SMALL PRESS HISTORY 11: Dave Oliphant and Prickly Pear Press 1973-1999

Dave Oliphant was born in Fort Worth, Texas. He earned his BA from Lamar University, his MA from the University of Texas at Austin, and his PhD from Northern Illinois University. He is the author of numerous collections of poetry including Maria’s Poems (1987), which won an Austin Book Award; Memories of Texas Towns & Cities (2000); Backtracking (2004); KD a Jazz Biography (2012), a book entirely in rhyming quatrains; The Pilgrimage: Selected Poems, 1962-2012 (2013); The Cowtown Circle (2014); and Maria's Book (2016).

Oliphant has translated Chilean poets such as Enrique Lihn, Oliver Welden, and Nicanor Parra. His work as a translator includes Lihn’s Figures of Speech (1999; revised and expanded 2016); Love Hound (2006), his version of Welden's Perro de amor, which won the 2007 New York Book Festival poetry award; and Parra's Discursos de sobremesa, as After-Dinner Declarations (2011), which won the Texas Institute of Letters' Soeurette Diehl Fraser Translation Book Award.

He has edited three anthologies of Texas poets, including a bilingual English-Spanish anthology, Washing the Cow's Skull / Lavando la calavera de vaca(1981). His critical writings have been collected in two volumes: On a High Horse (1983) and Generations of Texas Poets (2015). Oliphant is also author of three studies of jazz: Texan Jazz (1996); The Early Swing Era, 1930 to 1941(2002); and Jazz Mavericks of the Lone Star State (2007).

Oliphant worked at the University of Texas at Austin in various roles for 30 years until his retirement in 2006.

Be:  Did your press/authors win any awards for the books you published?

DO:  My own book, Maria's Poems, won the Austin Book Award in 1987. Washing the Cow's Skull anthology won a Border Regional Library Association award in 1981. Charles Behlen won a Dobie Paisano award but that was not for a specific book. William Barney had won two Texas Institute of Letters awards for poetry in the 1950s, before Prickly Pear published his Selected Poems, The Killdeer Crying. That book did win a book design award from Texas Books in Review in 1977. I got grants from the Texas Commission for the Arts for quite a few of the books, as well as for the tape recordings. The last book was Roundup: An Anthology of Texas Poets From 1973 to 1998 (1999). 

Be:  Any interesting stories about the press?

DO:  In 1973 when I published The New Breed, I collated the pages of the 200-page anthology in the basement of our rented duplex in Malta, Illinois, and I finished the collation and moved the 200 copies of the unbound book to the ground floor. The next night a tornado hit the town and knocked out the power. In the morning we discovered that the basement was flooded because the sump pump could not come on and keep out the ground water. Had I not finished the collation and moved the books to the ground floor, the anthology would not have survived and I was too poor as a grad student to have started over. The anthology represented a new generation of Texas poets and had the effect of introducing the poets to one another and to a beginning readership for native and longtime resident Texas poets. 

Be: How did you choose your authors?

DO: My aim all along was to support the state's new poets, but in the two subsequent anthologies I included the older generation of Barney, Vassar Miller, William Burford, et al. I was interested also in finding the new ethnic voices, like Ray Gonzalez of El Paso, Rebecca Gonzales, Harriette Mullen, and Naomi Shihab Nye. I tended to publish poets' first books, but also did a second book of Joseph Colin Murphey and a mini-anthology of three poets whose work I had already published in book form: Behlen, Murphey, and Sandra Lynn. I was particularly proud of the bilingual anthology, which was purchased by the U.S. State Department and distributed in the libraries in Latin America. Recently I heard from two poets in Chile who at the time had obtained copies of the book through the U.S. Embassy.

Be: How do you feel about the state of publishing today?

DO:   I read stuff online that has cost the writers no real effort whatsoever. They have not paid their dues by reading widely and deeply in works that challenge their minds and hearts. Their writing is totally egocentric. I am proud of the poets published by Prickly Pear because their work had first appeared in reputable magazines and had impressed and moved me over time. For me and others it continues to please and reward with each rereading.

SMALL PRESS HISTORY 10: Chuck Taylor and Slough Press, 1973-Present

^{Chuck Taylor, PhD, won the Austin Book Award for his work, What Do You Want, Blood? He worked as a poet--in-residence for the City of Salt Lake, in the poets-in-the schools program, and was a part-owner of Paperback Plus in Austin, operated Slough Press since 1973, and taught creative writing at Texas A&M/College Station, serving as its coordinator. He has published novels, books of poetry, story collections and memoirs. His two most recent books are a memoir called I tried to Be Free, and Being Beat, a book of poems, both from Hercules Press in Albuquerque, New Mexico. You can see some of his artwork here.}

^{Be: There was a strong Chicano movement going on around the time you started the press and you seemed to concentrate on publishing Chicano and ethic literature.  Did you start the press to specifically promote the under-represented?}

^{CT: Yes I wanted to publish the marginalized, but in Texas but I found it hard to do.  I didn't have a car, was raising kids, and was broke much of the time I had the press.  Thank the muses later for grants from the Texas Arts Commission and from the Austin Book Award. Those institutions made it possible for me to publish books but what they liked was more middle ground. The Chicano movement, its first phase, was beginning to fade by 1975, in terms of media coverage. I read a lot of the writers and taught them in my classes at Angelo State from 1969-73.} 

^{Be: Slough started out as a magazine but after two issues you went to books only.  What was the deciding factor to do only books?}

^{CT:  Magazines have a short shelf life. They are time based. Books have a much longer shelf life.  Yet it takes just as much work to do a magazine as a book.} 

^{Be: Makes sense. Plus you can sometimes get grants for books?}

^{CT:  Yes, it is much harder to get grants for magazines.  I don't think the Texas Arts Commission is giving out money for books anymore. The Austin Book Award is gone. I tried for an NEA once. When I didn't get it the writers were pissed at me, even though I told them publishing depends on a grant.}

 ^{Be:  I gather the press name continues because of others but I was wondering when you stopped being part of it. Also, does the press actively look for people to publish?  Is Chris Carmona actively in charge now?}

^{CT:  Chris assures me he will be doing books soon. The last book I put out was in 2015. I am 78 now and plan to focus my remaining years on my own work.}

^{Be: What were some of the accomplishments of the press that you’re most proud of?}

^{CT: Pat Littledog’s Afoot in a Field of Men won the Austin Book Award in 1981. Later it was picked up by Atlantic Monthly and received a review in Time Magazine. Slough Press republished it in 2015. Pat got her MA in creative writing from UTEP, received an NEA Fellowship and was a Dobie-Paisano fellow.}

^{I got a grant to publish Marion Winik's Boy Crazy, her first fiction title. Her second book, a memoir called Telling, is the book that brought her fame.  (}Marion Winik is a journalist and author, best known for her work on NPR's All Things Considered.)

A few others we published: Sheryl St. Germaine, from Lousiana, Ken Fontenot also from Louisiana, Octavio Quintaanilla (who was San Antonio poet laureate), Jerry Craven. Fred Asnes and Dan Durham and of course Ricardo Sanchez have passed away. About 50 books total.

^{Be:  Do you have any stories to relay about Ricardo Sanchez?  He was brought to my house when I was working on the El Paso Literary Festival, early 90s.  Not long after that I heard he had stomach cancer. (}The poet Maya Angelou described his work: “Ricardo Sanchez is like any great poet. He’s at once a preacher, a teacher, a priest, a rabbi. He’s a guru, he’s a master...”)

Ricardo Sanchez

^{CT:  Ricardo and I hung out a lot.  By accident, he was in El Paso when I was in El Paso, and then he was in Salt Lake City when I was in Salt Lake, and then he was in Austin when I was in Austin. When he was really down and out Ricardo and his family lived in the basement of our bookstore, Paperbacks Plus. Later, he opened with our main supporter Paperbacks Y Mas in San Antonio. I also published Jose Montalvo, who sadly died of cancer. One writer I published killed himself.  Ricardo and I got to know each other's families.  I hung with him some in bars.  The first time I met him was at an artistic bar in downtown El Paso called Tire Biters.  He came in to read with maybe eight Brown Berets with him.  Since Slough Press is now mostly located in the valley it has published more Latinx texts, thanks to Chris Carmona.}

^{Be: Any comments on the state of publishing today?}  

CT:  For independent presses focusing on the literary, it has never been easy. Thanks to POD, better looking books that may include photographs can be done well and inexpensively. Thanks to POD, one does not have to pay state, local, and federal taxes on unsold inventory because there isn't any. Slough Press is the oldest operating small press in Texas. Writers you publish often become friends. Publishing brings unexpected gifts to treasure a lifetime. I'll never forget when a check came from B. Dalton Books (now gone) that allowed me to pay my overdue rent. We had great celebratory parties, one in Kern Place in El Paso for collating, another on N. Oregon at Hal Marcus' gallery-home to sell copies.

SMALL PRESS HISTORY 9: Cheryl A. Townsend/Impetus/Implosion Press 1984-2004

BE:  Best I can recall, circa 1984, I received a chapbook from Planet Detroit with a sexy pic of you on the cover.  (Not too long after Planet Detroit did one of me.)  That was was my introduction to you and your poetry.  Seems like Impetus mag started around the same time as Gypsy and we exchanged mags on a regular basis.  When did you start publishing  and what was the “impetus” to do it?  How long did the mag and Implosion Press operate?

 

CAT: I started September of 1984 with a desire to give voice to those of us not appreciated in the academic presses, ..those like myself, who had an ax to grind on inequities. I liked what I was reading in so many micro-publications that I wanted to add to that voice with my own soapbox. I invited those that I enjoyed/admired and asked the zines I was trading with to start sending poets over that would fit my mission. It came into play so fast and easy that I was soon adding issues, broadsides and chapbooks. I started publishing a chapbook or broadside to go with each issue. Then I had to do special issues (Erotic-ah, Female only, Male only, Shorts In The Winter, The Impugn) We had a nice 20 year run and threw in a Best of Impetus anthology of the first 10 years. I started to slow down on the publishing when I opened my bookstore, but I did have a newsletter with an exquisite corpse added in. I was still working 35 hours at my paying job and 40-50 hours at the bookstore. It was a lot, but loved damn near every minute of it. 

 

 

BE:  What were some of the highlights of your mag/press days?  Who were some of the people you published, names we might recognize?  Roughly about how many issues of Impetus and how many chapbooks did you publish?

 

CAT: Nothing beats being told "You were the first person to ever publish me!" One such instance was when I went to hear Sherman Alexie talk at nearby Oberlin college and after he was done, he allowed people to come up to the stage for book signings. I handed him a couple Impetus that he was in and he looked at me, smiled wide, then stood up and announced to the audience "This is the first person to ever publish me!" 

I published 41 issues of Impetus, 50 chapbooks, dozen or so broadsides and the anthology. I also published a full-length book of fiction by Terry Persun and let a local author use Implosion Press as the source of his full-length book of poetry.

 

 

BE:  Seems like you had some theme issues, at least for chapbooks.  What were some of those?  Were some of them to raise money or awareness for causes?  If so, what were they?

 

CAT: I did 4 erotica issues, 6 female only and 3 male only issues. I did one impugn and one short story. I also did an issue on violence against women while volunteering at the local Rape Crisis Center, with 100% going to a local battered womens shelter. One Christmas at the bookstore, I had the local members of W.A.R.M. (the Women's Art Recognition Movement I started with KSU's Dr. Molly Merryman, head of Women's Studies) give me recipes/directions for something they enjoyed, whether cookies or a craft, that I published and again, donated all the money to a local shelter, (BTW, W.A.R.M. held fundraiser art exhibits that also donated proceeds to local shelters.) 

 

BE:  How did publishing impact your life?  I’m sure you made a lot of great friends and I heard you had a bookstore for awhile.

CAT: I've made so many long-lasting friendships through Impetus that I continue to be blessed by it. It showed me that the word is still a very mighty weapon to yield. The readings I was part of or hosted added in. (For a span there, I was hosting a poetry reading every Friday of the month at various locations, starting with Borders Books and Music, where I was blessed to host Rita Dove and Jack Micheline, amongst the many other talents.) 

Cheryl in her bookstore

Yes, the bookstore was the icing on the literary cake for me. I wanted a space that showcased small press publications and that's what I strived for. I had it just under 5 years before the city decided it wanted to be less grass-roots and demolished my block to put in franchise shit. It was the best time of my life. People stopping in, talking books, hosting readings and art openings. Bliss! One special moment was when I just arrived to open after working my morning job and saw someone walking towards me.. I immediately recognized him as Ed Sanders. He told me "I heard about your bookstore and wanted to check it out for myself." WOW! I also had Diane di Prima in for a visit while she was in town. Jack Micheline read there. Book signings were fun, but the readings always brought in the most people. Some of the bands that played there also did good, but nothing beat the readings. I did one offsite at a coffeehouse that brought them in from around the country. The ones at my bookstore did well, too. Kind of an East meets West at cat's. I had a backroom area that had a frig, stocked with beer and such, a table with chairs, a typewriter with paper (usually) and roaming space where the poets would gather to talk and get high. I've had them sleeping on the floor when too drunk/stoned to go elsewhere. 

One funny art opening I have to mention... we had a series of art nights, where several models would pose nude for a group of artists and photographers, and then we held an art opening of their favorite pieces. On one of the openings, two of the models stripped naked and went the rest of the night as such. 

The bookstore was in an alleyway that was fronted with a barbershop, then seamstress, cat's Books, then a hand carwash. Above the barbershop was an apartment housing a couple artists that later was rented by a local band. It was always entertaining.

 

BE:  Any musings or advice on poetry publishing today?  Do you still write and submit?

CAT: I'm happy to see some of the ones from our era still putting the issues out (Abbey, Slipstream, for instance) and some starting back up again. I'm so tempted to start the gears grinding again myself, but too involved in gardening to go there again. But still, when I go to a reading a hear an exceptional poem, I always think...Damn, I want to publish that!

Advice? Don't do it for the money. Don't do it for the names. Don't do it for your own vanity.

Do I still write? Not often enough. Several long-term poetry pals keep at me to do so and maybe I will, soon. I have sent out a few of what I have written and it's always a rush to see one's name in print somewhere, but I've gone a different route than the one that started me off. I'm just as pissed at the inequities, but think there is a gentler way to address them. I hope that's maturity and not laissez faire. I've found peace in my own backyard and like staying there. Hermitage has infused my soul and I seldom venture far.

I miss going to readings and will start attending once I feel safe enough to be in a crowd again. This pandemic has really made it too easy for me to become reclusive, so I have to force myself to attend things. I don't like idle chitchat and the political division has made that a potential Pandora's Box. Still, I miss it. I do have a monthly bookclub of women who meet here at my house and we even get around to discussing the book, tho usually not for long. Life is volatile enough, it doesn't need my angst.

Small Press History 8: Andrew Darlington/LUDD'S MILL (England-1970s)

 

BE:  When did you begin being the chief editor at Ludd’s Mill?  Did you distribute to several countries? I caught wind of it in Germany and it seems you had U.S connections with Rick Peabody and others.

AD: Indie publishing was the internet of its time, geography was seldom an issue. As a counterculture it always seemed to me to be a single nation of like-minded beings, and there was a driving kinship with activists wherever they happened to be, California, Australia, Germany or India. The way I was first drawn in, I was a socially dysfunctional messed-up kid with high but unfocused creative aspirations, when I discovered a copy of a magazine called Sad Traffic in what we quaintly referred to as a ‘Head Shop’ in the Leeds Hyde Park area, it turned my head around. I sent them a poem, my first and only poem, and they published it! From there I was able to link into the entire interconnected web of DIY publishing. As a result, my motivation was always to act as that same catalyst for some other socially dysfunctional messed-up kid, to shove Ludd’s Mill in unlikely news agents, gigs and festivals, places where it could be picked up by people outside the same self-referential arty bubble. And also to reach out to other similar projects wherever they happened to be. It was a great and wonderful time. As a result we had a regular influx of American and Australian poets calling off, crashing overnight with us, as well as British poets hitchhiking up and down Britain to gigs and readings.

BE: Was it mainly a poetry publication? What else did it publish?  What was the main goal for the publication?

AD: Ludd’s Mill started out as a local ‘collective’ venture in Huddersfield around the tail-end of 1970. Steve Sneyd had some previous experience of Indie-publishing with a magazine called Riding West, so he maybe had a more hands-on attitude than most. I was not involved with the first issue. By then Sad Traffic had evolved into a tabloid underground newspaper called Styng, and I’d go around there to help out, and take advantage of the opportunity to read my way through the vast mound of trade-exchange and review magazines that were sent in from around the world. It was there I discovered Ludd’s Mill, made contact, and joined the group, which also promoted a series of live poetry-cabaret events called ‘The Inner Circle’ in Huddersfield which is where I got to do my first readings. As is the way with such co-operative ventures, what begins with wild participatory enthusiasm, swiftly loses cohesion, people drop off. There’s an incredibly shrinking collective! For one editorial meeting in Steve’s kitchen it was down to three of us. Then it was Steve and me, and we shoved through to around issue no.12 (January 1977) together. I was doing a lot of artwork and lay-out, he sorted out the more tedious tasks of dealing with printers and balancing finances. He’d give me a poem to illustrate and I’d go crazy and splurge over the entire A4 page, which he then had to integrate into the magazine and also into the tight budgetary restrictions. It was odd the way it subsequently shifted. I swear this is my memory of it. 

Andy Robson (of Krax magazine) said to me ‘Steve tells me you’re taking over Ludd’s Mill. I said, ‘no, I’m not taking over Ludd’s Mill.’ Then George Cairncross (of Bogg) said to me ‘Steve tells me you’re taking over Ludd’s Mill.’ And I said, ‘no, I’m not taking over Ludd’s Mill.’ And this continued. Steve never asked, or even told me direct. But the truth of it just kind-of seeped in that yes, this was actually going to happen. I simply accepted the inevitability of it. Ludd’s Mill no.14 (January 1978) was my first solo issue. From the start I loved the trashy energy of Punk fanzines, the visual psychedelic opulence of the Hippie press, all the way back to the deliberate iconoclasm of Dada and surrealist publications, and I wanted that. I got stuff from Anarcho-Punk group Poison Girls. I got new work from Mike Butterworth and Barrington J Bayley of New Wave SF magazine New Worlds. I ran stuff about Timothy Leary, William Burroughs, MJ Harrison. I reasoned there was a certain recognition factor to putting Patti Smith or Allen Ginsberg there, as well as John Cooper Clarke. I adopted slogans ‘The Eloquent Argument For Dayglo Living’ or ‘The Danceable Solution To Teenage Revolution’ – ‘Buy Now: While Shops Last’ as playful taglines. I also expanded the review section to include the phenomena of Indie records, which in some ways was incidental in the magazine’s demise. An electronic trio from Sheffield not only sent me their self-produced records but took out a full-page ad. I met them, saw them play live, interviewed them… and shortly afterwards they were no.1 in the album chart as ABC with Lexicon Of Love. As a result, my music journalism and my fiction sales were taking off. I never intended Ludd’s Mill to end. The final issues had print-runs of 1,000. Everyone exaggerates. I sent out freebies for trade, I gave a bunch of issues away. But the print-run was 1,000. I was always planning the ‘next issue’. It just never happened.

BE:  Why was the name Ludd’s Mill chosen?  Was it a physical location or something metaphorical? 

AD: To declare an interest, I never much liked the name Ludd’s Mill. The way Steve told the story to me, they were sitting around the pub table brainstorming ideas for the proposed magazine’s title, while Steve, as note-taker was scribbling them down on a confused beermat. Someone suggested Thud, someone else said The Mill, which got misinterpreted and fused, when he was translating his notes into Ludd’s Mill. The area around Huddersfield had seen many incidents of Luddite insurrection and targeted outrage against industrialisation, and whereas I quite enjoy the idea of proletarian direct action against dehumanizing capitalism, I’m also quite open and accepting of new technology. So when I was later invited to explain the title, I suggested a barrage of playful alternatives such as Ludicrous Millinery.

BE: Who were some of the well-known poets you published in Great Britain and the U.S.?  What do you feel were your greatest accomplishments with Ludd’s Mill?

AD: If I saw a poem that excited me in another magazine, I wanted it, and used it – sending a copy of the issue to the writer concerned. I craved things that excited me, alongside a regular roster of my favourite poets that I wanted to promote and I felt deserved wider recognition, Dave Ward in Liverpool, the lovely Tina Fulker, Pete Faulkner, Dave Cunliffe. I got poems from Mike Scott before he was in the Waterboys. I solicited and got original work from Tuli Kupferberg of the Fugs. I published the first piece by Simon Clark who went on to become a popular writer of Horror fiction. We did a special Kerouac issue. But I always felt that things worked most effectively not as individual titles, but as part of a ‘scene’. What I was doing was synchronized to what Dave Cunliffe was doing with Global Tapestry, to what you were doing with Gypsy or Richard Peabody was with Gargoyle, with Krax, Bogg, Smoke, Tears In The Fence and all the rest. It was a coordinated fightback against the grinding dullness and tedium of all those social conventions and repression. I was happy and grateful to be a part of that great churning amorphous creativity.

BE:  Seems like many of us who edited/published in the 80s are still committed to and doing the same thing now but via the internet. Tell us about 8 Miles higher, when you started it, why, and does it continue to this day?

AD: A musician has got to play music. An artist has got to paint artwork. If you’re some kind of writer, you write. It’s just what you do. So some pieces on Eight Miles Higher are new. But most of the stuff I put there is the final revision of old magazine pieces that got butchered for one reason or another in the first place. Editors have frustrating word-limits and tend to chop out text to create space for adverts. I like the immediacy and direct access of the internet. I used to work on the theory that some of those 1970s poetry/arts magazines only printed up 250-copies, many of them less than that. Half the people who got copies only read their own poems, or those by their friends. Only half of the others would eventually get around to reading your poem, and half of those that got to read it wouldn’t like it. So now, when I stick something on a Blog post and it hits 1,000 visits, I guess that’s a pretty strong ratio. We are still a continuity united by a diversity of the same aspirations, we simply use and abuse different technologies. These ideas persist.

Andrew Darlington and Steve Sneyd

Small Press History 7: John M. Bennett/ Lost and Found Times (1975-2005) and Luna Bisonte Prods (1974-Present)

BE: When did you begin Lost and Found Times and Luna Bisonte? What prompted you to start such a venture and how was it received? What kind of work did/do you publish?

 JMB: Luna Bisonte Prods began in 1974. LAFT in 1975, and ran until 2005. Both began as art/literary projects to publish great stuff that was “unpublishable”.  They both were avant-garde/surrealist/dada/flux-is/international/multilingual. Luna Bisonte Prods still is. Latest book is IS KNOT; other recent ones are HAVING BEEN NAMED, and OJIJETE.  See them at Luna Bisonte Prods  Future books are in the works, including several by other authors such as Jim Leftwich, Luc Fierens, David Baptiste Chirot, and Olchar E. Lindsann.

BE: How are Vispo and asemic works important to the world of art? Do you prefer them to other art forms? If so, why do you think that is? Which is more important to these art forms, humor or beauty, both or neither? 

JMB: Not sure what "world of art" might mean here, but I think they are important in that they show artistic/aesthetic creation has no real genre borders, in spite of what most people think.  Vispo (I think of asemics as a form of vispo) is between visual art and literature, claimed by neither, and so "falls between the cracks" in most critical and/or academic studies.  I like many kinds of art; music, photography, painting, conceptual, Fluxus or Dada, and of course literature.  I work in many different genres.  The best art has humor, horror, beauty, ugliness, love, hate, and much else, all simultaneously.  It attempts to be a mirror to the universe, or a talisman of it.

BE: How have you managed to keep publishing all these years? Have you been able to receive grants to help out? Did being a professor with a Ph.D. help gain critical acclaim for your publications and art form?

JMB: By having a professional career that paid for it. I did receive a few very small grants from the Ohio Arts Council in the early days of LAFT, and one larger one for my own writing in 1998. What critical acclaim? Not sure there is any, though a number of writers in my circle have written very well about my work, for which I am deeply grateful. But that, like my work itself, is invisible to the larger literary and art worlds. 

BE: Do you still perform?

JMB: I still perform, though perhaps less often than a few years ago.  With age I gotta slow down a bit, and travel, especially international travel, can be exhausting.  The pandemic hasn't helped either.  For several years I performed annually at Fluxfest (different city every year), and The Marginal Arts Festival in Roanoke, VA.  For several years, my wife C. Mehrl Bennet and I performed in places like Mexico City, Montevideo, Paris, Buenos Aires, Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, etc. 

BE: Do you have any particular reflections on today’s Vispo scene? Any advice/suggestions for young Vispo artist/writers? 

JMB: Vispo has become very widely practiced today in USA, Europe, Latin America, Asia, and elsewhere. There is wonderful work being done everywhere, but also a lot of stuff that seems merely decorative (not so interesting). There have long been parallels between visual poetry and commercial design, and the two cultures often borrow from each other. My advice to young writers and artists is to only do what you feel you HAVE to do, and to ignore the impulse to please others. Also: do not expect to make any money off your work. If you expect that, go get a job in accounting.

John is the featured interview at the top GAS 8 video show.  

John M. Bennett's work, publications, and papers are collected in several major institutions, including Washington University (St. Louis), SUNY Buffalo, The Ohio State University, The Museum of Modern Art, and other major libraries. His PhD (UCLA 1970) is in Latin American Literature.  Visit John M. Bennett's website for more info.

Small Press History 6: A.D. Winans:/ SECOND COMING Magazine and Press/1972-1989

A.D. Winans and Diane di Prima

BE: What was the impetus to start Second Coming?

 

I was hanging out with poets like Kell Robertson who published Desperado Magazine, Ben Hiatt who published Grande Rhone Press, and Paul Foreman of Hyperion Press.  I helped Kell and Paul collate issues of their magazine and in the process gravitated toward the world of small press publishing.

 

A.D. with Jack Micheline

BE: Jack Micheline wrote in a foreword for A Bastard Child With No Place To Go: “A. D. Winans is a man in search of his soul. His compassion and love for his native city San Francisco shows in his poems. A. D. takes us on a journey of lost souls in the cruelty of a large city. He writes of the people he loves: poets, musicians, and the ordinary souls who have moved him. He knows the wars, the lost hookers, the crazies, the victims, and the ones gone mad. The system and the tragedy of America.” Jack Micheline seems like a kind, compassionate soul. Would you tell us a favorite story about him?

 

A.D.: Jack possessed the heart and soul of what being Beat is all about.  He unabashedly spoke the truth and in the process made many enemies.  He was a great oral poet who was loved by the downtrodden and the down and out. We immediately hit it off as we both had the same political viewpoints and empathy for the poor.  I have many tales I could tell but here is one of my favorites.  We were drinking in North Beach and as nightfall set in, he said, "Let's go to Chinatown.  They are having an AA meeting tonight." I asked him why would I want to go to an AA meeting and he said "Because it's a great place to score with women."  When we arrived there was a large table with coffee and sugar cookies and rows of pull-out chairs.  We took front row seats and as is the custom at AA meetings the night kicked off with people getting up and introducing themselves by saying  "Hi, my name is  (X) and I'm an alcoholic."  When it came my turn I stood up and said "My name is A.D. Winans and I don't know if I am an alcoholic or not."  Then Jack stood up and said, "My name is Jack Micheline. I'm a poet and if you people were serious you'd be out bombing distilleries instead of napalming women and children."  It was at the height of the Vietnam War and his remarks were met with stone silence.  Needless to say, the only thing we scored that evening was sugar cookies. It was the first and last AA meeting I have attended.

 

BE: You published Bukowski quite a bit. What did you like most about his writing?

 

A.D.: I liked his easy down to earth use of the English Language and the subject matter of what he wrote about.  It was easy for me to identify with him.  William Carlos Williams who was an early influence on me said "Write as you speak."  I took this to heart and evidently Bukowski did as well.

 

 

BE: Were you and Bukowski good friends? How did you meet? Could you share a favorite story about Bukowski that few people know?

 

A.D.: I considered him a good "distant" friend.  We only saw each other four times in person but corresponded for l7 years.  During this period we exchanged 83 letters that are housed at my Second Coming archives at Brown University. There are many stories I could share.  One incident that stands out to me was my second meeting with him at a reading he was giving at the War Memorial Building in San Francisco.

 

I met up with him at a bar about a block away from the reading.  After some conversation, he mentioned he had the keys to Ferlinghetti's van and had a pint of vodka stored under the back seat and suggested it was cheaper than drinking at the bar.  We made our way to the van with Bukowski (Hank) taking the back seat and me in the front.  He immediately went for the vodka and drank nearly half the bottle in a few quick gulps.  I asked him for a sip and was surprised when he turned me down. He told me he needed every drop to see him through readings.  He said if it wasn't for the money he would not give them.  He said, if I recall right, "I'm like a beggar singing for his supper."

 

About ten minutes before the reading he finished the last of the vodka, tossing the bottle on the van floor.  "It's time to pay the piper," he said but we didn't get a few feet away before he turned and barfed on the side of Ferlinghetti's van.  He steadied himself and looked perfectly sober as we walked into the Memorial Building, not without notice by the packed audience.  He, of course, gave his usual dynamite reading and left to loud applause, and much hooting and hollering.

 

We made our way back to the bar and resumed our earlier drinking. At some point in time, Ferlinghetti came storming into the bar.  I watched him angrily approach our table and thought maybe he had discovered Hank had puked on his van.  However, when I looked up I saw he was clutching a poetry magazine in his hands that had a poem I had written for him.

 

    Lawrence Ferlinghetti and A.D. Winans / Photo by Scott Harrison

After exchanging greetings with Hank, Ferlinghetti lit into me, complaining about my poem (written in response to his poem, "Where is North Beach I can't find it"). His beef with the poem was his contention that it was not true.  I believed then and now that it was a fair and factual poem. I was not prepared for his attack and was uneasy over the attention he was drawing from the curious bar patrons.

 

I felt sure Hank would remain neutral or perhaps side with Ferlinghetti given the fact City Lights had recently published a book of his.  He had far more to gain by siding with Ferlinghetti than me. I'll always remember the way Hank looked up at Ferlinghetti with a sly smile and said, "Lawrence, that's one of the best poems I've ever read."  Ferlinghetti stood there with a stunned expression before storming out of the bar.

 

I knew my poem was an honest poem, a good poem, a poem that would be published and republished in several literary magazines but I also knew it was not a great poem and certainly not the best poem Hank had ever read.

 

Hank left for the airport shortly afterward leaving me with a deep respect for him.

 

BE: Is it true that Bob Kaufman helped you get over your fear of reading in public? How did that happen? In what other ways did Kaufman have a lasting effect on you?

 

A.D.: My early fear of reading in public goes back to my childhood days all the way through college when I never once got up in class and read.  It was Wayne Miller who headed the old Coffee House readings who helped me with my fear. The Coffee Gallery audience could be brutal.  I remember one poet who was booed off the stage.  I had been drinking quite heavily to work up the courage when my turn to read was approaching. Wayne came over to where I was sitting and told me I didn't have to read but I shook him off and proceeded to give a reading that ended with rousing applause. Afterward Wayne told me "you will never again have to worry about reading." And he was right.

 

A.D. Winans & Bob Kaufman at Cafe Trieste in 1976. Photo © Richard Morris, 1976

Kaufman had a lasting effect on me, not only because of his work but because of his persona and dedication to poetry.  He never sought fame and never kept copies of his poems.  If not for his wife, Eileen, very little of his work would have survived.  He was a true genius.  He is the only poet I know who spontaneously changed a poem while reading on stage as he did the evening of the Night of Street Poetry reading featuring Kaufman, Micheline, and I.

 

Bob  loved jazz and wrote some of the best jazz poems of the Beat era and read on stage with local jazz musicians.  He and Micheline defined the word Beat. The so-called Major Beats got all the attention but Bob and Jack were their equals. I am very proud of being in the documentary film on his life that premiered at the San Francisco International Film Festival.

 

BE: From adwinans.com: “I have never worn the label of a poet well. It’s not a word I’m comfortable with. It carries a connotation that somehow the poet walks on a higher ground than the average individual. Too many of today’s poets are more concerned with publication credits than the human condition they write about.” Is this why you have no Table of Contents or Bio notes in Second Coming Anthology: Ten Years in Retrospect, to invite folks to read the poems, not just look up their own work or friends then put it down? But if one has to search around, one just might read some good work, in spite of one’s vanity? ( I remember that we exchanged a few letters in the mid-80s. You were neither a flirt nor a braggart, but down to earth and straightforward.)

 

A.D.: I generally did not include a table of contents except for the anthologies because I have always believed that poems should speak for themselves.  A lot of readers go to a table of contents to find particular poets they like and never read the other poets in the book.  I am sure this played a role in my decision not to include a table of contents in this particular anthology.

 

And yes, I remember we had exchanges of letters back then.  No, I was never what you call a flirt. There were small press publishers I knew who used their so-called power to lure a woman into their bed. One who I won't name tried to score with a woman friend of mine and boasted of other women he had made love to.  He was a tax accountant and only went into small press publishing to get laid.  A poet I published in the S.C. California Poets Anthology came up to me after a reading I gave in Sacramento, and said, "Thanks.  My poem in your anthology got me laid." I find that reprehensible.    And no, I don't brag about any accomplishments I may have made in the literary world.  Straight forward is the only way I know. It has gotten me enemies as well as admirers.  As I said in my Gale Research Autobiography piece.  The only thing a poet has is his or her integrity.  You sell that and you have sold your soul to the devil.  I am always amazed at how many poets have sold out for so little.

 

BE: I’m intrigued by your photo with Robert Kennedy. Did this meeting relate to your poetry in some way?

 

A.D. with Robert Kennedy

A.D.: No, it did not.  I was working as a civilian for the Navy and knew this Navy Officer who had worked as an aide for John Kennedy.  He asked me if I would like to meet RFK and set up a meeting at his Senate office.  We had a general conversation that lasted several minutes and as it was winding down I asked him if I could take his photo and he responded by saying "Why don't you sit down and have one taken with me."  An interesting sidelight to this, if if you look closely at the photo you will see me looking dead serious and might mistake me for a politician.  As we were both looking into the camera, it flashed into my mind that this would look cool on my mantle and impress any woman I might bring to my apartment.  As if he read my mind, he turned toward me, slapped me on the knee, and we both broke out into laughter.  A moment I will never forget.

 

 

BE: These days everyone and their brother has books because they can be printed instantly and on-demand one at a time. In the old days, we had to print 1000 books or at least several hundred to keep the price of each copy low enough, then we were stuck with a lot of books to distribute, trade, or give away. How do you think this will affect literature in the long run or will it?

 

A.D.: Yes, I was part of that.  I published print runs of 500 copies and like you and everyone else had no real distribution to speak of.  I had maybe at any one time fifty library and personal subscriptions. I would put copies into doctor and dentists' offices, leave them in public places, send them into prisons, and hand them out at readings, and still had copies in my basement.  Distribution is the curse of small press literature.  Today it makes economic sense to print on demand.

 

BE: Any advice to new poets/publishers or further musings on the state of poetry today?

 

A.D.: To poets, I would just say be yourself.  Don't be afraid to take risks.  I am too out of the loop to give advice to publishers except don't delude yourself into thinking you will make money.  If you break even you will have been wildly successful.

 

A.D. reading, 1977

Books published by Second Coming Press

• Aguila, Pancho. Dark smoke (1977)
• Andersdatter, Karla Margaret. I don't know whether to laugh or cry, 'cause I lost the map to where I was going: poems (1978)
• Bennett, John. Crime of the Century (1987)
• Castaño, Wilfredo Q. Small stones cast upon the tender earth (1981)
• Fericano, Paul. Loading The Revolver With Real Bullets (1977)
• Fowler, Gene. Felon's Journal (Poems) (1975)
• Fowler, Gene. Return of the Shaman (1981)
• Hiatt, Ben L. Data For a Windy Day (Broadside) (1977)
• Menebroker, Ann. Three Drums For the Lady (1972)
• Micheline, Jack. Last House in America (1974)
• Micheline, Jack. Skinny Dynamite (1980)
• Nimnicht, Noma. In the museum naked (1978)
• Richmond, Steve.  Wild Seed (1977)
• Reith, Kimi. Poems for my mother and the women I have loved (1978)
• Savitt, Lynne. Lust in 28 flavors: poems (1979)
• Schneider, Roy. Suburban Graffiti (1977)
• Tsongas, George. Love letters (1975)
• Wantling, William. 7 on Style (1975)
• Whitebird, Joanie. Birthmark (1977)
• Whitebird, Joanie. 24 (1978)
• Winans, A.D. North Beach Poems (1977)
• Winans, A.D. Tales of Crazy John: or, Beating Brautigan at His Own Game (1975)

Anthologies published by Second Coming Press

• Winans, A.D. (ed.). 19+?1: An Anthology of San Francisco Poetry (1978)
• Winans, A.D. (ed.). California Bicentennial Poets Anthology (1976)
• Winans, A.D. (ed.). Second Coming Anthology: Ten Years in Retrospect (1984)
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