Dorrance Publishing = vanity press

a collection of thoughts and feelings after nineteen years
john michael hohl
Dorrance & Company
Philadelphia, PA
(c) 1971

I found another "chapbook" (hardbound book of 50 pages with a dust jacket) in a second-hand shop and decided to look it over. The poetry is journal entry level. The production is unremarkable. I have seen the name Dorrance around but never had a legitimate poetry book title nor a respected poet's name associated with or printed by this press.

Avoid books published by Dorrance (now located in Pittsburgh, PA) and this book should not have ever been published, blah! SAVE A TREE!!

the shadowy little "Vigilance Society"

Several months ago, I found a small chapbook online called "Priest" by Andrew Rippeon. The booklet/chapbook had no other identifying features other than the image of an eye on the inside back cover with the words Viligance Society 1917-2009 beneath the image. That was it.

It's a beautifully made mystery indeed. An intentional question mark.

I was, of course, intrigued. I wrote the author, Andrew Rippeon, and he responded;

"Thanks for the contact, and I'm glad PRIEST made it into your hands.

Sad to say, I can't offer much more than you've already got on the Vigilance Society. I've been receiving their (its?) items for about two years now--little chaplets and broadsides with work by Rob Halpern, CJ Martin, Craig Dworkin, Eli
Drabman. The most recent to arrive was by David Brazil.

I get one about every 4 or 5 months, and I've noticed that the postmark always shifts (I've been interested in them for a while, too!). Some are marked on the west coast, some on the east coast, and some have been posted (or post-marked) in
places like Colorado and Nevada.

After receiving their booklets for about 18 months, I got an email--it was something like "vigilance@- or vigilance-ed@..."--asking for short work and giving me a hard deadline (10 days!), after which my response would then be ignored. I sent off the PRIEST poems, and the books I got in response are simply exquisite! (my copies posted from Seattle, by the way).

I wish I could say more, but that's about as much as I know--I'm fascinated by the press, and I've gotten used to looking for the card-sized envelopes in the mail at this point. PRIEST is 2009, to answer the only other question I can."

he also directed me elsewhere, "you might also check this post from Ron Silliman some years back:Rob Halpern, Vigilance

I'd just started reading Rob's work (Rumored Place) when I came across this post and, shortly after, received one of my very first Vigilance chaps in my mail here at Buffalo. (The poems there have since been published in Rob's excellent book,
Disaster Suites)".

I found and contacted Mr. Halpern via Facebook without much success. The mystery remains, albeit a beautiful one

The Hour by Javier Sologuren

The Hour
Javier Sologuren
(translated by Elizabeth Dooman Kauffman)
Lagniappe Series
La Yapa Editores
Maryland
© 1990

Peruvian poet and editor Javier Sologuren is widely known and published. This 33 page chapbook contains the poem “The Hour” in English and in Spanish. The cover image was created by Luis Rebaza-Soraluz. This copy is #54 of a limited publication quantity of 70. It is also signed by the author.

The only critique or observation I have is that the English translation could have benefited from spell-check. There’s a glaring “de” instead of “the” on page 8 of the English text of the poem. Minor point, but there it is.

Rare chapbook by an underappreciated poet.

What Remains by Bernadette Geyer

What Remains
Bernadette Geyer
The Argonne House Press
Washington, DC 20009
©2001

To his credit, R.D. Baker, the force behind Argonne House Press, has published a number of Washington DC based poets in this chapbook series. Along with several collections of his own work, it should be noted. The chapbooks are stylistically formatted and unoriginal. The concept of having photos of the poet on the cover doesn’t necessarily speak to the work within but does say something of the intent of the publisher.

This 34-page collection is visually undermined; the work is much better than the presentation. Bernadette Geyer can flat out WRITE!

And in all honesty, who hosts a poetry press on www.angelfire.com? That’s so late 1990s.

the non-chapbook chapbook

Obbligato
Barbara Crooker
Linwood Publishers
Stone Mountain, GA
(c) 1991

A bit of a disclaimer: I know Barbara Crooker. When I was booking poetry readings at Robin's in Philadelphia, I brought in Barbara to read back in 2002. She also served as the judge for the 2010 Plan B Press chapbook contest. We seen each other at events, I have gone to see her at readings.

This "chapbook", Obbligato, was her 6th collection. I have written in the past how fictitious it is to call a chapbook with a spine a book and yet some publishers determine that for whatever reason, that's exactly what they decide to do. Since I knew Barbara, I wrote her to get her take on this book.

When I asked what her intention as the author was for the book, she replied, "Oh, yes, it's definitely a chapbook, and was always intended to be a chapbook. It's possible the publisher wasn't aware of the difference, and/or he liked the elegance of the spine. I have quite a few chapbooks in my own collection that do have spines, for what it's worth. . . .". Indeed, the dilemma is here stated, authors are very aware of books that are outside of the form but also are very particular about what they envisioned with their work. Elsewhere Crooker wrote "but I have no idea why it has a spine (wasn't my idea, that much I do know)".

I mentioned to Barbara that there seemed to have been some issues with the lay-out, some pages where missing or mis-spaced. She was very aware of that situation as well, "Also, you might notice that the title poem has a "pasted-in" page after the first page. That's because he left page two out! I got him to fix it, I thought, but when I "inherited" the remaining copies, I found that they were all still blank. So I ran off some extra pages, and rubber-cemented them all in."

When I spoke about authors have little control over what a small press publisher might decide to do to represent the work, Barbara responded in a way that all poets who have dealt with publishers know all too well, " As for why/how anything gets done in publishing, don't ask the writers! We have no power! Sometimes, you don't know there are going to be problems until the end, when it's too late to do anything. . . ." Ain't it the truth!

Spaceships of the Soul

Spaceships of the Soul
Stanley D. Trefren
self published
Tigard, Oregon
(c) 1958


I found this on ebay. Unnumbered pages. Inscribed and signed by author. Not much in the way of history for this one. I contacted the seller who told me it was part of a lot of books she bought from someone in Portland, Oregon. That would make sense. It was published in 1958 : the year after Sputnik. The idea of Spaceships was fresh on people's minds. I sense that this collection was written by a preacher. It's very Christian and "sermony". Syrupy, perhaps.

If one were a collector of Christian poetry chapbooks, one ought to add this to their collection. It is well made and handsome.

a good friend updated this post by writing "He was a Methodist pastor in Richmond Beach, WA in the 30's through the 70's. He was born 1903 in Idaho and died in 1991. He was married to Hazel Bartlett. This appears to be the only thing he ever published." And in fact, the dedication to the collection is addressed "To my wife, Hazel...". So there you go!

updating chap*book blog

The following comes from an email exchange I recently had with Allan Kornblum, founder of Toothpaste Press and later Coffee House Press :

“Many thanks for your kind words. Actually our last Toothpaste book, Makeup on Empty Space, came out in January 84, and our first Coffee House season was fall 84. We opened with a book of stories by Keith Abbott, a novel by Bobbie Louise Hawkins, and a poetry/art collaboration by Ntozake Shange and her friend, Wopo Hollup.

With regard to the last chapbook printed under the Toothpaste imprint (emphasis his)—that’s an interesting question. I’ll have to do a little research on that one to check it out.

When we began Coffee House, I was hoping to continue printing chapbooks in addition to trade books, and we published about fifteen or twenty chapbooks under the Morning Coffee imprint, before the trade book side of things became so overwhelming that I had to drop the letterpress books entirely. I was sad about it, but proud to see the attention our trade books were getting, and the difference those books made in the lives of our authors.”

I did not know that Coffee House had a chapbook imprint in the beginning and after Googling it, no one else seems to know much about it either. More research will be needed.

Anne Waldman

Recently I came upon

Cabin
Anne Waldman
Z Press
Calais, VT
©1984


Anne Waldman has been much published in the small press world and this is a perfect example of it. 21 pages, staple-bound. Cover photo of Ms. Waldman holding a book. It’s a great collection of work. On the last page of the chapbook is a listing of her previously published work, and the last item on that listing is Makeup On Empty Space. This collection is credited as the last book produced by Toothpaste Press in 1984.

Earlier I posted a link to an interview with Allan Kornblum, the editor of Coffee House Press who had previously founded and was the editor of Toothpaste Press. In the interview he mentioned how Makeup on Empty Space was the last book produced by Toothpaste Press. I got a copy of that book and was a bit surprised to be holding a perfect bound book of 75 pages.

Toothpaste Press ended and Coffee House Press began and the transition had actually taken place earlier than the Waldman book, I haven’t been able to pinpoint the exact moment (yet) but at some moment along their publishing path, Kornblum and his staff ceased producing chapbooks in favor of books with spines. “Normal” books. I understand that for financial reasons it makes perfect sense to make the leap to perfect bound books. But what is lost along the way is the immediacy of a chapbook.

Coffee House Press books are slick by comparison. In this, “slick” is not a compliment. A certain degree of integrity is lost when a publisher abandons a style that has made them unique for one that makes them profitable. While I seek out and collect Toothpaste Press chapbooks, I don’t do the same for Coffee House books. Even this final book on Toothpaste, this Waldman book, has character. The cover is matte pink cover stock with a letterpress feel to it. The tell-tale Toothpaste Press logo appears for the last time on the back cover. It’s an end of an era. And in the words of Kurt Vonnegut, “so it goes”.

And so it goes, new presses spring forth with new energy. On into the future!

A Bundle of Sticks by Jim Mancinelli

Prior to Plan B Press publishing Jim Mancinelli's chapbook IN DEEP in 2004, he had self-published one chapbook; Primer , and 2 broadsides. Both of his broadsides were particularly political. One was entitled "A Bundle of Sticks". It was published by Squirrel Baby Press in 2002.

A Bundle of Sticks deals with the homophobic period of time as the new Republican regime took over the nation with George Bush, the younger, established as President and Congress held by Republicans in both houses. The right wing regime was now in place and with the post 9*11 patriotic hysteria rampant across the country, those who sought equality for minorities, however that word is defined, were being marginalized and silenced. In this atmosphere leading up to the invasion of Iraq, Mancinelli fumed about the treatment of gays across America and how little attention was given to their brutalization by their "fellow citizens". (recall if you will, the name Matthew Shepard)

This led to the vomiting of that outrage on paper, to the creation of this broadside. Starting with Walt Whitman's "hearing America sing", the song that Mancinelli hears is hate-filled and venomous. It echoes another time in another country (Germany from 1933). It is not the land that Jim Mancinelli grew up in; it is not a land of love and tolerance but one that recoils from its own hideous shadow. A nation that kills what it does not understand. A nation seething in self-loathing.

In the midst of the new wave of "the culture wars" being waged in America over gay rights - still, to this day - this broadside is an important reminder that the era of turning the other cheek has not secured the rights that people who dare to love their "fellow man" (or fellow women), are deemed unnatural by those who can not maintain their own monogamous married states (consider how many of the leading Conservative blowhards in the US have been divorced - more than once!!!)

This is an important statement being made, a must read.

Judson Crew & the origins of Coffee House Press

I have wrote in the past about my admiration of Toothpaste Press which was active in the 1970's, here's an interview with it's founder, Allan Kornblum Publisher talks about Coffee House Press, who also went on to "jump trains", essentially changing Toothpaste Press into Coffee House Press.

Also, I have recently written about obtaining a copy of the first chapbook by Judson Crew. Well, someone posted on my blogger page that Crew died on May 17, 2010. Rest in Peace, Mr. Crew (and your hatful of aliases), may ALL of your personas glide off into the sunset.

chapbooks 43

Sonnet Sequences
A monthly magazine publishing the
Modern American Sonnet
Murray and Hazel Marshall (ed.)
#350 & #355
July & Dec. 1957
Bladensburg, MD


Each “issue” of this magazine is unnumbered with a stiff paper stock cover. They retailed for a quarter. #350 is entirely made up of 12 translated sonnets by Paul Verlaine. The translations were done by Murray Marshall.

There is precise little on the Net currently about Murray L Marshall, his wife Hazel S. Marshall, or their publication, Modern American Sonnet. M.A.S. appears in special collections now online and in various libraries. A very few copies appear for sale on the standard online platforms. Not much to go on.

#355 has sonnets in it by Margaret G Hindes, Bessie Berg, Alfred Leland Mooney, Mildred W. Bradley, Bonnie May Malody, and Joseph Upper along with Murray L Marshall. Now at least I was able to find something on these people – they were more than NAMES. They had recorded lives!

Margaret G. Hindes was married to Osmond Molarsky in 1971 until her death in 2002. They lived the San Francisco area. Ms. Hindes had been a social worker and poet. Molarsky had been an author and radio personality.

Bessie Berg’s work appeared throughout the 1950s in publications like Desert Magazine. She lived in Rio Linda, California.

Alfred Leland Mooney was an educator and a poet whose work appeared in newspapers and magazines in his day. He died in 1977 at the age of 70.

Joseph Upper had a piece in the Poets Lore – that was issue #33 – in 1922.

Mildred W Bradley was the author of the collection Living and Gleaning published in 1977 by Prairie Poet Books.

Bonnie May Malody lived in California and wrote haiku as well as sonnets.

each chapbook is a story in itself

Each chapbook is a story in itself - the publisher, the poet/author, the designer/illustrator - each has a story and a history. Along the way, I have found many tales and yarns. Some fascinating and others truly pitiful. Part of the reason I write this admittedly infrequent blog is that these authors - these publishers - these people need to be remembered in some fashion. Their chapbooks alone acknowledge their existence as people. Their names live on, however delicately, through their "thin slivers of nothing" (the weight of a chapbook when stacked on a shelf with various TOMES between)

It takes people like me to find and collect them. It takes others to create them and others to bring them to a weary public, forever put upon to be amazed at the new next wave of material splashing against the shoreline of their attention span. The shoreline is always in recession.

It's not so much a matter of locating a priceless gem of a chapbook but simply to find one whose author and publisher and illustrators have disappeared from our consciousness. And to bring them back to life - just by mentioning the details .... the very EXISTENCE .... of the chapbook again.

I have up until now, presented the details as clinically as possible, when merited I have gone into a bit of detail more but not much. My purpose has to been to acknowledge the chapbooks themselves. Sometimes it was been to bemoan the making of a dreadful creation, sometimes trees should not have fallen for a book's making. But for the most part, I have been incredibly surprised by the backstory of some presses and some authors.

Even the recent finds of chapbooks by a Pegasus Buchanan proved worthwhile although I would never had purchased them for their literary merit (don't like that style of poetry, I am afraid) but for their production quality and thoughtful creation. Someone was thinking about the presentation of the work - I admire that.

Instead of writing about groups of 4 or 5 chapbooks at a time, I am going to see if I can write more about a single chapbook at a time and see how that goes. I do have a small and committed audience (thank you) and I won't try and bore anyone.

Look for something different tomorrow!

till then,


stevenallenmay

Pegasus Buchanan

I found 2 chapbooks by a Pegasus Buchanan on ebay for very little money. Never heard of her, the seller lived in California. Why not? What I got when they arrived were two rather interesting enigmas.


River Path
Pegasus Buchanan
self published
Ponoma, California
(c) 1965

Chestnut Street
Pegasus Buchanan
self published
Ponoma, California
(c)1965

Pegasus Buchanan is as much "from another generation" as poets in the 1850's would have been to her. She is what I would call a "watercolorist" as a poet. Her poems, not surprisingly, were often published in various US magazines in the 1950s & 1960s. Each of her chapbooks were illustrated by someone named Jane Forsyth.

Ms. Buchanan was born in 1918 and died in 2006. In her adult life she was known as a mainstay of the California Federation of Chaparral Poets. She had served as President of this organization over many years and sat on their annual poetry contest committee.

She was a third generation poet. Her mother and grandmother each were poets. (how rare is that in America? Three generations of women poets in the same family???!!)

While this is commendable, her work is trite and trivial. It's "safe". It's Saturday Evening Post - safe. The exact type of poetry that modern and post-modern and the Beat poets were revolting against. And the rhyme schemes? SO dull and predictable that I was bored early on in each book, I don't believe I actually read through either. Honest, not my cup of tea. I actually like TEA in my tea. Something to taste. Not simply "Isn't that nice" sentimentality. (because, of course, it isn't nice!!)

Think Woman's Club socials and after church gathering in the village green - that's what this is. Double ugh.

they came from Indiana

On the first Friday of April, two poets blew into town from Bloomington, Indiana. Tony Brewer and Joseph Kerschbaum. Together they comprise half a the Reservoir Dogwood poetry troupe. Individually, their output is also intense. Here is a brief sampling of some of the work I came away with that evening :


Dead Starts Have No Graves
Joseph Kerschbaum
Pathwise Press
Erie, PA
©2006

a single long poem, 36 pages. Done on extremely nice paper. Fine quality work. Silver lettering on black cover stock. Very cool chapbook.

Yet to be dismantled
new poems
Joseph Kerschbaum & Tony Brewer
Matrix Magazine
Bloomington, IN
publication date unknown

an interesting little tease booklet of some new poems and artwork.

Reservoir Dogwood
Indiana Poetry Tour booklet
Kerschbaum Brewer Jackson Ammerman


a single poem by each member of the troupe with photos and a tour schedule on the back.

Your Casual Survival
(the air and the echo)
Joseph Kerschbaum
Plan B Press
Alexandria, VA
©2010

Cover art by Amy Casey. 30 pages, various poetry styles explored in this collection. All with two titles (2titles).

Much of Kerschbaum’s work sparkles off the page. He also has two spoken word CDs and 3 previous books. It was quite an evening and quite a haul. Keep an eye on this one, he's got the stuff to make people notice and the talent to get them in the house!

Save A Tree

In this case the tree was felled in 1971 or '72. The chapbook is 8 1/2 X 5 1/2". Yellow cover with drawings by the author. The chapbook is entitled Haiku and other poems by Sam B. Field. It was self published in Marlborough, MA.

The poems are not Haiku. They are like Haiku or styled to resemble Haiku, but they are simply terrible. The drawings are better than the poems. The copy I have was signed by the author's brother...... the purpose of which is unknown to me as he was neither a co-writer nor the illustrator.

This unfortunate chapbook goes straight to the pulper. Ugh! Save a tree!!!

chapbooks 42

Chapbooks 42

I have been fortunate enough to meet Tony Mancus, one of the founders of Flying Guillotine Press who has relocated to Northern VA. As a connoisseur of the chapbook form, I recognized right away the uniqueness of each of their chapbooks and the uniqueness of their concept (among other things, they only make 74 copies of any of their books) Read more about this press Here. A sampling of their work:

The Saint’s Notebook
Kate Schapira
Flying Guillotine Press
© 2009

The smallest of the 3 chapbooks, sown design on burlap material. 4 ½ x 5 ¾ “. Unnumbered pages. The poetry is good. The choice of cover material does make this item one that need to be unhandled – or one that will quickly disintegrate. Either way, it’s very cool.

Circus
Michael Robins
Flying Guillotine Press
©2009

5 ¾ x 5 ¾ “. Cover paper cover with photo of flower on front cover. Photo is held on by photo corners, very old school. Poetry is good.


All the Little Red Girls
Angela Veronica Wong
Flying Guillotine Press
©2009

Vellum covering over red cloth ribbon. Finger print in upper right corner of front cover. 8 ½ x 5 ½ “. The most standard sized chapbook of the batch.

Gathering Down Women
Michael Gushue
Pudding House Chapbook Series
Columbus, Ohio
©2007

The poetry here is fantastic. A great collection, bound by title and theme extremely well; a fine chapbook. As far as substance, yes. As far as style or originality of design; NO. This is not the doing of the author. Pudding House books look like, well, Pudding House books. Same paperstock. Same bewildering image selection. Same introductory note/disclaimer on back of title page. I have to say I am not a fan of Pudding House Press. At the same time, I am a fan of Michael Gushue’s work. Look past the appearance and feast on the words. They are wonderful words.

Book Collecting : A Primer
Thomas C. Hamm, editor
C. Dickens
Atlanta, Georgia
©1996 , 9th printing

At 75 pages, this chapbook straddles the line between forms, and formats. My own feeling is that this ought to be have been a book with a spine. While it’s beautifully made and went through several printings, its size is still more in the book world and less in the chapbook world. Great resource for those beginning book collectors.

chapbooks 41

Sad-Faced Men
William Logan
David R. Godine
Boston, MA
©1982

Previously I have discussed briefly the seeming non-literal interpretation of the word “chapbook” to include nearly anything. Case in point is this hard-bound “chapbook” with a dust cover and a photo of Logan on the back.

Yes, this is an incredibly handsome book. 40 pages of fine paper. Nice endpages. Binding tight. Part of a 4th series of “A Godine Poetry Chapbook” line of books. I would argue that this is not a chapbook. It’s the Godine version of an Easton Press book. A highly collectible book, certainly. But it’s laughable to compare this “chapbook” with something made by any number of actual fine small presses. This is not –despite its name – a chapbook.

Cattails Knee-Deep in Water
Patricia Wild
self published

This seems to have been a “beginner” book, a test run. NO publisher info, no year of publication. NO author info. NO pages count. Poems that span pages and multiple poems to other pages. It’s a mess. SAVE A TREE!!!

Party of Black
Truth Thomas
mouth mark
United Kingdom
©2006

Well-made chapbook. 41 pages. Staple-bound. Author has a connection to Washington DC, which is where I found it. Great find!

The Southern Temper
Judson Crews
Motive Book Shop
Waco, Texas
©1946

This is the first chapbook by Judson Crews. The Cover is blank, front and back. 32 pages. An illustration is on the last page. Written in August 1944. Motive Book Shop was run by Crews. After the publication of this chapbook, he moved his operations to Taos, New Mexico. This is a rare chapbook from a relatively unknown author. However, an increasing amount has been written about Judson Crews , some of which is here included:

Judson Crews, poet, editor, publisher, and book dealer, was born June 30, 1917, in Waco, Texas, to Noah George Crews and Tommie Farmer Crews. In 1947 he married Mildred Tolbert, a photographer and writer who also contributed to her husband's early publications and works. They had two children, Anna Bush and Carole Judith, before divorcing in 1980. Crews received both the B.A. (1941) and M.A. (1944) in Sociology from Baylor University, and during 1946-1947 studied fine arts at Baylor. In addition, Crews did graduate study at the University of Texas, El Paso in 1967. He has worked as an educator at Wharton County Junior College, New Mexico (1967-1970), the University of New Mexico, Gallup Branch (1971-1972), and at the University of Zambia (1974-1978). He has also been involved in social work. After two years in the U. S. Army Medical Corps during World War II, Crews moved his family and business, Motive Press, from Waco, Texas, to Taos, New Mexico, where he began his writing and publishing career in earnest.


Judson Crews was a prominent figure in the Southwest poetry scene as a poet, editor, and publisher of contemporary poetry and art magazines. Crews is known as an original and innovative poet applying the 20th-century poetic techniques of poets like Pound, Williams, and Wallace Stevens in an idiosyncratic way. Since 1935 he has contributed to a large number of little magazines, journals, and anthologies. These include Beloit Poetry Journal, Evergreen Review, Poetry Now, Wormwood Review, City Lights Anthology (1974), Poems Southwest (1968), and An Uninhibited Treasury of Erotic Poetry (1963). His published chapbooks include A Poet's Breath (1950), Come Curse the Moon (1952), The Wrath Wrenched Splendor of Love (1956), The Ogres Who Were His Henchmen (1958), and The Stones of Konarak (1966). Crews' more recent works include the chapbook, Nolo Contendere (1966), edited by Joanie Whitebird and a 1982 collection of poems, The Clock of Moss, edited by Carol Bergé.
Crews admittedly wrote under numerous pseudonyms. Of these pseudonyms, Willard Emory Betis, Trumbull Drachler, Cerise Farallon (Mrs. Trumbull Drachler, maiden name Lena Johnston), and Tobi Macadams have been clearly identified. In the instance of these, and possibly many other pseudonymous names, Crews created a fantasy world of writers to encompass, perhaps, the breadth of his literary ambitions.

Crews' fiction and non-fiction writing includes two unpublished novels and numerous essays. Crews was a crusader in various causes related to his writing and publishing activities. These causes include such topics as obscenity and censorship, freedom of sexual expression, and women's reproductive issues including abortion, contraception, and forced sterilization. Other essays include literary criticism, such as book reviews, as well as regional topics as found in The Southern Temper (1946), and Patocinio Barela: Taos Wood Carver (1955). In 1976 Crews began an extensive memoir which remains unpublished.
Crews' publishing activities began in earnest after his move from Texas to the Taos area. He started the Este Es Press in 1946, which remained in operation until 1966. The little magazines with which he was involved from 1940 to 1966 include The Deer and Dachshund, The Flying Fish, Motive, The Naked Ear, Poetry Taos, Suck-Egg Mule: A Recalcitrant Beast, Taos: A Deluxe Magazine of the Arts, and Vers Libre. Together with Scott Greer, he was co-editor of Crescendo: A Laboratory for Young America, and worked with Jay Waite on Gale. Crews published not only his own chapbooks and magazines but also those of his friends and colleagues, including the Zambian poet Mason Jordan Mason, among others. In conjunction with this printing activity, Crews operated the Motive Book Shop which became a focal point for the dissemination and advocacy of avant-garde poetry, important little magazines and literary reviews, as well as so-called pornographic materials. The material that Crews sold ranged from literary classics such as the works of D. H. Lawrence and Henry Miller, to hard-to-obtain domestic and foreign avant-garde journals, and nudist magazines. Crews was also a friend as well as an advocate of Henry Miller and continued to sell Miller's works after they were banned in the United States.



The text below is from an interview was first published in Mesechabe: The Journal of Surregionalism. In the words of Robert Cass: "Judson Crews was one of the first people to write to me. There was a black poet over there, that had a couple of poems in here, that wrote crazy, really good stuff. Mason Jordan Mason. You ever heard of him? He was living in Taos at that time, I don't know where he is now. He was black. And there was in that one yellow issue of Neurotica, they've got two little ones in there of his: Redbone Legends.I wish I'd a had some of those. I printed whatever Judson sent me. And I literally just got stuff from people I knew."

Judson Crews (born 1917) is an American poet, bookseller and small press publisher.
Crews was born and raised in El Paso, Texas, where he first opened his Motive Bookshop and issued his first Motive Press publications. In 1947 he moved both concerns to Taos, New Mexico. In addition to writing poetry, Crews' activity in Taos over the next three decades included editing the poetry magazines Suck-egg Mule, The Deer and Dachshund and The Naked Ear (which published poetry by Robert Creeley, Stuart Z. Perkoff, Vincent Ferrini, Larry Eigner, LeRoi Jones, Jack Anderson and Diane Di Prima, among others); and issuing his own work and work by his friend Carol Bergé, among others, through his Motive Press and Este Es Press. He has been a frequent contributor to Poetry Magazine, and has had work published in many other literary journals. Besides operating his bookshop and press, he worked in newspaper production, as a teacher (including as a lecturer at the University of Zambia, 1974-1978), and as a social worker and counselor, until his retirement.
Crews has written and published under a number of pseudonyms, including Cerise Farallon and Charley John Greasybear. It has been speculated that work published under the name Mason Jordan Mason is also Crews's, but he has never acknowledged this.

A long-time proponent of the work of his friend Henry Miller (a reprint of Miller's Maurizius Forever was one of Motive Press's earliest publications), Crews has been a lifelong activist against censorship in publishing. Much of his own output as an independent, small press publisher has been short-run, inexpensively produced literary chapbooks and magazines, making him a notable figure in the 1960s-70s movement known as the Mimeo Revolution.Select Bibliography
The Southern Temper (Waco, TX, 1946)
No is the Night (Taos, NM, 1949)
Patrocinio Barela, Taos Wood Carver (with Wendell B. Anderson and Mildred Crews, Taos, NM, 1955)
Inwade to Briney Garth (Taos, NM, 1960)
A Unicorn When Needs Be (Taos, NM, 1963)
Selected Poems (Cleveland, OH, 1964)
Three on a Match (with Wendell B. Anderson and "Cerise Farallon," Taos, NM, 1966)
Nolo Contendere (Houston, TX, 1978)
Songs (as "Charley John Greasybear," Boise, ID, 1979)
The Clock of Moss (Boise, ID, 1983)
Against All Wounds (Parkdale, OR, 1987)
Dolores Herrera/Nations and Peoples (Las Cruces, NM, 1991)
The Brave Wild Coast: A Year with Henry Miller (Los Angeles, 1997)

chapbooks 40

kayak 55
George Hitchcock, editor
Santa Cruz, CA
©1981

Lucky to have found and been able to (gingerly) hold this fantastic journal. I have run across the name George Hitchcock before but didn’t connect him to kayak.

[the gingerly stuff has to do with the dangerous staples jetting up from the spine, intentionally lethal? ]

kayak 55 has work by Sharon Olds, Robert Bly, Ursula Hegi, Wislawa Szemborska, and others with incidental illustrations by Thomas Wiloch. This is a great find, if one can locate any copies of kayak – do so! They are wonderful (just watch the spines for staple/spears)


Between Two Rivers:
Ten North Jersey Poets
Higginson & Harter, editors
From Here Press
Fanwood, NJ
©1981

48 page chapbook (with spine but… it’s only 48 pages). Drawing of water tower on front cover. Contains poems by ten North Jersey poets who I have never heard of. The work isn’t memorable. If one is interested in the Press itself, you might wish to venture to http://fhp.2hweb.net/contents.html

PinchPenny
The Prose Poem: an anthology
Miner & Goossens, editors
Sacramento, CA
©1984

Interesting 40 page issue dealing with prose poetry with letters from contributing poets along with a piece of prose poetry, and illustrations throughout. Featuring the work (and letters from) Shelia Murphy, Gerald Locklin, Kirby Olson, Greg Geleta, Thomas Wiloch and others. Very cool collection!

Democracy and Other Problems
David M. Harris
SRM Publisher LTD
Unity, Maine
©2002

SRM is known for their series of fantasy/sci fi books so this chapbook is a bit of a curveball. There is no mention of this book on their website. It must have been a “one-timer”. 43 pages. Generic cream cover. SAVE A TREE!!!!!!

Expulsion of the Acadians
George Frederick Clarke
Brunswick Press
New Brunswick, Canada
©1955

A handsome, well made chapbook published to commemorate the 200th anniversary of this particularly sad piece of Canadian history : the forced removal of French-Canadian population from the Acadian village of Grand Pre in Nova Scotia.

31 pages, chapbook like new. Great find

Chapbooks 39

Love Is No Stone on the moon
Lawrence Ferhlinghetti
ARIF Press
Berkeley, CA
©1971

This tiny chapbook by Lawrence Ferlinghetti is extremely rare and incredibly interesting or a complete joke, depending on one’s take on spontaneous creation and extreme use of marginalia. Unnumbered pages. Original text from unknown source, Ferlinghetti scrawls in magic marker his “poem” across the width of the pages. As though anarchist, as though felon. As though mischievous child with a new destructive toy. The original text simply paper for his creation. As stated on the first page of chapbook, this is an automatic poem. It was written in June 1971.

I see this as a fantastic experiment, the sort of thing he might have done while at Sorbonne. It’s incredibly interesting. While it is unclear if the text was offered to him for manipulation or he arrived at this text and creation on his own is not answered by the author nor the publisher. There are a grand total of 8 pages of Ferlinghetti prose/poetry in the chapbook. The back of each page is blank.

The chapbook merely is, it exists. It is part of some of Ferlinghetti’s bibliographies and is omitted by others. The final passage, part VIII, is most telling : “Be like a white bird/in the snow”. Absolutely!

Apocalypse Rose
Charles Plymell
Dave Haselwood
San Francisco, CA
©1966

Introduction by Allen Ginsberg. Unnumbered pages. Cover design uncredited. First collection by author. Plymell came from Witchita, Kansas – part of the Witchita Vortex as Gingberg described it.
The work feels very “surface” to me and a bit dated. At the same time, it’s his first collection and that is extremely notable which is why I did it twice.


Two Torch Singers
Gerald Locklin
Kamini Press
Stockholm, Sweden
©2010

love these little books from Sweden, signed. Watercolor covers. Handsome little books. This one is a New Year’s Greeting from the press. Nice touch.


Sketch Book
Tom Kryss
Kamini Press
Stockholm, Sweden
©2009

Number 5 in the poetry series by Kamini Press. Unnumbered pages. Watercolor cover by Henry Denander. Kryss, also known as T L Kryss was a comrade of d a levy in Cleveland, Ohio. This small chapbook came with a hand tinted signed print (of a rabbit) by the author.

Poet, artist and rabbit master T.L. Kryss is the publisher of the poetry series Black Rabbit Press. He published, with rjs, the groundbreaking anthology of d.a.levy's work, ukanhavyrfuckinciti bak (1967). His poems have recently appeared in Abraxas, Death Row, Measured Steps, The Outsider, Unarmed Poetry Journal, et al. Books and broadsides include Current Outsider (Vagabond Home Page), Downwind from the Fires of Nothingness and Spring into Winter (Kirpan Press), Sunflower Wars (Bottle of Smoke Press), Just Blue Skies: Poems for & after d.a.levy (an electronic chapbook appearing on the d.a.levy homepage, Light & Dust Anthology of Poetry) and The Search for the Reason Why (Bottom Dog Press)

The Poets Press

I once bought a copy of Kirby Doyle's chapbook published by the Poets Press but I couldn't stand it (think of the annoying woman's voice in "Singing in the Rain"). So, I sold it. But I now had no chapbooks published by the Poets Press and I do want at least one, at least one book that Diane di Prima was involved with making. And as it happened, I went back to the same bookstore where I got the Doyle and bought three chapbooks :

John's Book
Alan Marlowe
Introduction by Robert Creeley
The Poets Press
New York, NY
©1969

Cover photo of Marlowe, Creeley, and di Prima taken by Daniel Entin. It's curious to read any book written and published in the 1960's, as the poets attempt to be "new and different" by reviving literary traditions from the Middle Ages. The wearing of robes, for example, on the cover is a curious image as well but very fitting of the times. The poems here are mostly personal and not "telling of universal thoughts". My sense is that Marlowe and di Prima were involved in more than a professional way. Not certain that these poems on their own would warrant publication otherwise. It's a rarity, it's in fantastic condition. It's quite a find.

Earthsong
Poems 1957-1959
Diane di Prima
The Poets Press
New York, NY
©1968

The poems in this collection were chosen by Alan Marlowe from notebooks. Unnumbered pages. Cover drawing by George Herms. Great poems.

Seven Love Poems from the Middle Latin
Diane di Prima (translator)
The Poets Press
New York, NY
©1967 (2nd printing)

unnumbered pages, in Latin and English. Cover drawing by Brett Rohmer. From the esteemed collection of Mark Greene, Philadelphia. Chapbook is nearly perfect condition.