Continuing with our Berrigan theme: Here is C A Journal of Poetry Issue 1. I want to focus here on the unusual paper size. It is usually described by booksellers as folio size. I love this description because it immediately brings to mind Shakespeare and the Folios. This is appropriate since Berrigan was working on The Sonnets during the early days of C. A nice allusion that I think was intended by Berrigan and Co.
Talking with Barry Miles, he told me that C posed a real problem at Better Books and Indica. How do you display them? They are too long to fit in a normal book shelf. C literally does not fit. The content of C also stood outside the canon although as Career Moves makes clear C was used as a wedge to get into the Establishment. Again I think it was intended that C should stick out. In a sense it was head and shoulders above the rest of the mimeos in form and content.
All the issues of C are 9" X 14". This also has meaning. As a paralegal I know these dimensions are indicative of legal size paper. Daniel Kane in All Poets Welcome describes how C grew out of the controversy that surrounded Berrigan's poems at Columbia University. His poems were censored out of the Columbia literary magazine, which lead to the publication of Censored Review, which then spawned C. There was quite a bit of publicity surrounding Censored Review and it sold well. The "C" of C Journal refers to Columbia and Censored Review, as well as other things I am sure, like controversy and censorship. A scarlet letter of sorts, or maybe a blue one. The size of the issues alludes to legal issues like obscenity and censorship. Lady's Chatterley's Lover and Tropic of Cancer (more C's perhaps) and their legal problems come to mind and of course Berrigan's brush with the authorities.
When approaching a mimeo, you have to read the text AND the paper it is printed on.
JB
MIMEO MIMEO #8: CURATORS' CHOICE features 16 bibliophiles on 6 highlights from their personal or institutional collections. Contributors include Steve Clay, Wendy Burk, Tony White, Brian Cassidy, Thurston Moore, J.A. Lee, Michelle Strizever, Adam Davis, Michael Basinski, Joseph Newland, Alastair Johnston, Tate Shaw, Michael Kasper, Steve Woodall, Molly Schwartzberg, Nancy Kuhl, James Maynard, and the Utah posse (Becky Thomas, Marnie Powers-Torrey, Craig Dworkin, Emily Tipps, Luise Poulton, & David Wolske)
MIMEO MIMEO #7: THE LEWIS WARSH ISSUE is the first magazine ever devoted in its entirety to poet, novelist, publisher, teacher, and collage artist Lewis Warsh. Warsh was born in 1944 in the Bronx, co-founded Angel Hair Magazine and Books with Anne Waldman in 1966, and went on to co-found United Artists Magazine and Books with Bernadette Mayer in 1977. He is the author of over thirty books of poetry, fiction and autobiography, the Director of the MFA program in Creative Writing at Long Island University in Brooklyn, and as you’ll soon discover, so much more. Includes an introduction by Daniel Kane, an interview conducted by Steve Clay, 10 new stories, 5 new poems, dozens of photographs and collages, and an anecdotal bibliography.
OUT OF PRINT
MIMEO MIMEO #6: THE POETRY ISSUE is devoted to new work by eight poets who have consistently composed quality writing that has influenced and inspired generations since the golden era of the mimeo revolution. Contributors include Bill Berkson, John Godfrey, Ted Greenwald, Joanne Kyger, Kit Robinson, Rosmarie Waldrop, Lewis Warsh, and Geoffrey Young. Cover art by George Schneeman.
OUT OF PRINT
MIMEO MIMEO #3: THE DANNY SNELSON ISSUE examines the relationship between structuralism and the poetries of the mimeo era by presenting a detailed analysis of Form (a Cambridge-UK magazine published in 1966) and Alcheringa (a journal published by Boston University in 1975), two exemplary gatherings that illuminate the historical, material and social circumstances under which theory informed art (and vice versa) in the early works of some of today's most celebrated experimental writers. Also includes a special insert, The Infernal Method, written, designed and printed by Aaron Cohick (NewLights Press).
OUT OF PRINT
MIMEO MIMEO #2: features Emily McVarish on her artist's book Flicker; James Maynard on poet Robert Duncan's early experiences as an editor and typesetter; Derek Beaulieu on the relationship between the influential Canadian poetry journal Tish and Black Mountain College; and an extensive interview with Australian poet and typographer Alan Loney conducted by Kyle Schlesinger. Cover is by Emily McVarish.
OUT OF PRINT
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