Cow Soup Issue (1965)
Cow: Un-escalation Issue (1965)
Cow: Pregnant Cow Issue (1966)
When I saw this mimeo, I wondered what in the heck it was. It is not mentioned in A Secret Location. It was suggested to me that the magazine might have ties to Wild Dog, but a quick look at the contributors (Jack Spicer, Harold Dull, Ronnie Primack, Joanne Kyger, Stan Persky, and Robin Blaser) made clear to me that this was a San Francisco mag centered around Jack Spicer like J, M, and Open Space. There is only one place to find out: Poet Be Like God, Killian and Ellingham's biography of Spicer and the San Francisco Renaissance.
Well, the answer is there on page 352. The editor of Cow was Luther T. Cupp, described by Killian and Ellingsham as Spicer's final Rimbaud. Spicer nicknamed Cupp "Link" and he went by the name of Link Martin. Inspired by Stan Persky's Open Space, Luther/Link hoped to publish his own magazine, seeking the advice and approval of Spicer at every turn. Spicer died before the first issue and Spicer's ghost haunts all three issues of Cow I own. Link became known around town as the Spicerian version of Ruth Kligman, Jackson Pollock's last lover. Frank O'Hara nicknamed Kligman, "Death Car Girl," after she survived Pollock's fatal car crash.
Like Open Space and J, Cow is inside, intimate, and insular, the epitome of coetrie publishing. Although Cow may not be as famous as Floating Bear, C, or Fuck You, it is classic mimeo and a textbook example of the medium.
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
2 comments:
I came home and saw this tonight and nearly flipped! Where do you guys find this stuff? My Gawd! ' Cow: What Art Thou ' indeed. Yep. I checked the Killian/Ellingham bio like you said and there it was, but to actually see these things blows me away. I can't imagine what's inside? The usual suspects you mentioned confirms it for sure: Spicer, Persky, Dull, Kyger, et al. Poor Joanne, no, not poor Joanne, lucky as hell Joanne as being virtually the only woman who was let into the nearly hermetically-sealed male Spicer circle back in the day; ' Miss Kids,' is that what Wieners named her? Something like that. I can only believe that only a few of these things were printed and that fewer still made it outside of the Bay area even after Spicer's untimely demise. Like you say, his ghost haunts every page and probably still somehow prevented any of them from getting any further east than Oakland. You guys have gotta be stopped! Just kiddin...
All Best,
John
Hi!
Is there a way to read these three issues? I know a deal about Link Martin and would love to see what Cow was like.
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