Tag Archives: Richard Duerden

The Spicer Circle’s J

August 4, 2022 jason

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

Foot

February 14, 2016 jason

A member of the San Francisco Renaissance poetry movement, Richard Duerden founded the literary journals RIVOLI REVIEW and FOOT, which ran for 8 issues.

further reading…

Open Space

Stan Persky began Open Space in 1964, printing 50 copies of each issue on a multilith machine (whereas J was mimeographed). Like J, and M, Open Space was a very local (North Beach) magazine whose contents seemed primarily intended for those who contributed, including: Helen Adam, Robin Blaser, Ebbe Borregaard, Richard Duerden, Harold Dull, Larry Fagin, Jess Collins, Jack Spicer and George Stanley. The magazine was also “quite spicy and a little gossipy, for instance, labeling the famed 1955 reading at the Six Gallery as ‘creamed cottage cheese.’”

1. OPEN SPACE, No. 0, A PROSPECTUS, edited by Stan Persky
San Francisco: Open Space, January 1964
First edition, corner-stapled in printed and illustrated cover, 8.5″ x 11″, 34 pages, lithography printed by Mike Kummer, lettering by Peggy Engle. Translations by Max Knight.

Contents:
1. Stan Persky – “A Proposition”
  Christian Morgenstern – “The Moonsheep”
  Jack Spicer – [untitled] “This ocean, humiliating in its disguises…”
  George Stanley – “Choir”
  anonymous – “The Constant Preaching to the Mob”
  Allen Ginsberg – “Owl”
  Richard Duerden – “A Card for the Tarot”
  anonymous – “Okeanos”

2. OPEN SPACE, No. 1, edited by Stan Persky
San Francisco: Open Space, February 1964
First edition, corner-stapled in printed and illustrated cover, 8.5″ x 11″, 50 pages, lithography printed by Mike Kummer, lettering by Peggy Engle. Collage by Graham Mackintosh.

Contents:
1. Stan Persky – “Come-On”
  Robin Blaser – “Psyche”
  Hartford Mutual – “No Possum, No Sop, No Taters”
  Jess – “Critical Dreams – I (eye)”
  Janet Thormann – “The Knight of Cups”
  Jack Spicer – “Sporting Life”
  Link – [untitled] “the insane lady…”
  Link – [untitled] “Like frozen water…”
  Lewis Ellingham – [untitled] “Rock, salt and spray, the angels…”
  James Alexander – “Amoralesay”
  George Stanley – [untitled] “You listen to the leaves, or watch the leaves…”
  Helen Adam – “Two Songs for Lewis Ellingham”
  Gregory Corso – “Mortal Infliction”
  anonymous – “Orders”

3. OPEN SPACE, Valentine Issue, edited by Stan Persky
San Francisco: Open Space, February 1964
First edition, corner-stapled in printed and illustrated cover, 8.5″ x 11″, 60 pages, lithography printed printed by Mike Kummer, lettering by Peggy Engle. Photography by Lartigue.

Contents:
1. Stan Persky – “Alibi”
  C. – “In Despair”
  C. – “The Marriage”
  Bill Roberts – “Recess”
  anonymous – “What Happened : Prelude”
  Robert Duncan – “Postscript for Open Space, January 1964”
  Robin Blaser – “The Prints”
  Robin Blaser – “Translation”
  Stan Persky – “Gourmet Cooking”
  JA – “‘The Island’ by Robert Creeley”

4. OPEN SPACE, No. 2, edited by Stan Persky
San Francisco: Open Space, February 1964
First edition, corner-stapled in printed and illustrated cover, 8.5″ x 11″, 62 pages, lithography printed by Mike Kummer. Illustration by Fran Herndon, collage by Graham Mackintosh..

Contents:
1. Cassius Clay – “I’m the King”
  Stan Persky – “Second Base”
  Jess – “Critical Dreams – II (marginal)”
  Jack Spicer – “This is Submitted to Your Valentine Contest”
  James Herndon – [untitled] “He went outside…”
  Gene Fowler – “The Time Travelers”
  Robin Blaser – [untitled] “It is essentially reluctance…”
  George Stanley – “Orion”
  Link – “Citys Would Make a Masque for Hearts”
  Link – “A Poem for Ulysses”
  Jack Spicer – [untitled] “I hear a banging on the door…”
  Robert Duncan – [untitled] “And to Her-Without-Bounds I send…”
  Richard Duerden – “Hunger”
  Jack Kerouac – “Blindness”
  Stan Persky – “A Kingdom”
  Stan Persky – “Home & Garden”

5. OPEN SPACE, No. 3, edited by Stan Persky
San Francisco: Open Space, March 1964
First edition, corner-stapled in printed and illustrated cover, 8.5″ x 11″, 52 pages, lithography printed by Mike Kummer, lettering by Peggy Engle. Cover art and illustration by Fran Herndon.

Contents:
1. Stan Persky – “Whan That Aprill With His Shoures Soote”
  James Alexander – “Love was Here, for Simon”
  Jack Spicer – [untitled] “Just because baseball is not poetry…”
  Philip Whalen – “Technicalities for Jack Spicer”
  Ron Loewinsohn – “The Fifth Circle of Hell that is not Los Angeles”
  Jack Spicer – “Predictions”
  Jaimie MacInnes – [untitled] “Lime decayed their mouths…”
  Jaimie MacInnes – [untitled] “If running stockings…”
  Jack Spicer – [untitled] “The log in the fire…”
  Jack Spicer – [untitled] “Finally the messages penetrate…”
  George Stanley – [untitled] “Dear Stan…”
  Robin Blaser – “2 of Image Nations”
  Anselm Hollo – “Air to Dream in”
  Marianne Moore – “W.S. Landor”
  Stan Persky – “The Wish”
  Joanne Kyger – [untitled] “The persimmons are falling…”
  Stan Persky – “Home & Garden”
  Jack Spicer – “Dear Ferlinghetti”

6. OPEN SPACE, No. 4, Taurus Issue, edited by Stan Persky
San Francisco: Open Space, April 1964
First edition, corner-stapled in printed and illustrated cover, 8.5″ x 11″, 66 pages, lithography printed by Mike Kummer and Lee Kummer, lettering by Peggy Engle. Illustrations by Bill Brodecky and Tom Field

Contents:
1. Stan Persky – “Horns”
  Robin Blaser – “Sophia Nichols”
  Jess – “Critical Dream – III (trial)”
  James Dickey – “The Being”
  Harold Dull – “The Fire”
  David Bromige – “The Accident”
  E.B. [Ebbe Borregaard] – “Sketches for 13 Sonnets”
  Deneen Brown – [untitled] “Gathered years…”
  Deneen Brown – [untitled] “The rectangle of heat…”
  Jack Spicer – [untitled] “Heroes eat soup like anyone else…”
  Jack Spicer – [untitled] “Smoke signals…”
  Harold Dull – “The Wild Geese”
  George [Stanley] – “From Seas Mainly”
  Thomas M. Hannon – [untitled] “The angle iron…”
  Thomas M. Hannon – “For a Friend Who is Married”
  Thomas M. Hannon – [untitled] “Last night…”
  Gary Snyder – “Out West”
  Stan [Persky] – “Adventurer”
  Jack Spicer – [untitled] “A redwood forest is not invisible…”
  Jack Spicer – [untitled] “The whorship of beauty…”
  Jess – [untitled] “Dear Jerry Reilly…”
  Stan Persky – “Home & Garden”

7. OPEN SPACE, No. 4, White Hope Issue, edited by Stan Persky
San Francisco: Open Space, May 1964
First edition, corner-stapled in printed and illustrated cover, 8.5″ x 11″, 66 pages, lithography printed. Illustration by Fran Herndon.

Contents:
1. Joanne Kyger – [untitled] “Where ever you go I am with you…”
  E.B. [Ebbe Borregaard] – “Sketches for 13 Sonnets”
  Fran Herndon – untitled illustration
  Harold Dull – “Venus and the Moon Poem”
  Deneen Brown – “for Bill Brodecky”
  E. Poe – “Ulalume”
  Bill Brodecky – [untitled] “I admit…”
  George [Stanley] – “The Lyre in the East Rising”
  George [Stanley] – “The Shepherds Verse”
  Jess – “Critical Dreams – IV (haven)”

8. OPEN SPACE, No. 5, edited by Stan Persky
San Francisco: Open Space, May 1964
First edition, corner-stapled in printed and illustrated cover, 8.5″ x 11″, 50 pages, lithography printed by Mike Kummer and Lee Kummer, lettering by Peggy Engle. Illustrations by Fran Herndon, Nemi Frost, Tom Field, Bill Wheeler, and Graham Mackintosh.

Contents:
1. Richard Duerden – “Border: The Sun Imprisoned”
  John Ashbury – “A Blessing in Disguise”
  Lewis Ellingham – [untitled] “A new log had been put on the fire…”
  Jack Spicer – [untitled] “Pull down the shade of ruin, rain verse…”
  Jack Spicer – [untitled] “If your mother’s mother had not riven, mother…”
  Jack Spicer – [untitled] “What in sight do I have…”
  Jack Spicer – [untitled] “It comes May and the summers renew themselves…”
  Graham Mackintosh – [untitled] “Like Odysseus under the ram…”
  Robert Duncan – “A New Poem, for Jack Spicer”
  Helen Adam – “Farewell Stranger”
  Jamie MacInnis – [untitled] “These are your nights…”
  Ronnie Primack – “From a line by Spicer”
  Lewis Brown – “Bartok, for Pen Lace”
  anonymous – “Book of the Boss”
  George [Stanley] – “Two Parts of a Poem”
  Jack Spicer – [untitled] “Thanatos, the death-plant in the skull…”
  Stan [Persky] – [untitled] “a man drawing the sword…”
  Stan Persky – “Home & Garden”
  Gene Fowler – “Credo”
  C.A. Swin – [untitled] “Fourth, ballad, and take roses…”
  Stan Persky – “Gemini”

9. OPEN SPACE, No. 6, edited by Stan Persky
San Francisco: Open Space, June 1964
First edition, corner-stapled in printed and illustrated cover, 8.5″ x 11″, 50 pages, lithography printed by Mike Kummer. Cover art by Helen Adam, illustrations by Armando
Navarro and Robert Berg.

Contents:
1. Stan Persky – “Orphic Space”
  Jack Spicer – [untitled] “1st SF home rainout since. Bounce…”
  Jack Spicer – [untitled] “The country is not very well defined…”
  Jack Spicer – [untitled] “I squint my eyes to cry…”
  Jack Spicer – [untitled] “The metallurgical analysis of the stone that…”
  George Stanley – “The Gifts of Death, after Virgil, for Louis Zukofsky”
  Robin Blaser – “Image-Nations 3”
  Robin Blaser – [untitled] “O-friend…”
  Lewis Ellingham – “A Cold Dawn”
  Deneen Brown – [untitled] “It lit up…”
  Wystan – “One Circumlocution”
  Lewis Ellingham – “The Perfect Correspondent”
  Lewis Ellingham – “The Sleepers”
  Lewis Ellingham – “Underweir”
  Robert Duncan – “Passages 5”
  Robert Duncan – “Passages 6”
  Robert Duncan – “Passages 7”
  Robert Duncan – “Passages 8”
  Robert Duncan – “Passages 9”
  Jess – “Critical Dreams – V (ivy)”
  Gael Turnbull – “A Voice, Voices, Speaking”
  Gael Turnbull – “To be Shaken”
  Stan Persky – “A Poem of Light and Dark, for C.S. Lewis”
  Stan Persky – “Home & Garden”

10. OPEN SPACE, No. 7, edited by Stan Persky
San Francisco: Open Space, July 1964
First edition, corner-stapled in printed and illustrated cover, 8.5″ x 11″, 82 pages, lithography printed by Lee Kummer, lettering by Peggy Engle. Cover art by Jess. Illustrations by William McNeill, Ken Botto, Fran Herndon, and Nemi Frost.

Contents:
1. L. Kearney – [untitled] “A rock…”
  L. Kearney – [untitled] “A certain kind of dusk…”
  L. Kearney – [untitled] “I could be wrong except for…”
  Hart – “Chaplinesque”
  Robert Duncan – “A Note for Open Space 7”
  Robert Duncan – “The Structure of Rime XXIII”
  Robert Duncan – “Shadows”
  Jack Spicer – “Love Poems”
  George Stanley – “Songs from Arcadia”
  Joanne Elizabeth Kyger – “In July”
  Joanne Kyger – [untitled] “there is no meeting…”
  Helen Adam – “Sing Song”
  Jess – “Critical Dreams – VI (quicksilver)”
  Jim Alexander – “Alexander”
  Jim Alexander – “Jacob’s Larder”
  Jim Alexander – “Poem Toward a Rondel”
  D.R. Drake – “3”
  Harold Dull – “First Lesson”
  Harold Dull – “Second Lesson”
  Harold Dull – “Third Lesson”
  Harold Dull – “Fourth Lesson”
  Lewis Ellingham – “11, 12”
  Stan Persky – “Report to the Stockholders”

11. OPEN SPACE, No. 8, edited by Stan Persky
San Francisco: Open Space, August 1964
First edition, corner-stapled in printed and illustrated cover, 8.5″ x 11″, 76 pages. Cover art by Robert Berg.

Contents:
1. Michael McClure – “The Mystery of the Hunt”
  L. Kearney – [untitled] “In the children’s forest…”
  Robert Duncan – “A Note for Open Space 8”
  Robert Duncan – “Structure of Rime XXIV”
  Robert Duncan – “Chords”
  Robert Duncan – “Spelling”
  Robert Duncan – “At Lammas Tide”
  Robert Duncan – “Saint Graal (after Verlaine)”
  Charles Dodgson – [untitled] “I have a fairy by my side…”
  Charles Olson – “Against Wisdom as Such”
  Jamie MacInnis – “Every Little Star”
  Jess – “Tricky Cad, Case IV”
  Jack Spicer “Intermission I-III”
  Jack Spicer – “Transformations I-III”
  Lawrence Fagin – “from Procris & Cephalus”
  Edna Barnes – [untitled] “If beyond passion our love…”
  Harold Dull – [untitled] “I’ve listened before…”
  Ron Loewinsohn – “The Burden of Loveliness, 1”
  Ron Loewinsohn – “The Burden of Loveliness, 2”
  Ron Loewinsohn – “The Great Sand Dunes (for Joey)”
  Stan Persky – “Muse News”

12. OPEN SPACE, No. 9, edited by Stan Persky
San Francisco: Open Space, September 1964
First edition, corner-stapled in printed and illustrated cover, 8.5? x 11?, 92 pages, lithography printed by Mike Kummer. Cover art by Harry Jacobus. Illustration by Jess.

Contents:
1. Harold Dull – [untitled] “He tries…”
  Richard Duerden – “Iris, Cut for an Intended Painting”
  Ron Loewinsohn – “The Step (a collage poem)”
  Jack Spicer – “Morphemicks”
  Lewis Ellingham – “Nightmare and Dream”
  George Stanley – “Untitled”
  Lew Brown – “Lionel”
  Lawrence Fagin – “from Procris & Cephalus”
  Bill Brodecky – [untitled] “Clear face facing…”
  Bill Brodecky – [untitled] “In my dream…”
  Richard Duerden – “The Air”
  Lawrence Kearney – [untitled] “I tell you…”
  Lawrence Kearney – [untitled] “Beyond where you…”
  George Stanley – “For Bill”
  Tom Field – “The Dentist”
  Robert Duncan – “Parsifal: The Easter Magic”
  Stan Persky – “They”
  Stan Persky – “Home & Garden”

13. OPEN SPACE, No. 10, edited by Stan Persky
San Francisco: Open Space, October 1964
First edition, corner-stapled in printed and illustrated cover, 8.5? x 11?, 92 pages, lithography printed by Mike Kummer. Cover art and collage poem by by Jess.

Contents:
1. George Stanley – “Elpinor”
  George Stanley – [untitled] “I thought of Achilles…”
  Ronnie Primack – “Love Poem”
  Robin Blaser – “It It It It”
  M. Hannon – “Station Crossing”
  M. Hannon – [untitled] “My hand goes dark…”
  Jamie MacInnis – “Uncourtly Love”
  Jack Spicer – “Phonemics”
  Richard Duerden – “The Host, September”
  Robert Duncan – “The Currents”
  Ron Loewinsohn – “some more from The Step”
  Harold Dull – “Day”
  Harold Dull – “Night”
  Lawrence Kearney – [untitled] “Now the winter burns…”
  Lawrence Kearney – [untitled] “Tell me nothing now…”
  Stan Persky – “The Story”
  Stan Persky – “House & Garden”

14. OPEN SPACE, No. 11, edited by Stan Persky
San Francisco: Open Space, November 1964
First edition, corner-stapled in printed and illustrated cover, 8.5″ x 11″, 70 pages, lithography printed by Mike Kummer. Cover photograph by Margot Prattlesome Dross.

Contents:
1. Ronnie Primack – “V”
  Oscar Wilde – “The Harlot’s House”
  Harris Schiff – “for Lewis Warsh”
  Jack Spicer – “Graphemics”
  Richard Duerden – “In the Morning”
  Robert Duncan – “Moving the Moving Image”
  Michael S. Willis – “A History of I and Eyes”
  George Stanley – “Penelope’s Prayer”
  George Stanley – “I Thought of Achilles”
  George Stanley – [untitled] “The year’s ending…”
  M.S.W. – [untitled] “A lover’s face…”
  Lewis Ellingham – “Psyche”
  Harold Dull – [untitled] “Is he an intrusion…”
  Harold Dull – [untitled] “We fought…”
  Deneen Brown – [untitled] “Blood colored biscuits…”
  Harold H.C. – “The Broken Tower”
  Stan Persky – “Home & Garden”

15. OPEN SPACE, No. 12, edited by Stan Persky
San Francisco: Open Space, 1964
First edition, corner-stapled in printed and illustrated cover, 8.5″ x 11″, 90 pages, lithography printed by Mike Kummer. Illustrations by Jess and Robert Duncan.

Contents:
1. Joanne Kyger – “From Our Soundest Sleep, It Ends”
  Robert Duncan – “The Torso, Passages 18”
  Robert Duncan – “The Earth, Passages 19”
  Robert Duncan – “Structure of Rime XXVI, Passages 20”
  James Alexander – “The Greater Happiness”
  Stan Persky – [untitled] “The first thing I notice…”
  Robin Blaser – “The City”
  Robin Blaser – “Saturn, Star of Melancholy”
  Robin Blaser – “Orpheus”
  Robin Blaser – “Image Nations, 4”
  Jamie MacInnis – “Ducks for Grownups”
  Thomas Clark – “The Site”
  Harris Schiff – “(Unfinished), for Jack Spicer”
  Lewis Ellingham – “O, O”
  Harris Schiff – “Library Window-sill”
  Lew Brown – “To Break the Day’s Contentions”
  Lew Brown – “I Hear Chains”
  Lew Brown – “O to Reknit this Morning”
  Lew Brown – “Blackstone”
  Lew Brown – “Tuig”
  Harold Dull – [untitled] “When leaves like ashes fall…”
  Lawrence Fagin – “from Procris & Cephalus”
  Lawrence Kearney – [untitled] “You are more constant…”
  Lawrence Kearney – [untitled] “To be more tied…”
  Lawrence Kearney – “For Jamie”
  Ron Loewinsohn – “Some more from The Step”
  Stan Persky – “Home & Garden”

Online Resources:

Flying Object – scans of all issues

J

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. Contributors included: Robin Blaser, Richard Brautigan, Bruce Boyd, Kay Johnson, Robert Duncan, Joe Dunn, Ron Loewinsohn, Joanne Kyger, Helen Adam, and others. Covers (sometimes hand-embellished) were by Fran Herndon (Nos. 1, 2, 4, 5), Russell FitzGerald (No. 3), and George Stanley (Nos. 6, 7).

1. J, No. 1, edited by Jack Spicer
San Francisco: J, 1959
First edition, corner-stapled sheets in printed cover, 8.5″ x 11″, 38 pages, mimeograph printed. Cover by Fran Herndon.

Contents:
1. James Alexander – “The Jack Rabbit Poem”
  Ebbe Borregaard – “Ballad for S A D”
  Ebbe Borregaard – “Ballad of Billy Swan”
  Robin Blaser – “Two Astronomers with Notebooks”
  Jack Spicer – “Hokkus”
  Joe Dunn – “Love”
  Richard Brautigan – “The Fever Monument”
  Sam the Tenor Man – “The Radio said Giants Cinch Loop Flag”
  Bois Burk – “Ode to Pierre”
  Bruce Boyd – “After Midnight”
  Roland March – [untitled] “Mister Brustein…”
  Damon Beard – [untitled] “Adverse repercussionless…”
  Kay Johnson – [untitled] “My soul is the absurdity…”
  Kay Johnson – [untitled] “The door in the dream…”
  Robert Duncan – “Dream Data”
  Sagen – “Dear Sprach” [pseuds. Borregaard and Spicer]
  Harvey Harmon – “A Soldier and His Shadow”
  Tony Richards – “Summer”

2. J, No. 2, edited by Jack Spicer
San Francisco: J, 1959
First edition, corner-stapled sheets in printed cover, 8.5″ x 11″, 36 pages, mimeograph printed. Cover by Fran Herndon.

Contents:
1. George Stanley – “Tete Rouge”
  Fran Herndon – untitled illustration
  Jess Collins – “I Ups to My Self And”
  Harvey Harmon – [untitled] “More paths…”
  Jack Spicer – [untitled] “Down to new beaches…”
  Robert Duncan – “Dear Carpenter”
  Harvey Harmon – “A New Estate”
  William Morris – “Dear Senior Poet”
  Stan Persky – [untitled] “but it was a moment…”
  Mary Murphy – “In-”
  Will Holther – ” Lament for Otto de Fey”
  Jack Spicer – “Epilog for Jim”
  J.P. Shark – [untitled] “On account of changing tidal conditions…”

3. J, No. 3, edited by Jack Spicer
San Francisco: J, 1959
First edition, corner-stapled sheets in printed and hand-painted cover, 8.5″ x 11″, 38 pages, mimeograph printed. Cover by Russell FitzGerald.

Contents:
1. Bruce Boyd – “Introduction”
  Bruce Boyd – “Toward Morning”
  Bruce Boyd – “War”
  R.H. Blyth – “Letters to the Editor”
  Rueban – “Q”
  Mary Murphy – [untitled] “The skull is not the bones…”
  Leo Krikorian – [untitled] “1. No drinking on duty…”
  Ron Loewinsohn – “Entangling Alliances”
  George Stanley – “Tete Rouge (continued)”
  Jack Spicer – [untitled] “The slobby sea where you float…”
  Damon Beard – [untitled] “Even —…”
  Jack Spicer – “Last Hokku”
  JBH [James Herndon?] – [untitled] “I don’t know how many…”

4. J, No. 4, edited by Jack Spicer
San Francisco: J, 1959
First edition, corner-stapled sheets in printed and hand-painted cover, 8.5″ x 11″, 36 pages, mimeograph printed. Cover by Fran Herndon.

Contents:
1. Robert Duncan – “A Sequence of Poems…”
  Richard Brautigan – “The Pumpkin Tide”
  Richard Brautigan – “The Sidney Greenstreet Blues”
  Richard Brautigan – “Surprise”
  Garln – “Garln to His Friend”
  Joanne Kyger – “Tapestry #3”
  Josef Elias – “Joetry”
  Donald Allen – “for Barbara”
  John Ryan – “Pecadillo”
  Jack Spicer – “Jacob”
  George Stanley – “Tete Rouge (continued)”
  Wallace Allen Healey – “Politics”

5. J, No. 5, edited by Jack Spicer
San Francisco: J, 1959
First edition, corner-stapled sheets in printed and hand-painted cover, 8.5″ x 11″, 34 pages, mimeograph printed. Cover by Fran Herndon.

Contents:
1. L. Frank Baum – “from Sky Island”
  Larry Eigner – “Front”
  Jess Collins – “The Poets Corner” [comic strip]
  Richard Brautigan – “1942”
  Mary Murphy – [untitled] “Lack of oxygen…”
  D.D. – “Fishing on Saturday”
  Kay Johnson – “The Space is Too Wide”
  Ron Loewinsohn – “WIBC Poems”
  George Stanley – “Tete Rouge (continued)”
  Robert Duncan – “The Song of the River to its Shores”
  Richard Duerden – “Right Now”
  Sheila Roche Harmon – [untitled] “A young devil sat…”
  Jack Spicer – “Fifth Elegy”
  William Berryman – “On the Composition of Bones”
  William R. Allen – “Letter”

6. J, No. 6, edited by George Stanley
San Francisco: J, 1959
First edition, corner-stapled sheets in printed cover, 8.5″ x 11″, 38 pages, mimeograph printed. Cover by George Stanley.

Contents:
1. Helen Adam – “Scenes from San Francisco’s Burning”
  Paul Goodman – “I Love You, Necessary–”
  Joanne Kyger – “Pan as the Son of Penelope”
  Lucio Manisco – “Un Misto di Boheme Mistica e Letteraria”
  William A. Berryman – [untitled] “in the after hours…”

7. J, No. 7, edited by George Stanley
New York: J, 1960
Corner-stapled sheets in printed cover, 8.5″ x 11″, 32 pages, mimeograph printed. Cover by George Stanley.

All contents are anonymous.

8. J, No. 8, 1961, edited by Harold Dull *
Rome: J, 1961
Contributors: Harold Dull, Stan Persky.

—

[*not in archive]

online excerpt from A Secret Location on the Lower East Side (Granary Books, 1998):

“In many ways the most beautiful of all the mimeo magazines, J had an eight-issue run. The first five issues were edited from North Beach bars by Jack Spicer with Fran Herndon as art editor. Spicer, who embodied the spirit of poetry in the Bay area, collected pieces for his magazine from a box marked “J” in The Place, a bar at 1546 Grant Avenue in San Francisco. A refugee from Los Angeles with two degrees from Berkeley, he had been a student of Josephine Miles there in the mid-1940s. They became close friends, and Spicer participated in the Friday afternoon poetry readings in Wheeler Hall during the late 1940s as well as the readings organized with Rockefeller money by Ruth Witt-Diamant at the new Poetry Center at San Francisco State. Into the cauldron of poetic politics surrounding Miles, Kenneth Rexroth, Robert Duncan, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and others, Spicer introduced his freest of spirits, sometimes more Caliban than Ariel. Spicer lived for words (even making his living as a research assistant on a lexicographical project at Berkeley). He could be found most evenings in one of the North Beach bars or coffeehouses leading the discussion on poetry, poetics, myth, linguistics, and other mysteries. Like Blake and Yeats (with the help of Mrs. Yeats), Spicer attempted to clear his mind and open himself to “dictation” from other sources, which he devotedly pursued. Spicer also believed wholeheartedly in the necessity of human beings’ helping each other through communication, which he confronted in the editorship of J, a little newsletter of the poetic spirit. Donald Allen acted as J’s distributor in New York (“New York Contributions are not forbidden. But quotaed”), selling copies for Spicer to the Wilentz brothers of the Eighth Street Book Shop. In an early letter to Spicer, Allen eagerly wondered “what your editorial policy may be. Seduction by print.””

Further Reading:

Mimeo Mimeo on J

Measure

“The three simple, almost starkly working-class issues of Measure followed glorious and overlooked “underground” poet John Wieners from Black Mountain College home to Boston, across country to San Francisco, and back to Boston again. In his years in San Francisco, from 1958 to 1960, Wieners attended (sometimes serving as host at his Scott Street apartment) the legendary Sunday afternoon poetry workshops of the charismatic poets Robert Duncan and Jack Spicer. Also present at the workshops were George Stanley, Harold Dull, Robin Blaser (The Pacific Nation), and many others…”
— from A Secret Location on the Lower East Side (Granary Books, 1998)

1. MEASURE, No. 1, edited by John Wieners
Boston: Measure, Summer 1957
First edition, saddle-stapled in printed wrappers, 5.5″ x 8.5″, 48 pages, letterpress printed at the Press of Villiers Publications.

“Measure is edited by John Wieners. It will be issued with the four seasons only through your support… Please understand that the opinions expressed in this magazine do not necessarily reflect those of the city.”

Contents:
1. Tom Balas – “Le Fou”
  Charles Olson – “Le Bonheur!”
  Charles Olson – “The Charge”
  Charles Olson – “Spring”
  Edward Marshall – “One:”
  Edward Marshall – “Two:”
  Robin Blaser – “Poem”
  Robin Blaser – “Letters to Freud”
  Robin Blaser – “Poem by the Charles River”
  Edward Dorn – “The Rick of Green Wood”
  Larry Eigner – “Millionem”
  Larry Eigner – “Brink”
  Frank O’Hara – “Section 9 from Second Avenue”
  Fielding Dawson – “Two Drawings”
  Stephen Jonas – “Word on Measure”
  Stephen Jonas – “Expanded Word on Measure”
  Michael Rumaker – “Father”
  Gavin Douglas – “The Blanket”
  Jack Spicer – “Song for Bird and Myself”
  Jonathan Williams – “Two Poems for Whitman, the Husbandman”
  Robert Duncan – “The Propositions”

2. MEASURE, No. 2, edited by John Wieners
San Francisco: Measure, Winter 1958
First edition, saddle-stapled in printed wrappers, 5.5″ x 8.5″, 64 pages, letterpress printed at the Press of Villiers Publications.

“Magick is for the ones who ball, i.e. throw across”

Contents:
1. Michael Rumaker – “The Use of the Unconscious”
  Robin Blaser – “The Hunger of Sound”
  Robert Creeley – “Juggler’s Thot”
  Michael Rumaker – “8 Dreams”
  Jack Kerouac – “4 Choruses”
  Charles Olson – “Descensus Spiritus No. 1”
  Robert Duncan – “The Maiden”
  Robert Creeley – “They Say”
  Robert Creeley – “She Went to Say”
  Jack Kerouac – “235th Chorus”
  Edward Dorn – “Notes from the Fields”
  Robert Duncan – “The Dance”
  Stuart Z. Perkoff – “Feats of Death, Feasts of Love”
  V. R. Lang – “The Recidivists”
  Gregory Corso – “Yaaaah”
  James Broughton – “Feathers or Lead”
  Michael McClure – “The Magazine Cover”
  Michael McClure – “One & Two”
  Robert Creeley – “The Tunnel”
  Robert Creeley – “Just Friends”
  Richard Duerden – “Musica No. 3”
  Stephen Jonas – “Books 3 & 4 from a Long Poem”

3. MEASURE, No. 3, edited by John Wieners
Milton: Measure, Winter 1962
First edition, saddle-stapled in printed wrappers, 5.5″ x 8.5″, 36 pages, letterpress printed at the Press of Villiers Publications.

“THE CITY / 1 AM – Unreasonable fear, of the shadows of Harry Lime, of the dead reappearing”

Contents:
1. James Schuyler – “Shed Market”
  James Schuyler – “Joint”
  Gerrit Lansing – “Explorers”
  Barbara Guest – “Safe Flights”
  Barbara Guest – [untitled] “Once when he was a small boy…”
  Barbara Guest – “Abruptly, as if a Forest Might Say”
  Helen Adam – “Anaid si Taerg (Great is Diana)”
  Madeline Gleason – “Wind Said, Marry”
  Robert Duncan – “What do I Know of the Old Lore?”
  Jack Spicer – “Central Park West”
  Larry Eigner – “Poem”
  Tom Field – [untitled] “Form is never more than the extension…”
  Edward Marshall – “Times Square”
  Edward Marshall – “2”
  Edward Marshall – “3”
  John Wieners – “The Imperatrice”
  Philip Lamantia – “Opus Magnum”
  Sheri Martinelli – “Ruth Gildenberg”
  Michael Rumaker – “The River at Night”
  Charles Olson – “The Year is a Great Circle…”
  Charles Olson – “The Post Virginal”
  Charles Olson – [untitled] “Descartes, age 34…”
  John Haines – “Poem”
  John Haines – “Pawnee Dust”

The Rivoli Review

The Rivoli Review, Vol. Zero, No. One, edited by Richard Duerden
San Francisco: The Rivoli Review 1963

Side-stapled illustrated wrappers, 8.5″ x 11″, 24 pages, mimeograph printed. Cover illustration by Jess Collins.

Contributors:
Ford Madox Ford – “Meary Walker”
Robert Duncan – “Weaving the Design”
James Koller – [untitled] “mottled brown birds…”
Richard Duerden – “Seven: #2 La Martine Place”
Denise Levertov – “Hypocrite Women”
Lynn Lonidier – “Chagall and Bella”
Ron Loewinsohn – “Art for Art’s Sake”, “The Rain, The Rain”
Gerald Gilbert – [untitled] “Sunshine…”
Lorenzo Thomas – “Grass”, “West”
Robert Peterson – “Critical Times”
Ron Loewinsohn – “Fuck You Roger Maris”
Philip Whalen – “Plums, Metaphysics, An Investigation, A Visit and a Short Funeral Ode”
Ron Loewinsohn – “It is to be Bathed in Light”

The Rivoli Review, Vol. Zero, No. Two, edited by Richard Duerden
San Francisco: The Rivoli Review 1964

Side-stapled illustrated wrappers, 8.5″ x 14″, 30 pages, mimeograph printed.

Contributors:
James Koller – “The People are Coming”
Ron Loewinsohn – “A Place to Go”
Jess Collins – “Song of the Pied Parrot”
Lew Brown – “from Lionel”
Deneen Brown – “Azalea Poem”
George Stanley – “Argus”
Robert Duncan – “Passages III”, “Passages 3-4”
Richard Duerden – “Silence, and Katharsis”
Lew Brown – “The Broadjump”, “from Lionel”
Jack Anderson – “The Scale of It”
Richard Duerden – “The Sonata”
Jack Anderson – “Man in a Doorway”
Gerard Malanga – “Final Sonnet XC”

verdant press