Tag Archives: Lawrence Ferlinghetti

little magazines

CALL IT BIG TABLE

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

little magazines

The Outsider and Loujon Press

The Outsider, No. 1, edited by Jon and Louise Webb. New Orleans, Fall 1961.

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. Hand-set 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…

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Pocket Poets Series

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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

San Francisco

Poetry as Insurgent Art

Lawrence Ferlinghetti, a poet, publisher and political iconoclast who inspired and nurtured generations of San Francisco artists and writers from City Lights, his famed bookstore, died on Monday at his home in San Francisco. He was 101.

Mr. Ferlinghetti, standing, in 1957 at a poetry reading. © Nat Farbman

Ferlinghetti befriended, published and championed many of the major Beat poets, among them Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso and Michael McClure, who died in May. His connection to their work was exemplified — and cemented — in 1956 with his publication of Ginsberg’s most famous poem, the ribald and revolutionary “Howl,” an act that led to Mr. Ferlinghetti’s arrest on charges of “willfully and lewdly” printing “indecent writings.”

In a significant First Amendment decision, he was acquitted, and “Howl” became one of the 20th century’s best-known poems. (The trial was the centerpiece of the 2010 film “Howl,” in which James Franco played Ginsberg and Andrew Rogers played Mr. Ferlinghetti.)

His most successful collection, “A Coney Island of the Mind” (1958), attracted attention when one of the poems was attacked as blasphemous by a New York congressman, Steven B. Derounian, who called for the investigation of a state college where it was being taught, saying the poem ridiculed the crucifixion of Christ.

Despite the controversy it generated — or perhaps, at least in part, because of it — “A Coney Island of the Mind” was a sensation. It became one of the most successful books of American poetry ever published. It has been translated into multiple languages; according to City Lights, more than a million copies have been printed.

Mr. Ferlinghetti went west in early 1951, landing in San Francisco with a sea bag and little else. After months in a low-rent apartment he found North Beach, even as San Francisco itself was fast becoming fashionable among intellectuals and a generation of young people for whom “establishment” was a dirty word.

Mr. Ferlinghetti’s life changed in 1953, when he and Peter Martin opened the City Lights Pocket Book Shop, which originally carried nothing but paperbacks at a time when the publishing industry was just beginning to take that format seriously. The store would soon became a kind of repository for books that other booksellers ignored and a kind of salon for the authors who wrote them — a place “where you could find these books which you couldn’t find anywhere,” he said, crediting Mr. Martin with the concept. Each man put in $500, and City Lights opened.

“And as soon as we got the door opened,” Mr. Ferlinghetti later remembered, “we couldn’t get it closed.”

In 1955 Mr. Ferlinghetti, by then the sole owner of City Lights, started publishing poems, including his own.

A year later his City Lights imprint published Ginsberg’s “Howl and Other Poems,” and before long he was in court defending poets’ free-speech rights and helping to make himself — and the Beats he had adopted — famous in the process.

— Jesse McKinley

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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
spicer_ferlingSan 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

—

Dave Haselwood Books

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Section D:
This index collects books and other items printed by Dave Haselwood from 1965 to 1970.

1. McClure, Michael. UNTO CAESAR
mcclure_untoFirst edition:
(San Francisco): (Dave Haselwood), (1965)
Hand-sewn in printed wrappers, 6.5″ x 4″,  24 pages, circa 60 copies. (Haselwood 1)

2. Hoyem, Andrew. THE MUSIC ROOM
First edition:
San Francisco: Haselwood, 1965
Hand-sewn in printed wrappers, 6.5″ x 4″,  16 pages, circa 100 copies. Illustrated by Bruce Conner. (Haselwood 2)

3. Wieners, John. CHINOISERIE
First edition:
San Francisco: Dave Haselwood, 1965
Hand-sewn in printed wrappers, 6.5″ x 4″,  20 pages, circa 100 copies. (Haselwood 3)

4. Wieners, John. THE HOTEL WENTLEY POEMS
Second edition revised:
San Francisco: Dave Haselwood, 1965
Saddle-stapled in illustrated wrappers, 6″ x 8.5″, 28 pages. Illustration by Robert La Vigne. These are the “original versions” of the poems. (Haselwood 4)

5. McClure, Michael. DREAM TABLE
First edition:
San Francisco: Dave Haselwood, 1965
30 double-sided printed cards, 2.5″ x 3.5″, 200 sets (30 signed). Each card is printed with a Lion and a Tree ornament on one side and two words on the other. (Haselwood 5)

6. Williams, Jonathan. PAEAN TO DVORAK, DEEMER & McCLURE
First edition:
San Francisco: Dave Haselwood, 1966
Hand-sewn in printed wrappers, 6.5″ x 4″,  32 pages, circa 100 copies. (Haselwood 6)

7. Johnson, Ronald. ASSORTED JUNGLES: ROUSSEAU
First edition:
San Francisco: Dave Haselwood, 1966
Hand-sewn in printed wrappers, 6.5″ x 4″,  32 pages, circa 100 copies. (Haselwood 7)

8. Hoyem, Andrew. CHIMERAS
First edition:
San Francisco: Dave Haselwood, 1966
Hand-sewn in printed wrappers, 6.25″ x 9.5″,  28 pages. (Haselwood 8)



9. Plymell, Charles. APOCALYPSE ROSE
First edition:
San Francisco: Dave Haselwood, 1966
Saddle-stapled in printed wrappers, 6″ x 9″,  52 pages. Introduction by Allen Ginsberg. (Haselwood 9)


10. McClure, Michael. LOBE KEY STILLED LIONMAN LACED WINGED APRIL RAPHAEL DANCE WIRY
First edition:
(San Francisco): (Dave Haselwood), (1966)
24 cards in printed envelope, 2″ x 2″, envelope measures 4.5 x 5.75″. Each card is printed with  four words one side and a “hallucinogram” on the other. Illustrated by Bruce Conner. (Haselwood 10)

11. McClure, Michael and Bruce Conner. MANDALAS
First edition:
San Francisco: Dave Haselwood, 1966
Saddle-stapled in printed wrappers, 10″ x 10″, 32 pages, 1200 copies. Illustrated by Bruce Conner. (Haselwood 11)

Note: Printed announcement issued.

12. Ferlinghetti, Lawrence. AFTER THE CRIES OF THE BIRDS
First edition:
San Francisco: Dave Haselwood: 1967
Saddle-stapled in printed wrappers, 6″ x 8″, 16 pages. (Haselwood 12)



13. Whalen, Philip. T/O
First edition:
San Francisco: Dave Haselwood, 1967
Hand-sewn in printed wrappers, 6.5″ x 4″,  32 pages, circa 80 copies. (Haselwood 13)

14. Burroughs, William S. and Brion Gysin. THE EXTERMINATOR
First edition, second printing:
San Francisco: Dave Haselwood, 1967
Perfect-bound in illustrated and printed wrappers, 6″ x 9″, 51 pages, 1000 copies. (Haselwood 14)



15. McClure, Michael. DARK BROWN
First edition, second printing:
Perfect-bound in illustrated and printed wrappers, 5.5″ x 8.5″. (Haselwood 15)

16. Brown, Geoffrey. TENDING BAR AT THE FILLMORE AUDITORIUM ON ARTISTS’ LIBERATION FRONT BENEFIT NIGHT
First edition:
San Francisco: Dave Haselwood Books, 1967
Folded broadside, 8.6″ x 10.75″.




17. Welch, Lew. COURSES
First edition:
San Francisco: Dave Haselwood, 1968
Hand-sewn in printed suede wrappers, 6.5″ x 4.25″, 28 pages, 50 copies. (Haselwood 16)

18. McClure, Michael. THE SERMONS OF JEAN HARLOW & THE CURSES OF BILLY THE KID
a. First edition, regular copies:
San Francisco: Four Seasons Foundation with Dave Haselwood Books, 1968
Saddle-stapled in printed wrappers, 6″ x 9.25″, 24 pages, 1200 copies. (Haselwood 17)

b. First edition, hardcover, signed copies:
San Francisco: Four Seasons Foundation with Dave Haselwood Books, 1968
Hardcover in printed paper-covered boards, 6″ x 9.25″, 24 pages, 50 copies signed. (Haselwood 17)

19. Ginsberg, Allen. INDIAN JOURNALS
a. First edition, regular copies:
San Francisco: City Lights Books with Dave Haselwood Books, 1970
Perfect bound in illustrated and printed wrappers, 5.5″ x 8.25″, 212 pages. (Haselwood 18)

b. First edition, hardcover, signed copies:
San Francisco: City Lights Books with Dave Haselwood Books, 1970
Hardcover in cloth-covered boards in printed and illustrated dust jacket, 5.5″ x 8.25″, 212 pages. (Haselwood 18)

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