Between the Covers

Softcover. Magazine. Quartos. Loose mimeograph sheets top- or side-stapled and printed on both sides. Most issued folded for mailing with post office cancel, stamp and mailing label, along with some toning (as usual), scattered edgewear, and four tiny holes along the spine of the issues 3-30, overall very good. An influential mimeograph published by LeRoi Jones [Amiri Baraka] and Diane di Prima featuring some of the most important poets of the 20th Century. Unlike other magazines, this so-called "newsletter" was distributed via a closed mailing list that included many noted poets, journalists, critics, publishers, and artists. For this reason, most copies were hand addressed or affixed with a mailing label and stamp, and folded for mailing. This near-complete run lacks only the first two issues and the rare issue 24. It contains a virtual who's who of 1960s poetry that mixed contributors from the San Francisco and New York scenes along with Warhol's Factory regulars (such as Billy Name, who co-edited two issues), as well as numerous experimental and avant-garde writers including Allen Ginsberg, Charles Olson, William S. Burroughs, Frank O'Hara, Ed Dorn, Robert Creeley, Robert Duncan, John Weiners, John Ashbery, and many, many others. Also included is an original *Floating Bear* mailing envelope and two scarce promotional broadsheets sent to subscribers between issues 36 and 37. One is for the new Poet's Press books and another titled, "Attention, Floating Bear Fans and Addicts," laments the magazine's dire financial situation and its impending end if funding is not found; the following issue was the last of the run. An influential close-circulation magazine that is now considered one of the finest of the Mimeograph Revolution.

Item #365893