summer 1966

Spicer contribution: “Dover Beach” [poem] [collected in Lament for the Makers], “The Birds” [poem] [collected in Lament for the Makers], “The Birth of Venus” [poem] [collected in Lament for the Makers], “Lament for the Makers” [poem] [collected in Lament for the Makers], “Postscript” [story] [collected in Lament for the Makers], “The Scroll-Work on the Casket” [story]

37. O’ER, No. 2, edited by David Sandberg
San Francisco, December 1966

Spicer contribution: “Buster Keaton Rides Again: A Sequel” [poem] [collected in After Lorca]

1967

38. THE PACIFIC NATION, No. 1, edited by Robin Blaser
Vancouver, June 1967

Spicer contribution: “A Poem to the Reader of the Poem” [poem]

39. FLOATING BEAR, No. 33, edited by Diane di Prima
Brooklyn, 1967

Spicer contribution: “The Bridge Game” [poem], “Lives of the Philosophers: Diogenes” [poem]

40. FLOATING BEAR, No. 34, edited by Diane di Prima
Brooklyn, 1967

Spicer contribution: “The Day Five Thousand Fish Died in the Charles River” [poem]

WINE BUTTON, edited by Dave Fraser, Robert Serling, Dick Sweeney
Highland Park: Wine Button, n.d. [c.1967]

Spicer contribution: “Correspondence” [letter], “The Day Five Thousand Fish Died along the Charles River”

1968

41. COLLECTION, No. 1, edited by Peter Riley
Sussex, March 1968

Spicer contribution: “The Red Wheelbarrow” [poem]

42. TISH, No. 42, edited by Brad Robinson and Dan McLeod
Vancouver, March 1968

Spicer contribution: “Three Poems for Tish” [poem] [collected in The Book of Magazine Verse]
[not in Dorbin checklist]

43. IRON, No. 4
North Vancouver: Iron, April 1968

Spicer contribution: “A Textbook of Poetry” [poem] [collected in The Heads of the Town Up to the Aether], “7 Poems for the Vancouver Festival” [poem] [collected in The Book of Magazine Verse]

1969

44. IRON, No. 7, edited by Brian Fawcett
British Columbia, 1969

Spicer contribution: “Ode for Walt Whitman” [poem] [collected in After Lorca]

45. TISH, No.44, Issue D, edited by Karen Tallman
Vancouver, February 1969

Spicer contribution: “Five Variations on the Earth” [poem]

46. LAMPETER MUSE, Vol. 3, No. 4, edited by Norman Weinstein *
Annandale-on-Hudson: Bard College, Spring 1969

Spicer contribution: “The Book of Gwenivere” [poem] [collected in The Holy Grail]

1970-1979

47. WRITING, No. 2, edited by Stan Persky *
Vancouver: Georgia Straight, January-February 1970

Spicer contribution: “Admonitions” [poems] [collected in Admonitions]

48. BOSS, No. 4, edited by Reginald Gay
New York: Boss Books, 1970

Spicer contribution: “Indian Summer: Minneapolis 1950” [poem]

[note: published as a broadside in 1970 as Portents 16]

49. CATERPILLAR, No. 12, edited by Clayton Eshleman
New York, July 1970

Spicer contribution: “The Dancing Ape…” [poem], “Berkeley in Time of Plague” [poem], “Psychoanalysis: An Elegy” [poem], “Troy Poem” [poem], “A Dialogue Between Intellect and Passion” [poem], “All Hallows Eve” [poem], “At a Party” [poem], “A Night in Four Parts” [poem], “Orpheus after Eurydice” [poem], “Orpheus in Hell” [poem], “Orpheus’ Song to Apollo” [poem], “The Song of the Bird in the Loins” [poem], “On Reading Last Year’s Love Poems” [poem], “Watching a TV Boxing Match in October” [poem], “The Day Five Thousand Fish Died along the Charles River” [poem], “A Heron for Mrs. Altrocchi” [poem], “Song for the Great Mother” [poem], “Song for Bird and Myself” [poem], “A Poem to the Reader of the Poem” [poem], “Five Words for Joe Dunn on his 22nd Birthday” [poem], “A Prayer for Pvt. Graham Mackintosh on Halloween” [poem], “Letters to Graham Mackintosh” [prose], “Pentheus and the Dancers” [drama], “From a Detective Novel” [fiction], “Letters to Jim Alexander” [prose], “From the Vancouver Lectures” [prose]

50. NINE QUEEN BEES, Zero Issue, edited by Jim Chapson, James Liddy, and Bill Siverly
Honolulu: Nine Queen Bees, Summer 1970

51. IS, No. 8, edited by Victor Coleman *
Toronto: Coach House Press, 1970

52. THE HARRIS REVIEW, edited by Harris Schiff
New York: Harris Review, 1971

Spicer contribution: [untitled] “The oaks…” [poem], [untitled] “With fifteen cents and that I could get a…” [poem]

53. IO, No. 10 Baseball Issue, edited by Richard Grossinger
Cape Elizabeth, ME: IO Publications, 1971

Spicer contribution: “Unfinished Translation” [poem]

[note: prepared for, but no included in After Lorca]

54. STOOGE, No. 6, Editor: Geoff Young and Allen Schiller
Albuquerque, 1972

Spicer contribution: [untitled] “These big trucks drive…” [poem]

55. SHOCKS, Double Issue 3/4, edited by Stephen Vincent
San Francisco: Momo’s Press, March 1974

Spicer contribution: “Dear Lorca” [letter] [collected in After Lorca]

56. MANROOT, No. 10, edited by Paul Mariah
South San Francisco: Man-Root, Fall-Winter 1974

Spicer contribution: “To the Semanticists” [poem], “The Chess Game” [poem], “A New Testament” [poem], [untitled] “After the ocean, shattering with equinox…” [poem], “4 A.M.” [poem], “Chinoiserie” [poem], “The Scroll-Work on the Casket” [story], “Indian Summer: Minneapolis 1950” [poem], “Christmas Eve: 1952” [poem], “All Hallows Eve” [poem], “Watching a TV Boxing Match in October” [poem], “Lyric for Gary” [poem], “Sonnet for Gary” [poem], “Portrait of an Artist” [poem], “The Inheritance: Palm Sunday” [poem], “A Postscript to the Berkeley Renaissance” [poem], “The Gardener’s Son” [poem], “Manhattan” [poem], [untitled] “These woods, so fit for emperors…” [poem], “Admonitions” [poem] [collected in Admonitions], “15 False Propositions about God” [poem] [collected in 15 False Propositions about God], “Billy the Kid” [poem] [collected in Billy the Kid], “Hokkus” [poem], [untitled] “Down to new beaches where the sea…” [poem], “Epilog for Jim” [poem], [untitled] “The slobby sea where you float in…” [poem], “Last Hokku” [poem], “Jacob” [poem], “Fifth Elegy” [poem], “Three Marxist Essays” [prose], “Central Park West” [poem], [untitled] “This is an ode to Horace Stoneham…” [poem], “Dear Lew” [letter], “This is Submitted for your Valentine Contest” [poem], “Protestant Letter” [letter], “Dear Sister Mary” [letter], “The Red Wheelbarrow” [poem], “Epithalamium” [poem] [co-authored with Bruce Boyd, Ronald Primack, and George Stanley]

57. ADVENTURES IN POETRY, No. 12, edited by Larry Fagin
New York: The Poetry Project, Summer 1975

Spicer contribution: “Babel” [poem], “Dardenella” [poem], “Lives of the Philosophers: Diogenes” [poem], [untitled] “Lack of oxygen…” [poem], [untitled] “In- / Visible zombies…” [poem], “Spider Song” [poem]

58. THE CAPILANO REVIEW, No. 8/9, edited by Pierre Coupey
Vancouver: Capilano College, Fall 1975

Spicer contribution: “The Dancing Ape…” [poem], “Psychoanalysis: An Elegy” [poem], “The Song of the Bird in the Loins” [poem]

59. TELEPHONE, No. 10, edited Maureen Owen
New York: Telephone Books Press, 1975

Spicer contribution: “Five Variations for K.” [poem]

60. IO, No. 24, edited by Kevin Kerran and Richard Grossinger
Ann Arbor: North Atlantic Books, 1977

Spicer contribution: “Love Poem 1” [poem] [collected in Language], [untitled] “It comes in May…” [poem] [collected in Language], “Four Poems for the St. Louis Sporting News” [poem]

61. BOUNDARY 2, Vol. 6, No. 1, edited by William V. Spanos *
Binghamton: SUNY, Fall 1977

Spicer contribution: “An Exercise” [poems]

1980-1989

62. ACTS, No. 6, A Book of Correspondences for Jack Spicer, edited by David Levi Straus and Benjamin Hollander *
San Francisco: Acts, 1986

63. LINE, No. 7/8, edited by Roy Miki *
Burnaby: Simon Fraser University, Spring-Fall 1986

Spicer contribution: “Poems for the Vancouver Festival” [poems]

64. IRONWOOD, Vol. 14, Issue 2, No. 28, edited by Michael Cudihy *
Tucson: Ironwood Press, Fall 1986

Spicer contribution: [untitled] “As if the Chinese vase…” [poem]

1990+

65. O-BLEK, No. 10, edited by Peter Gizzi and Connell McGrath *
Stockbridge: The Garlic Press, Fall 1991

Spicer contribution: “For Kids” [poem], “Spider Song” [poem]

66. LIFT, Nos. 10/11, edited by Joseph Torra *
Somerville: Lift, 1992

67. EXACT CHANGE YEARBOOK, No. 1, edited by Michael Palmer *
Boston: Exact Change, 1994

68. AMERICAN POETRY REVIEW, Vol. 17, No. 1, edited by Stephen Berg *
Philadelphia: World Poetry, January-February 1998

Spicer contribution: “A Poem without a Single Bird in it” [poem]

69. NO: A JOURNAL OF THE ARTS, No. 3, edited by by Deb Klowden and Ben Lerner
New York: Lost Roads Publishers, 2004

Spicer contribution: “Troilus” [play]

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[* not in archive]

Jack Spicer – Contributions to Books

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Section C:
This index collects contributions to books and other publications

1. THE NEW AMERICAN POETRY, edited by Donald Allen
New York: Grove Press, 1960

Spicer contribution: “Imaginary Elegies I-IV”

2. THE SPICER-FERLINGHETTI CORRESPONDENCE
San Francisco: White Rabbit Press, 1964
(Johnston A18)

3. THE NEW WRITING IN THE U.S.A., edited by Donald Allen and Robert Creeley
Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1967

Spicer contribution: “Love Poems”

Note: First appeared in Open Space, No. 7 (San Francisco, July 1964)

4. POETICS OF THE NEW AMERICAN POETRY, edited by Donald Allen
New York: Grove Press, 1973

5. Spicer, Jack and Robert Duncan. AN ODE AND ARCADIA
Berkeley: Ark Press, 1974

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Jack Spicer – Broadsides

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Section B:
This index collects broadsides, posters, and postcards

1. Spicer, Jack. A REDWOOD FOREST
First edition:
San Francisco: White Rabbit Press, 1965
First edition, broadside, 8″ x 10.25″, letterpress printed.
(Johnston B1)

Note: This poem first appeared in Open Space, No. 4 (San Francisco, 1964), collected in Language.

2. Spicer, Jack. THE DAY FIVE THOUSAND FISH DIED…
First edition:
Pleasant Valley: Kriya Press, 1967
First edition, broadside, 11″ x 16″, 100 numbered copies, offset printed.

3. Spicer, Jack. INDIAN SUMMER: MINNEAPOLIS 1950
First edition:
Brooklyn: Samuel Charters, 1970
First edition, broadside, 8″ x 18″, 100 copies. Published as Portents 16

4. Spicer, Jack. BALLAD OF THE DEAD WOODCUTTER
First edition:
Berkeley: Arif Press, 1973
Single sheet folded twice to make a four-page booklet, 6″ x 3.5″ (when folded), letterpress printed by Wesley Tanner.

5. Spicer, Jack. POSTSCRIPT
First edition:
Albuquerque: Billy Goat Press, 1973
First edition, broadside, 11″ x 17″, 100 numbered copies

Note: collected in Lament for the Makers

6. Spicer, Jack. BERKELEY IN A TIME OF PLAGUE
a. First edition, grey stock copies:
Berkeley: Arif Press, 1974
First edition, broadside, 9.25″ x 11.5″, 100 copies on grey stock. Printed by Alastair Johnston at the Arif Press.

b. First edition, white stock copies:
Berkeley: Arif Press, 1974
First edition, broadside, 9.25″ x 11.5″, 50 copies on white stock. Printed by Alastair Johnston at the Arif Press.

7. Spicer, Jack. THE OAKS WEEP
First edition:
Berkeley: Poltroon Press, 1986
First edition, postcard, 4″ x 6″, letterpress printed.

8. Spicer, Jack. JACK SPICER 1925-1965
First edition:
Berkeley: Arif Press, 1986
First edition, broadside, 16″ x 10″, letterpress printed.

Note: An excerpt from the second of three “lectures” that Spicer gave in Vancouver in 1965.

9. Spicer, Jack. LAMENT FOR THE MAKERS
First edition:
n.p.: White Rabbit Press, 2009
Prints an excerpt from Lament for the Makers. Issued as a keepsake for The Book Club of California.

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Jack Spicer – Books

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Section A:
This index collects books, chapbooks, and pamphlets

1. Spicer, Jack. AFTER LORCA
a. First edition, regular copies:
San Francisco: White Rabbit Press, November-December 1957
Saddle-stapled in illustrated wrappers, 6.5″ x 8.5″, 76 pages, 474 copies, multilith printed by Joe Dunn. Jack Spicer’s first book of poetry. Cover illustration by Jess Collins. Introduction by Federico Garcia Lorca.
(Johnston A2)

b. First edition, lettered and signed copies:
San Francisco: White Rabbit Press, November-December 1957
Saddle-stapled in illustrated wrappers, 6.5″ x 8.5″, 76 pages, 26 copies lettered and signed with a drawing by the author, multilith printed by Joe Dunn. Jack Spicer’s first book of poetry. Cover illustration by Jess Collins. Introduction by Federico Garcia Lorca.
(Johnston A2)

c. First edition, second issue:
San Francisco: White Rabbit Press, November-December 1957
Unbound (but collated and folded) without wrappers issued in mailing envelope at a later date.
(Johnston A2)

d. First UK edition:
London: Aloes Books, 1969

e. Second edition:
n.p.: Marco Polio, 1974

2. Spicer, Jack. HOMAGE TO CREELEY
First edition:
Annapolis: Harold and Dore Dull, Summer 1959
Side-stapled in printed covers, 8.5″ x 11″, 33 pages, 100 copies, spirit-mimeo printed. Incorporated into A4.

3. Spicer, Jack. BILLY THE KID
a. First edition, first state:
Stinson Beach: Enkidu Surrogate, October 1959
Saddle-stapled in illustrated wrappers, 6.5″ x 8.5″, 16 pages, 750 copies, offset printed. Illustrations by Jess Collins.

b. First edition, second state:
The second state includes holograph corrections to text on page 8; holograph addition of ‘Face’ at end of section VI.

c. Second edition:
Dublin: New Writers’ Press, 1969

d. Third edition
n.p.: Oyster Press, March 1975

4. Spicer, Jack. THE HEADS IF THE TOWN UP TO THE AETHER
a. First edition, regular copies:
San Francisco: Auerhahn Press, 1962
Perfect-bound in illustrated and printed wrappers, 4.75″ x 6.75″, 109 pages, 750 copies, letterpress printed by Dave Haselwood. Illustrated by Fran Herndon.
(Auerhahn 21)

b. First edition, hardcover, signed copies:
San Francisco: Auerhahn Press, 1962
Hardcover in cloth-bound boards, 4.75″ x 7.25″, 109 pages, 50 copies signed by the author and artist, with an original drawing by Spicer, letterpress printed by Dave Haselwood, bound by the Schuberth Bindery. Illustrated by Fran Herndon.
(Auerhahn 21)

Note: Printed announcement issued.

5. Spicer, Jack. LAMENT FOR THE MAKERS
a. First edition:
Oakland: White Rabbit Press, 1962
Hand-sewn in illustrated wrappers, 5.5″ x 8″, 16 pages, 100 copies, offset printed. Illustrated by Graham Mackintosh.
(Johnston A11)

Note: According to Johnston, “Back of title page has a fictitious acknowledgments list (by Graham Mackintosh) taken from Robert Duncan’s The Opening of the Field.”

b. First UK edition:
London: Aloes, 1971

6. Spicer, Jack. THE HOLY GRAIL
a. First edition, regular copies:
San Francisco: White Rabbit Press, 1964
Saddle-stapled and glued into illustrated wrappers, 6.25″ x 8.5″, 80 pages, offset printed. Illustrated by Graham Mackintosh.
(Johnston A19)

b. First edition, hardcover copies:
San Francisco: White Rabbit Press, 1964
Hardcover, 6.25″ x 8.5″, 80 pages, 13 copies signed (4 were reportedly destroyed during signing), offset printed. Illustrated by Graham Mackintosh.
(Johnston A19)

c. Second, Pirated edition:
Berkeley: Jolly Roger Press, February 1969
Side-stapled printed and illustrated sheets, 8.5″ x 11″, 20 pages, 500 copies. Published anonymously by Richard Krech and John Oliver Simon at the Undermine Press.

Pirate’s Note: “I only heard Jack Spicer read once, at the the Berkeley poetry conference in july 65. an hour after he read THE HOLY GRAIL, the last copy was gone from the avenue bookstores… this free pirate edition is distributed to make the poem available to those who need it.”

d. Third edition:
Watertown: Augtwofive, 1970

e. Fourth edition:
Portland: Timeworn (Poor Claudia at Revolution Publishing), 2014

7. Spicer, Jack. LANGUAGE
a. First edition:
San Francisco: White Rabbit Press, June 1965
Perfect-bound illustrated wrappers, 6.25″ x 10″, 72 pages, 950 copies, letterpress printed by Graham Mackintosh.
(Johnston A30)

Note: Most of these poems first appeared in OPEN SPACE.

b. First edition, second printing:
San Francisco: White Rabbit Press, 1970
Perfect-bound illustrated wrappers, 6.25″ x 10″, 72 pages, 950 copies, offset printed from the first edition. Text added to the colophon: “Second printing 1970”.
(Johnston A54)

8. Spicer, Jack. BOOK OF MAGAZINE VERSE
a. First edition:
San Francisco: White Rabbit Press, 1966
Perfect-bound printed and illustrated wrappers, 5.5″ x 7.75″, 56 pages, 1500 copies, letterpress printed by Graham Mackintosh. Prepared for publication from the original manuscript by Stan Persky. Illustrated by Graham Mackintosh.
(Johnston A33)

According to Johnston, “The cover is a parody of the cover of Poetry (Chicago). The poems are arranged in groups intended for various little magazines and newspapers, each section printed on a stock appropriate to that publication, so that for example, the poems for Tish are on blue mimeo paper, those for the St. Louis Sporting News on newsprint.”

b. First edition, second printing
San Francisco: White Rabbit Press, 1970
Perfect-bound printed and illustrated wrappers, 5.5″ x 7.75″, 56 pages, 1500 copies, letterpress printed by Graham Mackintosh. Prepared for publication from the original manuscript by Stan Persky. Illustrated by Graham Mackintosh.
(Johnston A33)

9. Spicer, Jack. A BOOK OF MUSIC
a. First edition, regular copies:
San Francisco: White Rabbit, 1969
Saddle-stapled illustrated wrappers, 6.25″ x 9.25″, 20 pages, 1800 copies designed and printed by Ron and Graham Mackintosh from a typescript made available by Peter Howard. The cover was one decided upon by the author. Illustrated by Graham Mackintosh.
(Johnston A48)

b. First edition, variant copies:
Variant copies include additional printed text on the front leaf: “150 copies printed Christmas, 1969 / for friends of White Rabbit, Oyez, / and the author”.
(Johnston A48a)

10. Spicer, Jack. THE RED WHEELBARROW
a. First edition, regular copies:
Berkeley: Arif Press, June 1971
Hand-sewn printed and illustrated wrappers, 5.5″ x 5.5″, 24 pages, 475 copies, letterpress printed. Illustrated by Wesley Tanner. Printed by Wesley Tanner at Cranium Press.

b. First edition, numbered copies:
Berkeley: Arif Press, June 1971
Hand-sewn printed and illustrated wrappers, 5.5″ x 5.5″, 24 pages, 25 copies with hand-colored frontispiece, signed by the illustrator, letterpress printed. Illustrated by Wesley Tanner. Printed by Wesley Tanner at Cranium Press.

Note: Printed announcement issued.

11. Spicer, Jack. SOME THINGS FROM JACK
First edition:
Verona: Plain Wrapper Press, 1972
Wrappers, 6.5″ x 10.25″, 11 pages, 91 numbered copies, printed letterpress. Introduction by Richard Rummonds. Linocut by Miroslav Zahradka.

12. Spicer, Jack. ADMONITIONS
First edition:
New York: Adventures in Poetry, 1974
Side-stapled printed wrappers, 8.5″ x 11″, 44 pages, mimeograph printed.

13. Spicer, Jack. QUARTUS 1: A LOST POEM
First edition:
Verona: Plain Wrapper Press, 1974
Hardcover in cloth-bound boards, 9.5″ x 11.5″, 8 pages, 114 numbered copies signed by the artist, letterpress printed. Postscript by Richard-Gabriel Rummonds. Illustrated with two etchings by Ariel Parkinson.

14. Spicer, Jack. FIFTEEN FALSE PROPOSITIONS ABOUT GOD
First edition:
South San Francisco: Manroot, September 1974
Saddle-stapled printed and illustrated wrappers, 6.5″ x 8.5″, 16 pages, offset printed.

Note: This poem first appeared in Beatitude, No. 3 (San Francisco, May 1959)

15. Spicer, Jack. THE COLLECTED BOOKS OF JACK SPICER
a. First edition, paperback copies:
Los Angeles: Black Sparrow Press, May 1975
Perfect-bound printed wrappers, 6.25″ x 8.75″, 382 pages including bibliography of first editions, 1000 copies. Edited and with commentary by Robin Blaser. Typography by Graham Mackintosh/White Rabbit.

b. First edition, hardcover copies:
Los Angeles: Black Sparrow Press, May 1975
Hardcover in acetate dust jacket, 6.5″ x 9″, 382 pages including bibliography of first editions, 1000 copies. Edited and with commentary by Robin Blaser. Typography by Graham Mackintosh/White Rabbit.

c. First edition, hardcover, numbered and signed copies:
Los Angeles: Black Sparrow Press, May 1975
Hardcover in acetate dust jacket and slipcase, 6.5″ x 9″, 382 pages including bibliography of first editions, 100 copies, numbered and signed by Robin Blaser. Edited and with commentary by Robin Blaser. Typography by Graham Mackintosh/White Rabbit.

16. Spicer, Jack. ONE NIGHT STAND & OTHER POEMS
First edition:
San Francisco: Grey Fox Press, 1980
Hardcover in cloth-bound boards without dust jacket as issued, 98 pages. Edited by Donald Allen. Preface by Robert Duncan.

17. Spicer, Jack. COLLECTED POEMS, 1945-46
First edition:
Berkeley: Oyez/White Rabbit Press, 1981
Saddle-stapled printed wrappers, 7″ x 9″, 32 pages, lithographed from the author’s typescript.

18. Spicer, Jack. THE TOWER OF BABEL
First edition:
Hoboken, N.J: Talisman House, 1994
Perfect-bound photo-illustrated wrappers, 170 pages. Chapter one of Jack Spicer’s Detective Novel, edited by Ed Foster and Kevin Killian.

Described by Lewis Ellingham and Kevin Killian as “a satiric look at the private world of poetry gone public in the wake of the Six Gallery HOWL reading of October, 1955.”

19. Spicer, Jack. TRAIN OF THOUGHT
First edition:
Gran Canaria: Zasterle Press, 1994
Perfect-bound in illustrated wrappers, 62 pages, 300 numbered copies. Edited with an introduction by Lewis Ellingham and Kevin Killian.
Chapter three of Jack Spicer’s unpublished detective novel

20. Spicer, Jack. MAP POEMS
First edition:
Berkeley: The Bancroft Library Press, 2005
Thirty-five copies printed: bound in brown paper wrappers. Introduction by Kevin Killian and Peter Gizzi

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verdant press

Tag Archives: Jack Spicer

The Floating Bear

Adventures in Poetry

Adventures in Poetry

The Spicer Circle’s J

The Floating Bear

Jack Spicer – Miscellaneous Prose

Jack Spicer – Contributions to Periodicals

Jack Spicer – Contributions to Books

Jack Spicer – Broadsides

Jack Spicer – Books

a random walk through the open field…