Tag Archives: San Francisco

Jack Spicer

youngspicer

 

Although known primarily among a coterie of poets in the San Francisco Bay Area at the time of his death in 1965, Jack Spicer has slowly become a towering figure in American poetry. He was born in Los Angeles in 1925 to midwestern parents and raised in a Calvinist home. While attending college at the University of California-Berkeley, Spicer met fellow poets Robin Blaser and Robert Duncan. The friendship among these three poets would develop into what they referred to as “The Berkeley Renaissance,” which would in turn become the San Francisco Renaissance after Spicer, Blaser and Duncan moved to San Francisco in the 1950s.


Jack Spicer Checklist:

Section A: Books, Chapbooks, and Pamphlets
Section B: Broadsides, Posters, and Postcards
Section C: Contributions to Books and Other Publications
Section D: Contributions to Periodicals
Section E: Miscellaneous Prose


At Berkeley, Spicer studied linguistics, finishing all but his dissertation for a PhD in Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse. In 1950 he lost his teaching assistantship after refusing to sign a “loyalty oath” to the United States, which the University of California required of all its employees under the Sloan-Levering Act. Spicer taught briefly at the University of Minnesota and worked for a short period of time in the rare books room at the Boston Public Library, but he lived the majority of his life in San Francisco working as a researcher in linguistics.

jack-spicer
Jack Spicer at the opening of the 6 Gallery, Halloween 1954. Photo by Robert Berg.

Spicer helped to form the 6 Gallery with five painter friends in 1954. It was at the 6 Gallery during Spicer’s sojourn east that Allen Ginsberg first read Howl. As a native Californian, Spicer tended to view the Beats as usurpers and criticized the poetry and self-promotion of poets like Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, as well as the Beat ethos in general. Always weary of labels and definitions, Spicer tended to associate with small, intimate groups of poets who lived in the North Beach neighborhood of San Francisco. Spicer acted as a mentor and teacher to these young poets by running poetry workshops and providing (sometimes caustic) advice for young poets.

In a 1975 New York Times article, Richard Ellman concluded: “Jack Spicer’s poems are always poised just on the face side of language, dipping all the way over toward that sudden flip, as if an effort were being made through feeling strongly in simple words to sneak up on the event of a man ruminating about something, or celebrating something, without rhetorical formulae, in his own beautiful inept awkwardness. It’s that poised ineptitude and awkwardness of the anti-academic teacher, the scholar of linguistics who can’t say what he knows in formal language, and has chosen to be very naive and look and hear and do. Spicer was not a very happy poet. He was obsessed with possibilities he could only occasionally realize, and too aware of contemporary life to settle for anything less in his work than what he probably could not achieve. He must have been a great spirit.”


Further Reading:

Herndon, James. EVERYTHING AS EXPECTED
San Francisco, Winter 1973

Foster, Edward Halsey. JACK SPICER 
Boise: Boise State University, 1991

Killian, Kevin and Lewis Ellingham. POET BE LIKE GOD: JACK SPICER AND THE BERKELEY RENAISSANCE
Hanover: Wesleyan University Press, 1998

Gizzi, Peter. THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT THE COLLECTED LECTURES OF JACK SPICER
Hanover: University Press of New England, 1998

Gizzi, Peter and Kevin Killian. MY VOCABULARY DID THIS TO ME: THE COLLECTED POETRY OF JACK SPICER
Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 2008


Online Resources:

Academy of American Poets
The Bancroft Library – Jack Spicer Papers 1939-1982
Book Forum
Emory University – Jack Spicer Papers
Jacket Magazine – excerpt from Vancouver Lecture 3
Penn Sound – audio recordings
Poetry Foundation
University of Buffalo 


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

Dorbin, Sanford. A CHECKLIST OF THE PUBLISHED WRITING OF JACK SPICER*
Sacramento: California Librarian, October 1970
[* the first (and only?) checklist of Jack Spicer’s writing]

Johnston, Alastair. A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE AUERHAHN PRESS & ITS SUCCESSOR DAVE HASELWOOD BOOKS
Berkeley: Poltroon Press, 1976

Johnston, Alastair. A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE WHITE RABBIT PRESS
Berkeley: Poltroon Press, 1985

Lepper, Gary M. A BIBLIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION TO SEVENTY-FIVE MODERN AMERICAN AUTHORS
Berkeley: Serendipity Books, 1976

White Rabbit Press

IMG_3062From 1957-1968, the White Rabbit Press published sixty-three books and ten broadsides. It was the primary publisher of the work of Spicer, Robin Blaser, and Robert Duncan—the three central figures of the literary movement first known as the Berkeley Renaissance, and later as the San Francisco Renaissance. 

Founded by Joe Dunn in 1957 to print the poetry of the Jack Spicer Circle, the first ten books were printed surreptitiously on a multilith at the Greyhound Bus offices on 7th street in San Francisco. These early books were illustrated by Jess, Robert Duncan, and Kenn Davis.

After a four-year hiatus, the imprint was revived in 1962 by Graham Mackintosh with Spicer’s LAMENT FOR THE MAKERS, which was published in a small edition of less than 100 copies and illustrated by Mackintosh.  (more…)

Ark

ARK II, MOBY I, is the successor to THE ARK, a collection of verse, drawings, and articles published in San Francisco in 1947. This was probably the first coherent expression of a new aesthetic and social freedom, which as the years have gone by is now seen to be the characteristic approach of the post war II generation.

—from the introduction to ARK II, MOBY I


1. THE ARK, edited by Philp Lamantia, Robert Stock, and Sanders Russell
San Francisco: The Ark, Spring 1947
First edition, side-stapled and bound into illustrated wrappers, 5.5″ x 9.75″, 72 pages, letterpress printed, artwork by Ronald Bladen.

“The Ark is printed by voluntary labor on a small press belonging to the magazine. The editorial board is open to all interested in active work on the Ark, the future of which depends on continued and new interest in what we are doing.”

  • Contents:
    1. Kenneth Patchen – “excerpt from Sleepers Awake”
      Alison Boodson – “Three Poems”
      Kenneth Rexroth – “Advent 1946”
      James Laughlin IV – “Now Love Speaks”
      Richard Eberhart – “At the End of War”
      George Woodcock – “What is Anarchism?”
      Robert Duncan – “Four Poems”
      Paul Goodman – “The ‘Horace’ of Corneille”
      William Everson – “If I Hide My Hand”
      E. E. Cummings – “Four Poems”
      Ammon A. Hennacy – “Christian Anarchism”
      Sanders Russell – “Six Poems”
      Philip Lamantia – “Another Autumn Coming”
      Robert Stock – “Poem on Holy Saturday”
      Christopher Rambo – “Peace To the Doomed Idol”
      William Carlos Williams – “Inquest”
      Sanders Russell – “E. E. Cummings and the Idea of Actuality”
      Robert Duncan – “Reviewing View, an Attack”
      Thomas Parkinson – “September Elegy”
      Richard Moore – “A Mediation”

2. ARK II, MOBY I, edited by Michael McClure and James Harmon
San Francisco: Ark/Moby, 1956-1957
First edition, saddle-stapled in printed wrappers, 6″ x 9″, 46 pages including advertisements for The Pocket Poets Series, Jargon, and Black Mountain Review, 1000 copies, letterpress printed at the Press of Villiers Publications, artwork by Ronald Bladen.

“This new gathering has concentrated on poetry and drawings because we feel that the social message has long since been taken for granted by those likely to be interested.”

  • Contents:
    1. Denise Levertov – “Central Park, Winter, After Sunset”
      Denise Levertov – “A Song”
      Denise Levertov – “The Springtime”
      Denise Levertov – “The Third Dimension”
      Denise Levertov – “Laying the Dust”
      Michael McClure – “Canoe: Explication”
      Michael McClure – “Logos: Knout”
      Louis Zukofsky – “Michtam”
      Louis Zukofsky – “George Washington”
      Kenneth Rexroth – “140 Syllables”
      Sanders Russell – “Two Poems”
      Robert Duncan – “The Law I Love is Major Mover”
      Charles Olson – “As the Dead Prey Upon Us”
      Jack Kerouac – “230th Chorus from Mexico City Blues
      Allen Ginsberg – “The Trembling of the Veil”
      Gary Snyder – “Groves, 12 from Myths & Texts”
      Jonathan Williams – “The Switch Blade (or, John’s Other Wife)”
      Jonathan Williams – “Catullus: Carmen XVI”
      Jonathan Williams – “Greque Musique d’Ameublement”
      Stuart Perkoff – “The Recluses”
      Robert Creeley – “Ballad of the Despairing Husband”
      Edward Dorn – “The Revival”
      Edward Dorn – “Lines from a Sitting Position”
      Edward Dorn – “The Common Site”
      Kenneth Patchen – “Another Hamlet is Heard From”
      Kenneth Patchen – “The Most Hen”
      Paul Cox – “Reclame”
      Jess Collins and Christian Morgenstern – “Gallowbrother’s Song to Sophie; The Hangman’s Maiden”
      Jess Collins and Christian Morgenstern – “Moonmatters”
      Jess Collins and Christian Morgenstern – “Goat and Stalker”
      Jess Collins and Christian Morgenstern – “How the Gallowschild Remembers the Names of the Months”
      Philip Whalen – “Martyrdom of Two Pagans”
      Lawrence Ferlinghetti – [untitled] “Constantly risking absurdity…”
      Richard Eberhart – “Clocks”
      Richard Eberhart – “Snow”
      Clive Hawthorne – “Four Poems and Notes”
      James Harmon – “Silver Fox Island”
      James Harmon – “Hawk Inlet”
      James Harmon – “The Wind on Market Street”
      James Harmon – “For H. H.”
      Gael Turnbull – “A Self-Portrait”
      Gael Turnbull – “Why Don’t You Answer?”

3. ARK III,  edited by James Harmon
San Francisco: Ark, Winter 1957
First edition, saddle-stapled in printed wrappers, 6″ x 9″, 48 pages including advertisements for New Directions and City Lights Books, 500 copies, letterpress printed at the Press of Villiers Publications.

  • Contents:
    1. Louis Zukofsky – “Barely and Widely”
      Thomas Parkinson – “Two Vineyards”
      Kenneth Rexroth – [untitled] “I am fifty-two years old…”
      Clive Hawthorne – “Greeting, Sweets, The Dog”
      Clive Hawthorne – “Art Blakey”
      Clive Hawthorne – “Love Song”
      Clive Hawthorne – “Night”
      Clive Hawthorne – “Poem”
      Donald Fall – “Caprice”
      Donald Fall – “Eddy Street, San Francisco, 10.30 A.M.”
      Donald Fall – “To H. L.”
      Donald Fall – “A Respectful Statement on Sex in Unsettled Times”
      Donald Fall – “Postcard”
      Donald Fall – “Abstract Celebration”
      Harry Roskolenko – “Images of Disorder”
      Harry Roskolenko – “My Father’s Profession”
      Harry Roskolenko – “The Streets of Home”
      Harry Roskolenko – “Charlie”
      Bruce Boyd – “Nocturne for the West”
      Stuart Z. Perkoff – “Utter Fascinations”
      Nicole Sanzenbach – “Consider Children in the Street”
      Nicole Sanzenbach – “To Allen”
      Philip Whalen – “A Dim View of Berkeley in the Spring”
      Gary Snyder – “What I Think about When I Meditate”
      Allen Ginsberg – “An Atypical Affair”
      Allen Ginsberg – “A Typical Affair”
      Allen Ginsberg – “How Come He Got Canned at the Ribbon Factory”
      Jack Kerouac – “San Francisco Blues (two excerpts)”
      William J.  Margolis – “Use Your Imagination (no one else does)”
      Lawrence Ferlinghetti – “Frame This Picture”
      Philip Wallick – “My Apartment is a Pastoral Apartment”
      Christopher Maclaine – “Three”
      David Cornel DeJong – “Hour of Damnation”
      David Cornel DeJong – “White Collar Class”
      Gil Orlovitz – “The Beggar”
      Mitchell Lifton – “Song”
      David Galler – “Thoughts in the Ward”
      Guy Wernham – “Nature Loves to Hide Herself”
      Guy Wernham – “L’Homme Arraignee”
      Carl Larsen – “The Work of Hands”
      Richard Eberhart – “Hockey”
      Richard Eberhart – “Dogs”
      Laura Uronivitz – “How St. George Met The Dragon”
      Jack Gilbert – “Who Cried Love”
      Idell Tarlow Romero – “Message on a Tree Trunk”
      Idell Tarlow Romero – “Written on a Curbstone”
      Cid Corman – “Agamemnon”
      Gael Turnbull – “October”
      Gael Turnbull – “The War”
      Lawrence Lipton – “End of The Nile”

The San Francisco Renaissance

[excerpt from Steve Clay and Rodney Phillips’ A SECRET LOCATION ON THE LOWER EAST SIDE. Granary Books, 1998]

The San Francisco Renaissance, a timeline of events

1951

1953

      • City Lights Bookstore opens in North Beach

1955

1956

      • Allen Ginsberg’s Howl published by City Lights

1957

      • Howl confiscated by customs; Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Shigeyoshi Murao arrested
      • Jack Spicer‘s Poetry as Magic Workshop, San Francisco Public Library
      • Charles Olson reads and lectures in San Francisco
      • First book from White Rabbit Press, Steve Jonas’s Love, the Poem, the Sea & Other Pieces Examined

1958

1959

      • Philip Lamantia‘s Ekstasis published by Auerhahn Press
      • Bob Kaufman’s The Abomunist Manifesto published by City Lights
      • J, edited by Jack Spicer
      • Cid Corman’s Origin Press publishes Gary Snyder’s first book, Riprap

1960

      • Gary Snyder’s Myths and Texts published by Corinth Books
      • Lew Welch‘s Wobbly Rock published by Auerhahn Press
      • William S. Burroughs and Brion Gysin’s The Exterminator published by Auerhahn Press

1962

      • White Rabbit Press revived by Graham Mackintosh with Spicer’s LAMENT FOR THE MAKERS, which was published in a small edition of less than 100 copies and illustrated by Mackintosh

1963

      • Vancouver Poetry Conference

1964

      • Open Space publishes Robin Blaser’s first book, The Moth Poem

1965

1966

      • Lenore Kandel’s The Love Book published by Stolen Paper Editions
      • Philip Lamantia‘s Touch of the Marvelous published by Oyez Press
      • John Martin’s Black Sparrow Press begins in Los Angeles

1967

      • The Pacific Nation, edited by Robin Blaser in Vancouver

1968

      • Janine Pommy-Vega’s Poems to Fernando published by City Lights

1969

      • Gary Snyder’s book of essays Earth House Hold published by New Directions

1975

      • Jack Spicer‘s Collected Books published by Black Sparrow

 

In San Francisco, the commingling of several activities helped to prepare the ground for the remarkable literary explosion that was soon to take place. The Libertarian Circle held regular literary events; poet members included Kenneth Rexroth, Muriel Rukeyser, William Everson, Robert Duncan, Jack Spicer, and Thomas Parkinson. Rexroth also ran a literary program on KPFA, the country’s first listener-sponsored radio station. Madeline Gleason (assisted by Rexroth and Duncan) founded the San Francisco Poetry Center, housed at San Francisco State College and managed by Ruth Witt-Diamant. The magazines Circle, Ark, City Lights, Goad, Inferno, and Golden Goose helped to consolidate the growing literary underground.

The famous reading at Six Gallery on Fillmore Street was publicized by Allen Ginsberg (via a hundred mailed postcards and a few flyers) thus:

mcclure_sixgallery

On October 7, 1955, in a room measuring 20 x 25 feet with a dirt floor, Ginsberg “read Howl and started an epoch.”(1) Gary Snyder, Philip Lamantia, Michael McClure, and Philip Whalen shared the bill and, by all reports, also read brilliantly. Aside from Rexroth and Whalen, all the readers were in their twenties. Again, in the words of Kenneth Rexroth, “What started in SF and spread from there across the world was public poetry, the return of a tribal, preliterate relationship between poet and audience.”(1)

These events, along with the flourishing of Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s City Lights Bookshop and publishing house, helped to inaugurate and consolidate what has become known as the San Francisco Renaissance. City Lights published Howl in 1956 (Ferlinghetti asked Ginsberg for the manuscript the same night it was read at the Six Gallery) as Number Four in the Pocket Poets Series. (It had been preceded by an extremely rare mimeographed edition, typed by Martha Rexroth and mimeographed by none other than Robert Creeley. Ginsberg’s Siesta in Xbalba had been mimeographed by the man himself on a freighter in the Alaskan Ocean.) Among the audience members that night was one who added his own chant, the young novelist Jack Kerouac, whose On the Road, published in 1957, was to make this reading and its readers legendary. It was also in 1957 that Charles Olson, rector of the experimental Black Mountain College, visited San Francisco and gave a series of lectures on Alfred North Whitehead at the Portrero Hill home of Robert Duncan and his companion, the painter Jess Collins. Among the attendees at the lectures were, of course, Duncan himself, but also Michael McClure, Gary Snyder’s Reed College friend Philip Whalen, Jack Spicer, and Richard Duerden. The same year saw the “San Francisco Scene” issue of Evergreen Review. Poet Helen Adam’s flamboyant 1961 ballad opera, entitled San Francisco’s Burning, epitomized the time, outrageous both aesthetically and socially. Other writers associated with the San Francisco Renaissance included James Broughton, Lew Welch, Ron Loewinsohn, Madeline Gleason, David Meltzer, Kirby Doyle, and Lenore Kandel.

Experimentation with forms of literature and lifestyle had long been an attractive characteristic of life in San Francisco. But the tolerance felt in Northern California was not as evident in Los Angeles. In 1957, an exhibit of work by assemblage artist Wallace Berman at the Ferus Gallery was closed by the Los Angeles Police Department, and Berman was jailed on charges of exhibiting “lewd and lascivious pornographic art.” Found guilty (by the same judge who ruled against Henry Miller), Berman and family left L.A. for San Francisco that year. Berman edited and published a fascinating assemblage magazine called Semina. After the raid of his exhibit at Ferus, he announced in Semina 2 that “I will continue to print Semina from locations other than this city of degen-erate angels.” Berman’s friend, artist George Herms, designed his own books and provided the artwork for others, including Diane di Prima. Herms had likewise found the political climate in L.A. intolerable and had preceded the Bermans to Northern California.

In the mid-1960s, John Martin’s Black Sparrow Press began publishing broadsides and booklets and has, over the years, published a wide variety of experimental and alternative poetry and prose, including work by Duncan, Olson, Spicer, and Creeley among very many others. 

Because of the previous associations of house printer/designer Graham Mackintosh, Black Sparrow is linked to earlier literary small presses of Northern California, particularly White Rabbit Press (at the urging of Jack Spicer, Mackintosh resurrected the press in 1962, printing Spicer’s own Lament for the Makers); Robert Hawley’s Oyez Press (Mackintosh had printed its first book in 1963); and Dave Haselwood’s Auerhahn Press, which flourished during the 1960s and early 70s in San Francisco. Auerhahn published a wide variety of well-designed books, including The Exterminator, an early example of William S. Burroughs and Brion Gysin’s cut-up technique, in 1960. Auerhahn also published John Wieners’s first book, The Hotel Wentley Poems. Oyez published many memorable volumes including Philip Lamantia‘s Touch of the Marvelous. Joe Dunn’s White Rabbit Press, which had begun publishing in 1957 with Steve Jonas’s rough work Love, the Poem, the Sea & Other Pieces Examined, produced books somewhat less elegant than Auerhahn’s or Oyez’s but with a beauty all their own.

The editorial genius behind White Rabbit was the irrepressible Jack Spicer, who published his own remarkable mimeographed magazine, J. Spicer emphasized the inclusion of writers who were not well published elsewhere, and accepted contributions for consideration in a box that was kept in one of three bars in the North Beach area of San Francisco. J is representative of the best of the mimeograph revolution: an uncompromising editorial stance combined with a playful, even colorful, formal character thanks to Fran Herndon, who edited the artwork for the magazine. Spicer’s model for J was Beatitude, which had begun publication in San Francisco slightly before J. And a recalcitrant model it was, since Spicer was not a fan of the Beats and carried on a running war against Ferlinghetti in particular. He imagined Ferlinghetti had become commercial and financially successful, thereby, in Spicer’s mind, “selling out” to the establishment. Magnificently consistent with his principles, Spicer never copyrighted his own work, anticipating the “no copyright, no nuthin” statements of Tom Clark’s London-based Once Series. The performative aspects of Spicer’s poetics as well as his personality also prefigured the rise of poetry readings in the 1950s, particularly those sponsored by the Poetry Center at San Francisco State, which featured mimeographed programs and booklets printing selections from the poets who were reading, among them, Charles Olson, Denise Levertov, and Louis Zukofsky.

Although Spicer’s J didn’t publish the works of “established” poets, Spicer did include the work of Robert Duncan in four issues of his magazine. Duncan and Jess Collins (whose work adorned the cover of many magazines and books of the period, including Open Space, Caterpillar, and The Floating Bear) were important influences on the literary and artistic scene in San Francisco in the 60s. Duncan’s early work was published in Berkeley or North Carolina (his Song of the Border-Guard was published by the Black Mountain College Press with a cover by Cy Twombly in 1952). Other earlier works were multilithed (Fragments of a Disordered Devotionin San Francisco in 1952) or mimeographed (the first hundred copies of Faust Foutu were mimeographed by Duncan himself, and the next 150 or so of one act of the play were multilithed by Joe Dunn of White Rabbit Press at his place of employment, the Greyhound Bus offices in San Francisco). The multilithed third edition of Faust Foutu, although also produced by Dunn, was published under Duncan’s own imprint, Enkidu Surrogate, of Stinson Beach. Duncan’s work was published by an amazing variety and number of publishers, including Oyez, Auerhahn, White Rabbit, Black Sparrow, Divers Press, Jargon, Perishable Press, City Lights, Grove Press, New Directions, and Scribners.

Slightly outside the Spicer circle (although some of his own poems were published in J) was Donald Allen, who, after the publication of The New American Poetry, 1945-1960 and before his removal to New York, established the Four Seasons Foundation in San Francisco, which published the work of a number of the writers from the anthology, including Charles Olson, Ed Dorn, Ron Loewinsohn, Philip Lamantia, Michael McClure, Joanne Kyger, Robin Blaser, and Robert Creeley. Among the early Four Seasons publications were two important works by poet Gary Snyder (the Reed College roommate of Lew Welch and Philip Whalen and the “Japhy Ryder” of Kerouac’s The Dharma Bums): Six Sections from Rivers and Mountains Without End and Riprap and Cold Mountain Poems, both published in 1965. Riprap, it should be noted, was originally published in 1959 as a booklet by Cid Corman’s Origin Press. Snyder’s Myths and Textswas published in 1960 by Corinth Books. Snyder was out of the country on an extended stay in Japan, and the text used for the Corinth publication was probably from a manuscript that LeRoi Jones had hand-copied from one that Robert Creeley had received from Snyder in 1955 or 1956. Snyder’s poetry was extremely popular in the 60s and was often used as text for broadsides by small presses, particularly those whose owners were ecologically minded. For instance, Snyder’s poem “Four Changes” was published in 1969 by Earth Read Out, a Berkeley environmental protection group, as four mimeographed pages, as well as in a folded, printed version in 200,000 copies by environmentalist Alan Shapiro for free distribution to schools and citizens’ groups.

Literary scenes with strong affiliations to the New American Poetry were in evidence elsewhere in California — most notably Bolinas in the 1970s, when that somewhat remote hippie village north of San Francisco became home to many poets. In particular, the transplanted easterner and Poetry Project veteran Bill Berkson and his press Big Sky flourished there in the decade, publishing both a magazine and a series of books. Bolinas residents of the period also included Robert Creeley, Bobbie Louise Hawkins, David Meltzer, Lewis Warsh, Tom Clark, Lewis MacAdams, Philip Whalen, Aram Saroyan, Joanne Kyger, Jim Carroll, and Duncan McNaughton, among others. Ted Berrigan, Alice Notley, and Joe Brainard were among many occasional visitors, with Joe Brainard’s Bolinas Journal providing an interesting record of one such extended stay.


(1) Kenneth Rexroth. AMERICAN POETRY IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY (New York: Herder and Herder, 1971), p. 141.

Richard Brautigan

Richard Gary Brautigan (January 30, 1935 – ca. September 14, 1984) was an American novelist, poet, and short story writer. brautigan_01Writing about nature, life, and emotion, his work often employs 
comedy, parody, and satire; his singular imagination provided the unusual settings for his themes. He is best known for his 1967 novel TROUT FISHING IN AMERICA.

Robert Novak wrote in Dictionary of Literary Biography that “Brautigan is commonly seen as the bridge between the Beat Movement of the 1950s and the youth revolution of the 1960s.”

Considered one of the primary writers of the “New Fiction,” Brautigan at first experienced difficulty in finding a publisher; thus his early work was only published by small presses.

About the body of Brautigan’s work, Guy Davenport commented in the Hudson Review: “Mr. Brautigan locates his writing on the barricade which the sane mind maintains against spiel and bilge, and here he cavorts with a divine idiocy, thumbing his nose. But he makes clear that at his immediate disposal is a fund of common sense he does not hesitate to bring into play. He is a kind of Thoreau who cannot keep a straight face.” (more…)

Richard Brautigan

Richard Brautigan in San Francisco’s Washington Square Park in March 1967, © Erik Weber

Richard Brautigan Checklist:

Section A: Books and Broadsides
Section B: Contributions to Books and Anthologies
Section C: Contributions to Periodicals
Section D: Periodicals Edited and Published


Richard Gary Brautigan (January 30, 1935 – ca. September 14, 1984) was an American novelist, poet, and short story writer. His work often clinically and surrealistically employs black comedy, parody, and satire, with emotionally blunt prose describing pastoral American life intertwining with technological progress. He is best known for his novels Trout Fishing in America (1967) and In Watermelon Sugar (1968).

Brautigan began his career as a poet, with his first collection being published in 1957. He made his debut as a novelist with A Confederate General from Big Sur (1964), about a seemingly delusional man who believes himself to be the descendant of a Confederate general. Brautigan would go on to publish numerous prose and poetry collections until 1982. He committed suicide in 1984.

Robert Novak wrote in Dictionary of Literary Biography that “Brautigan is commonly seen as the bridge between the Beat Movement of the 1950s and the youth revolution of the 1960s.”

About the body of Brautigan’s work, Guy Davenport commented in the Hudson Review: “Mr. Brautigan locates his writing on the barricade which the sane mind maintains against spiel and bilge, and here he cavorts with a divine idiocy, thumbing his nose. But he makes clear that at his immediate disposal is a fund of common sense he does not hesitate to bring into play. He is a kind of Thoreau who cannot keep a straight face.”


References consulted:

Barber, John F. Richard Brautigan: An Annotated Bibliography
Jefferson: McFarland, 1990

Lepper, Gary M. A Bibliographical Introduction to Seventy-Five Modern American Authors
Berkeley: Serendipity Books, 1976

Nelson, Robert. The Richard Brautigan Collection of Robert Nelson


Online Resources:

American Dust – Richard Brautigan’s life and writing


Further reading:

Barber, John F. Richard Brautigan: Essays on the Writings and Life
Jefferson: McFarland & Company, 2006

Hjortsberg, William. Jubilee Hitchhiker: The Life and Times of Richard Brautigan
Berkeley: Counterpoint, 2012

Philip Lamantia

lamantia
photo by Harry Redl

 

Philip Lamantia was born to Sicilian immigrants in San Francisco in 1927. His father was a produce broker in the old Embarcadero. He began writing poetry in elementary school and was later inspired by the paintings of Miro and Dali at the San Francisco Museum of Art. After being expelled for “intellectual delinquency” at age sixteen, he dropped out of high school and moved to New York City, where he lived for several years and where he was associated with Andre Breton and other exiled European artists such as Max Ernst and Yves Tanguy. During these years he worked as an assistant editor of View magazine and his poems were published in View as well as in publications like Hemispheres, which was being published by another French ex-patriot Yvan Goll.

In 1943, when Lamantia was only fifteen years old, Breton heralded him as being “a voice that rises once in a hundred years.” In 1946, at the age of nineteen, his first book of poems Erotic Poems was published by Bern Porter Books in Berkeley, California, followed by two collections (Narcotica and Ekstasis) published in 1959 by Auerhahn Press. A literary prodigy whose poems delved into the worlds of the subconscious and dreams, his love of Surrealism had a major influence on the Beats and other American poets. On March 7, 2005 he died of heart failure in his North Beach, San Francisco apartment at age seventy-seven.

–Thomas Rain Crowe


Section A: Books and Broadsides

1. Lamantia, Philip. EROTIC POEMS
First edition:
(Berkeley): Bern Porter, 1946
Hardcover issued without dust jacket, 42 pages.

2. Lamantia, Philip. EKSTASIS
lamantia_ekstasisFirst edition:
San Francisco: Auerhahn Press, 1959
Perfect-bound in printed wrappers, 5.75″ x 7″, 48 pages, (circa 950 copies). Titling by Robert La Vigne.
(Auerhahn 3)

Note: Printed announcement issued.

3. Lamantia, Philip. NARCOTICA
lamantia_narcoticaFirst edition:
San Francisco: Auerhahn Press, 1959
Saddle-stapled in printed and photo-illustrated wrappers, 6.25″ x 8.5″, 16 pages, (750 copies). Cover photographs by Wallace Berman. Published as Auerhahn Pamphlet No. 1.
(Auerhahn 5)

Note: Printed announcement issued.

4. Lamantia, Philip. DESTROYED WORKS
lamantia_destroyeda. First edition, regular copies:
San Francisco: Auerhahn Press, 1962
Perfect-bound in photo-illustrated wrappers, 7″ x 8.75″, 48 pages, 1250 copies.
(Auerhahn 18)

b. First edition, hardcover, signed copies:
Hardcover in cloth-bound boards, 7″ x 8.75″, 48 pages, 50 numbered and signed copies, bound by the Schuberth Bindery.
(Auerhahn 18)

5. Lamantia, Philip. TOUCH OF THE MARVELOUS
a. First edition, regular copies:
(Berkeley): Oyez, 1966
Perfect-bound in printed and photo-illustrated wrappers, 65 pages, 1450 copies.

b. First edition, hardcover, signed copies:
(Berkeley): Oyez, 1966
Hardcover in cloth-bound boards with gilt-stamped spine, 65 pages, 50 copies on handmade Tovil paper, numbered, signed by the author, bound by Dorothy Hawley.

6. Lamantia, Philip. SELCETED POEMS 1943-1966
First edition:
(San Francisco): City Lights Books, (1967)
Perfect-bound in printed wrappers, 100 pages, published as Pocket Poets Series Number 20.
(Cook 61)

7. Lamantia, Philip. THE BLOOD OF THE AIR
lamantia_blooda. First edition, regular copies:
San Francisco: Four Seasons Foundation, 1970
Perfect-bound in printed and photo-illustrated wrappers, 45 pages, published as Writing 25.

b. First edition, hardcover, signed copies:
San Francisco: Four Seasons Foundation, 1970
Hardcover in paper-bound boards with gilt-stamped cloth spine, 45 pages, 50 copies, numbered, signed by the author, published as Writing 25. (pictured)

8. Lamantia, Philip. TOUCH OF THE MARVELOUS
Second, expanded edition:
Bolinas: Four Seasons Foundation, 1974
Perfect-bound in printed and illustrated wrappers, 47 pages, includes three poems not in the original edition: “Celestial Estrangement”, “Submarine Languor”, and “To You Henry Miller”. Published as Writing 32.

9. Lamantia, Philip. BECOMING VISIBLE
a. First edition, regular copies:
San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1981
Perfect-bound in printed and illustrated wrappers, 96 pages, published as Pocket Poet Series No. 39.
(Cook 146)

b. First edition, hardcover, signed copies:
San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1981
Hardcover in cloth-bound boards in printed and illustrated dust jacket, 96 pages, published as Pocket Poet Series No. 39.
(Cook 146)

10. Lamantia, Philip. MEADOWLARK WEST
First edition:
San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1986
Perfect-bound in printed and illustrated wrappers, 73 pages.
(Cook 171)

11. Lamantia, Philip. BED OF SPHINXES: NEW AND SELECTED POEMS, 1943-1993
First edition:
San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1997
Perfect-bound in printed and illustrated wrappers, 141 pages.

12. Lamantia, Philip. WHAT IS NOT STRANGE?
First edition:
San Francisco: City Lights, 2005
Broadside.


Section B: Contributions to Books and Anthologies, Selected

sequence within years is alphabetical

BEATITUDE ANTHOLOGY. San Francisco: City Lights, 1960

THE BEATS, edited by Seymour Krim. Greenwich: Gold Medal, 1960

THE BEAT SCENE, edited by Elias Wilentz, photographs by Fred McDarrah. New York: Corinth Books, 1960

THE NEW ORLANDO POETRY ANTHOLOGY. New York: New Orlando Publication, 1963

PENGUIN MODERN POETS, 13. London: Penguin, 1969

AERO INTO THE AETHER. Philip Lamantia, Clark Ashton Smith.  Black Swan Press, 1980

FREE SPRITS: ANNALS OF THE INSURGENT IMAGINATION. San Francisco: City Lights, 1980. First edition, wrappers, 223 pages

WHITMAN’S WILD CHILDREN, edited by Neeli Cherkovski. Venice: Lapis Press, 1988

TAU & JOURNEY TO THE END. Philip Lamantia, John Hoffman. San Francisco: City Lights, 2008

CITY LIGHTS POCKET POETS ANTHOLOGY, edited by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. San Francisco: City Lights, 2009


Section C: Contributions to Periodicals, Selected

sequence within years is alphabetical

VIEW, Series III, Number 2. New York, June 1943

VIEW, Series III, Number 3. New York, 1943

VIEW, Series IV, Number 2. New York, Summer 1944

VVV, Number 4. New York, 1944

HEMISPHERES, Number 5. New York, 1945

VIEW, Series V, Number 2. New York, 1945

NEW DIRECTIONS, Number 9. New York, 1946

CONTOUR QUARTERLY, Volume 1, Number 1. Berkeley, 1947

NOW, Number 7. London, February-March 1947

CITY LIGHTS, Number 4. San Francisco, Fall 1953

NEW DIRECTIONS, Number 14. New York, 1953

BEATITUDE, Number 9. San Francisco, September 1959

SEMINA, Number 4. San Francisco, 1959

SEMINA, Number 5. San Francisco, 1959

EVERGREEN REVIEW, Volume 4, Number 11. New York, January-February 1960

THE GALLEY SAIL REVIEW, Number 5. San Francisco, Winter 1960

YUGEN, 6. New York, 1960

DAMASCUS ROAD, Number 1. Allentown, 1961

POEMS FROM THE FLOATING WORLD, Volume 3. New York, 1961

MEASURE, Number 3. Milton, Summer 1962

THE OUTSIDER, Number 2. New Orleans, Summer 1962

TOBAR, Number 4. New York, 1962

EL CORNO EMPLUMADO, Number 9. Mexico City, 1964

FUCK YOU: A MAGAZINE OF THE ARTS, Volume 5, Number 7. New York, September 1964

DAMASCUS ROAD, Number 2. Allentown, 1965

RESIDU, Volume 1, Number 1. Athens, Spring 1965

THE PARIS REVIEW, Number 36. Paris, 1966

THE FLOATING BEAR, Number 33. New York, February 1967

THE FLOATING BEAR, Number 34. New York, 1967

THE FLOATING BEAR, Number 35. New York, April 1968

CATERPILLAR, 10. New York, January 1969

CATERPILLAR, 17. Sherman Oaks, October 1971

INTREPID, Number 20. Buffalo, 1971

ANTAEUS, 6. Tangier, Summer 1972

THE LAMP IN THE SPINE, Number 4. Iowa City, Spring 1972

THE SEVENTIES, Number 1.  Madison, Spring 1972

ARSENAL, Number 2. Chicago, Summer 1973

CULTURAL CORRESPONDENCE, Number 12-14. Providence, Summer 1981

ZYZZYVA, Volume 1, Number 4. San Francisco, Winter 1985

CITY LIGHTS REVIEW, 1. San Francisco, 1987

CALIBAN, 7. Ann Arbor, 1989

CITY LIGHTS REVIEW, 4. San Francisco, 1990


Section D: Ephemera

THE AUERHAHN PRESS CATALOG, 1962
San Francisco: Auerhahn Press, 1962. First edition, wrappers

A KIND OF BEATNESS: PHOTOGRAPHS OF A NORTH BEACH ERA 1950-1965
San Francisco: Focus Gallery, 1975. First edition, wrappers


References Consulted:

Bohn, Dave. OYEZ: THE AUTHORIZED CHECKLIST
Berkeley: n.p., 1997

Cook, Ralph T. CITY LIGHTS: A DESCRIPTIVE BIBLIOGRAPHY
Metuchen: The Scarecrow Press, 1992

Duncan, Michael and Kristine McKenna. SEMINA CULTURE: WALLACE BERMAN & HIS CIRCLE
New York: Distributed Art Publishers, 2005

Harter, Christopher. AN AUTHOR INDEX TO LITTLE MAGAZINES OF THE MIMEOGRAPH REVOLUTION
Lanham: Scarecrow Press, 2008

Johnston, Alastair. A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE AUERHAHN PRESS & ITS SUCCESSOR DAVE HASELWOOD BOOKS
Berkeley: Poltroon Press, 1976

Lepper, Gary M. A BIBLIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION TO SEVENTY-FIVE MODERN AMERICAN AUTHORS
Berkeley: Serendipity Books, 1976

Marx, Jake. “Index to Fuck You: A Magazine of the Arts” in THE SERIF: QUARTERLY OF THE KENT STATE UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES, Volume VIII, Number 3
Kent: The Kent State University Libraries, September 1971

Wallace Berman

berman_arranged

Wallace Berman was born in 1926 in Staten Island, New York. In the 1930s, his family moved to the Jewish district (Boyle Heights) in Los Angeles. After being expelled from high school for gambling in the early 1940s, Berman immersed himself in the growing West Coast jazz scene. During this period, he briefly attended the Jepson Art School and Chouinard Art School, but departed when he found the training too academic for his needs.

In 1949, while working in a factory finishing antique furniture, he began to make sculptures from unused scraps and reject materials. By the early 1950s, Berman had become a full-time artist and an active figure in the beat community in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Many art historians consider him to be the ‘father’ of the California assemblage movement. Moving between the two cities, Berman devoted himself to his mail art publication SEMINA, which contained a sampling of beat poetry and images selected by Berman.

In 1963, permanently settled in Topanga Canyon in the Los Angeles area, Berman began work on verifax collages (printed images, often from magazines and newspapers, mounted in collage fashion onto a flat surface, sometimes with solid bright areas of acrylic paint). He continued creating these works, as well as rock assemblages, until his death in 1976.


Wallace Berman Checklist:

Section A: Solo and Select Group Exhibitions
Section B: Posters and Prints
Section C: Cover and Book Art
Section D: Semina


Further Reading and Reference:

ART AS A MUSCULAR PRINCIPLE, 10 Artists and San Francisco 1950-1965, edited by Merril Greene and Alix Meier
Mount Holyoke: John and Norah Warbeke Gallery, 1975

ART IN LOS ANGELES: SEVENTEEN ARTISTS IN THE SIXTIES, edited by Maurice Tuchman
Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1981

ASSEMBLAGE IN CALIFORNIA: WORKS FROM THE LATE 50’S AND EARLY 60’S
Irvine: Art Gallery, University of California, 1968

DIFFERENT DRUMMERS, edited by Frank Gettings
Washington DC: Smithsonian Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, 1988

LA POP IN THE SIXTIES, edited by Anne Ayres
Newport Beach: Newport Harbor Art Museum, 1989

SAN FRANCISCO RENAISSANCE PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE ’50S AND ’60S, edited and with an introduction by Merril Greene
New York: Gotham Book Mart Gallery, 1975

SECRET EXHIBITION: SIX CALIFORNIA ARTISTS OF THE COLD WAR ERA, edited by Rebecca Solnit
San Francisco: City Lights, 1990

SUPPORT THE REVOLUTION, edited by Tosh Berman, Michael McClure, David Meltzer, Colin Gardner, Walter Hopps, Christopher Knight, Eduardo Lipschutz-Villa, Charles Brittin
Amsterdam: Institute of Contemporary Art, 1992

THIRD RAIL, Issue 9, edited by Uri Hertz
Los Angeles: Third Rail, 1988

UTOPIA AND DISSENT: ART, POETRY, AND POLITICS IN CALIFORNIA, by Richard Cándida Smith
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995)


Online Resources:

· Art Net – Wallace Berman
· Kohn Gallery – Wallace Berman
· Ubuweb – Wallace Berman
· University of Delaware – Wallace Berman and Semina


Collaborators:

· Robert Alexander
· Cameron
· Jay De Feo
· Bobby Driscoll
· Dave Haselwood
· Michael McClure
· David Meltzer
· Dean Stockwell ( D.·. )
· Russ Tamblyn

Bibliographic Checklists and Notes

Most of the work examined here is from the contemporary period  with a particular focus on the post war period: the period in time from the end of World War II up until, roughly, the late 1960s and early 1970s.

The categorization of the writers, poets, artists, printers and their work here isn’t meant to be definitive, rather it’s a way to simply organize an enormous amount of information and help form some sort of story-line. Certainly there are folks here whose work started before some of the categories existed in the common lexicon and continued long after a ‘scene’ faded away. It’s not the intent of the work here to presuppose intent or oversimplify the efforts of these folks. As new pieces are added, parts will be reorganized, edited and rearranged… stay tuned…

* Aside from primary resources, references consulted can be found here


A brief history of the mimeograph “revolution”


+ California – The San Francisco Renaissance, some Beats, outsiders, hippies, and others

Artists:
· Robert Alexander
· Wallace Berman
· Cameron
· Jess Collins
· Bruce Conner
· Jay DeFeo
· George Herms
· Fran Herndon
· Robert Lavigne

Poets & Writers:
The Berkeley, then San Francisco Renaissance
· Helen Adam
· Robin Blaser
· Ebbe Borregaard
· Richard Duerden
· Robert Duncan
· William Everson
· Philip Lamantia
· Jack Spicer
· George Stanley
· 
Lew Welch

· Richard Brautigan
· Ron Loewinsohn
· 
Michael McClure
· David Meltzer
· Gary Snyder
· Philip Whalen

· Charles Bukowski
· Carl Larsen
· James M. Singer, Jr.

· Richard Krech

Presses:
· City Lights (1955-)
· Hearse Press (1957-1970)
· White Rabbit Press (1957-1972)
· Auerhahn Press (1958-1963)
· Enkidu Surrogate (1959)
· Oannes Press (1963)
· Oyez Press (1963-1968)
· Four Seasons Foundation (1964-1985)
· Black Sparrow Press (1966-2002)
· Capricorn Press (1969-1972)

Periodicals:
· Ark (Nos. 1-3, 1947-1957)
· Avalanche (Nos. 1-6, 1966-1969)
· Beatitude (Nos. 1-34, 1959-1987)
· Berkeley Miscellany (Nos. 1-2, 1948-1949)
· Change (No. 1, 1963)
· Circle (Nos. 1-10, 1944-1948)
· City Lights (Nos. 1-5, 1952-1955)
· City Lights Journal (Nos. 1-4, 1963-1966)
· Contour (Nos. 1-4, 1947-1948)
· Cow (Nos. 1-3, 1965-1966)
· Dust (Nos. 1-17
· Ephemeris (Nos. 1-3, c.1969-1970)
· Foot (Nos. 1-8, 1962-1980)
· Gryphon (Nos. 1-3, 1950-1951)
· Hearse (Nos. 1-17, 1957-1972)
· J (Nos. 1-8, 1959-1961)
· M (Nos. 1-2, 1962)
· Measure (Nos. 1-3, 1957-1962)
· Mithrander (No. 1, 1963)
· The Needle (Nos. 1-3, 1956)
· Now (Nos. 1-3, 1963-1965)
· Open Space (Nos. 0-12, 1964)
· Out of Sight (nos. 1-2, 1966)
· The Pacific Nation (Nos. 1-2, 1967-1969)
· R.C. Lion (Nos. 1-3, 1966-1967)
· Renaissance (Nos. 1-4, 1961-1962)
·
 The Rivoli Review (Nos. 1-2, 1963-1964)
·
 The San Francisco Capitalist Bloodsucker-N (No. 1, 1962)
· Semina (Nos. 1-9, 1955-1962)
·
 Wild Dog (Nos. 1-21, 1963-1966)

Galleries:
· Batman Gallery
· Dilexi Gallery
· Ferus Gallery
· Six Gallery


+ The Beats, The New York School(s), some outsiders, and others

  • Poets & Writers:
    • · William S. Burroughs
      • Brion Gysin
      • related periodicals:
        • · Big Table (Nos. 1-5, 1959-1960)
          · Bulletin from Nothing (Nos. 1-3, 1965)
          · Cleft (Nos. 1-2, 1963-1964)
          · Gnaoua (No. 1, 1964)
          · Insect Trust Gazette (Nos. 1-3, 1964-1968)
          · Locus Solus (Nos. 1-5, 1961-1962)
          · My Own Mag (Nos. 1-17, 1963-1966)
          · New Departures (Nos. 1-16, 1959-1984)
          · Project Sigma (Nos. 1-40 [?], 1964-1966)
          · Residu (Nos. 1-2, 1965-1966)
          · Rhinozeros (Nos. 1-10, 1960-1965)
          · San Francisco Earthquake (Nos. 1-5, 1967-1969)
          · Sidewalk (Nos. 1-2, 1960)
          · Spero (Nos. 1-2, 1965-1966)
    • · Gregory Corso
      · Allen Ginsberg
      · Jack Kerouac
  • Presses:
    • · 0 To 9 (1967-1969)
      · Adventures in Poetry (1968-1976)
      · Angel Hair Books (1966-1978)
      · Big Sky (1971-1988)
      · Boke Press (1964-1971)
      · Corinth Books (1959-1973)
      · C Press (1963-1978)
      · Fuck You Press (1962-1965)
      · Grove Press (1948- )
      · Kulchur Press (1960-1989)
      · Lines (1965-1967)
      · New Directions (1936- )
      · Poets Press (1963-1969)
      · Siamese Banana (1972-1978)
      · Totem Press (1958-1962)
      · United Artists (1978-1983)
      · Z Press (1973-1987)
  • Periodicals:
    • · 0 To 9 (Nos. 1-6, 1967-1969)
      · Adventures in Poetry (Nos. 1-12, 1968-1975)
      · Angel Hair (Nos. 1-6, 1966-1969)
      · Art and Literature (1-12, 1964-1967)
      · Big Sky (Nos. 1-11/12, 1971-1978)
      · Blue Beat (No. 1, 1964)
      · C: A Journal of Poetry (Nos. 1-14, 1963-1966)
      · The Censored Review (No. 1, 1963)
      · Chicago (Nos. 1-9, 1972-1974)
      · Elephant (Nos. 1-3, 1965)
      · Evergreen Review (Nos. 1-97, 1957-1973)
      · The Floating Bear (Nos. 1-37, 1961-1971)
      · Fuck You / A Magazine of the Arts (Nos. 1-13, 1962-1965)
      · The Great Society (Nos. 1-2, 1966-1967)
      · Kulchur (Nos. 1-20, 1960-1965)
      · Lines (Nos. 1-6, 1964-1965)
      · Locu Solus (Nos. 1-5, 1961-1962)
      · Mother (Nos. 1-9, 1964-1967)
      · Neon (Nos. 1-4, 1956-1959)
      · Once Series (Nos. 1-12, 1966-1968)
      · The Poetry Project Newsletter (Nos. 1- , 1972- )
      · Telephone (Nos. 1-18, 1969-1984)
      · United Artists (Nos. 1-18, 1977-1983)
      · The White Dove Review (Nos. 1-5, 1959-1960)
      · The World (Nos. 1-58, 1967-2002)
      · Yugen (Nos. 1-8, 1958-1962)
      · Z (Nos. 1-6, 1973-1977)

+ Black Mountain, Jargon Society

Poets & Writers:
· Charles Olson
· Robert Duncan [see also, San Francisco Renaissance]
· Denise Levertov
· Paul Blackburn
· Robert Creeley
· Paul Carroll
· Larry Eigner
· Edward Dorn
· Jonathan Williams
· Joel Oppenheimer

Objectivists
· Louis Zukofsky
· George Oppen
· Carl Rakosi
· Lorine Niedecker
· Charles Reznikoff

Presses:
· Black Mountain College Print Shop
· The Divers Press (1953-1955)
· The Jargon Society (1951- )
· Migrant Books (1957-1966)

Periodicals:
· Black Mountain Review (Nos. 1-7, 1954-1957)
· Migrant (Nos. 1-8, 1959-1960)
· Origin (First Series: Nos. 1-20, 1951-1957)


+ The so-called Cleveland School, and related poets, presses, and periodicals

  • Presses:
    • · 7 Flowers Press
      · 400 Rabbit Press
      · Ayizan Press
      · Black Rabbit Press
      · Broken Mimeo Press
      · The Free Lance Press
      · Ghost Press
      · Mimeo Press
      · Open Skull Press
      · press : today : niagara
      · Renegade Press
      · Runcible Spoon
      ·

+ Concrete Poetry

· Ian Hamilton Finlay & The Wild Hawthorn Press
· Stuart Mills & Tarasque Press
· Cavan McCarthy & Tlaloc


+ Other places and people

· Judson Crews and company

· Frank Stanford

· Loujon Press
>>The Outsider (Nos. 1-5, 1961-1968)