A Secret Location on the Lower East Side:
Adventures in Writing, 1960-1980

Published September 1998
ISBN: 1887123199
(also available in paperback)

Written by Steven Clay and Rodney Phillips, A Secret Location on the Lower East Side celebrates a flowery couple of decades (1960-80) by packaging together a reference of marginal, avant-garde publications that floated abreast the influence that the beats were under.

Because this book is a potluck of reference material, rather than reviewing the content (which is great and will keep you busy for a year at a paced reading), let me just offer a quick preview of the book's contents.

Following a "pre-face" by Jerome Rothenberg is a history of the mimeograph revolution, noting Donald Allen's The New American Poetry, 1945-1960 as central to what was going on mid-century, following precepts of Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams and heralding in other groupings or "movements" such as Black Mountain, San Francisco, Beat Generation, and New York Poets. Allen's book inspired many of the individuals in these groups to begin their own small presses and publications. Key to their startup was access to mimeograph machines, letterpress, and other offset printing tools. The content of these magazines was invariably unique and novel--and some were more successful, usually due to financial backing and distribution.

There are four main subdivisions in this book:

-Berkeley Renaissance, San Francisco Renaissance, the Beats, and Others: This has information on publications and presses like White Rabbit Press, Yugen, Beatitude, New Directions, City Lights, and Evergreen Review.

-Black Mountain, Ethnopoetics, Deep Image, Intermedia, Performance and Others: this includes discussion about The Black Mountain Review, New Wilderness Letter, Maps, Something Else Press, Migrant Books, and much more.

-The New York School: First, Second, and Third Generations, and Others: This section goes into many publications, some of which include White Dove Review, The Paris Review, The Poetry Project Newsletter, and Adventures in Poetry.

-Language Writing and Others: This talks about presses and publications such as This, Tottel's, Roof, Sun & Moon, and Tuumba Press.

Everything you'd want to know about the literary scene surrounding the beats and beyond is in this book. Well almost everything. I couldn't find anything about Gnaoua, edited and published by Ira Cohen when he was in Tangier--so realized that the international publications aren't listed. But that would involve another volume, perhaps.

This book has more than 300 pages full of listings and brief descriptions--well worth the read, at least the purchase. I stumble across the book once a day and find something new. I call this requisite reading for any beat library.

--Mary Sands