Letters to Proust by Barry Gifford (1976)

Letters to Proust
Barry Gifford
White Pine Press
Buffalo, NY
(c)1976

I have written before about White Pine via the trove of material I received from poet Steve Lewandowski. The Press had been in Buffalo and then moved. It's interesting to me that while most of the country thinks of Buffalo as a frozen waste, because of the college there - it really is the opposite of a wasteland for literary types. A number of small presses and well known poets have spent time there. Robert Creeley and then Charles Bernstein were there as teachers. Influential in their own ways.

This particular item was illustrated by Mike Neff. It's the 4th chapbook that White Pine put out. Unpaginated. Handsome little "sliver of nothing". Now it's quite possible that the name Barry Gifford is not unknown to you - he's a screenwriter and novelist. He wrote David Lynch's 'Wild at Heart' as well as the Sailor and Lula novels. This had to be an early work of his. Highly collectible.

Houses by Joel Oppenheimer (1981)

Houses
Joel Oppenheimer
White Pine Press
Buffalo, NY
(c)1981

Joel Oppenheimer was, among other things, the first director of the St. Marks Poetry Project. He was associated with both the Black Mountain and New York School poets. This single poem chapbook was published in 1981 by White Pine Press. It had appeared in a different form in the Chicago Review. The existence of this chapbook does not appear on his wikipedia page. I suppose that makes this rare. It's worth having. Truly.

a treasure trove from poet Steve Lewandowski

This particular episode began a few years ago when I found, and bought, a chapbook entitled Visitor by a poet named Steve Lewandowski on a press called White Pine that I never heard of before.

Fast forward to March 2015 and a different poet whom I know was boasting a bit (deservedly) for winning an award and having a reading at State College, PA. I like this guy's work and while I wasn't going to be able to attend, I wanted to see where it was that he was reading. I went to the website of the location and looked over their upcoming events and there was going to be a reading by a Steve Lewandowski and I thought "there can't be two poets with that name" so I looked around a bit online and found him, and wrote him; he wrote back. A conversation began. He liked this blog and asked me if I was a librarian. I am an archivist who will be getting my ever growing chapbook collection to an academic institution, I said, which is true.

He said he would some me some stuff.

He did. Jaw dropping. I have so much new material to investigate and write about, and archive! The first thing I have discovered is that Steve has opened up the entire State of New York out of city small press publishing world to me with this trove. As well as small presses from New England and one from Canada as well. My ever expanding universe of knowledge!

Visitor by Steve Lewandowski

Visitor
Steve Lewandowski
White Pine Press
Buffalo, NY
(c) 1976

This is a thin chapbook; all of 18 pages. The cover image is echoed inside without credit. There is an image of a tree, possibly a white pine, on the back cover along with the words "white pine 8". There is little else in the collection to go on - I was able to locate White Pine Press online. The press began in 1973 and is well respected for having published poets and fiction writers of note. (Robert Bly, Neruda, James Wright)

This particular collection is an earlier chapbook of theirs. Staple-bound. Mint green cover. No info about the poet. Street address in Buffalo that likely hasn't been the Press's for over 25 years. The poetry has an air of the Asian, of mystery and sustained breathing to it. It's a pleasant change.

I contacted and heard back from Dennis Maloney, who is the publisher/editor of White Pine Press. He said that this book was published in a quantity of 150-200 copies as was the range that they published back then.