I love this Jonathan Williams photo of Denise Levertov from 1957. I always think Levertov is going all Marianne Moore. The must be a story behind this photo and I am dying to read Levertov's letters to Duncan, maybe they shed some light on this image. To be perfectly honest, I know nothing about Levertov and even less about Moore but to me Levertov is channelling Moore in this photo. Or maybe Hester Prynne. The Williams photographs from this period are superb. An iconic shot for a poet that has failed to leave a mark on me. I have always wondered why Levertov made it into Allen's New American Poetry. Her poetry seem to me as tightly bound as her turtle neck. Diane Di Prima and Joanne Kyger would have been better choices.
That said Overland to the Islands looks fanastic. Books like this are the reason I want to collect Jargon up to 1960. I draw the line with the Cornith/Jargon reprint of The Maximus Poems. Maximus 1-10 and Maximus 11-22 are so tangible. They feel extravagant. The Cornith/Jargon edition feels cheap and the reprint really cheapens the earlier editions. It seems almost mass market to me.
But Overland to the Islands possesses a richness. Like Zukofsky's Some Time. Jargon at its best. They stand out as objects to be held, to be fondled. They are seductive, printed in scarlet letterpress. I am bitten by the press's kiss. I desire the early Jargon titles deeply.
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).
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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
7 comments:
The review review is so packed I lost the road signs half way in, if happens when packed tight I suppose.
Jargon, the word pleases me this week, been writing it on and on as it seems to total all poetry, each poet has his own jargon, don't they though? Eliot certainly does, don't he, and take a breeze at e.e. cummings, laugh at his happy genius, jargon, is his, too, what about Poe, all day long, too!
A nice word in itself, I'm naming my cat again!
Years ago Eliot whispered 'unguent" in my ear been reading him ever since, such a nice boy, I whispered back! I was his.
Larkin, then it was Philip he spoke dirty and foul in such a nice way and it seemed all perfectly true, true foul mouth I had almost given up on it. After all everyone was doing it but not like him.I love them all, think of it, they are able to do anything as they are totally free.
I agree with your note, British poets are the best minds out there in the misty lake free floating and reviewing the size of heaven for a new critique.
Poetry has given me truth, from that truth I am slowly learning who I am, and I confess that truth as I walk the wooded trail because there I am in the common world of truth that all living things possess naturally and we're most happy together, me and my dog.
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