Tuesday, December 01, 2020

The Gatekeeper by William Page (1982)


The Gatekeeper

William Page

raccoon  Books, Inc.

Memphis, TN

(c) 1982


Several years ago now, my humble little press (Plan B Press) ran a "Beat" poetry chapbook contest and the winner was Corey Mesler for a section of a much larger work which was published as Following Richard Brautigan. The chapbook has a foreword written by the great poet ruth weiss who died in July, 2020. 

I wrote Corey not long ago about ruth's passing and our little chapbook in common (with the judge of that contest as well - William Brandon III who is now an accomplished author in his own right) and one thing led to another which resulted in me purchasing a number of chapbooks from his store in Memphis, the legendary Burkes Books. 

The first of these chapbooks that I will be writing about is this one. William Page's 1982 chapbook, The Gatekeeper, primarily because it was published by raccoon Books, Inc. and I never heard of this press before. They were (yes, were - apparently defunct now) a Memphis press which had a journal as well as a publishing arm. The operation started in 1979 and ended operation more recently. 

raccoon Books was associated with or was part of St. Jude Press in Memphis where the books were printed. William Page taught at Memphis State University and edited the Memphis State Review. 


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