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Robert Grenier papers, M1082. Dept. of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, Calif.
Purchased, 1999. Accession 1999-174
Includes notebooks, 1968-1994; correspondence, 1948-1999; manuscripts by others, 1950-1999; Grenier's youth, 1941-1965; lectures, 1981-1998; critical writings, 1960-1998; poetry manuscripts, 1966-1998; book manuscripts, 1967-1997; histories of making/production of five Grenier works, 1971-1997; journal articles, 1959-1998; color slides (1,285) of "rhymms" project; signed copies of published works, 1967-1998; "rhymms" teaching materials, 1968-1992; and audiotapes of poets reading their works from Grenier's collection, 1958-1974.
This electronic finding aid has been derived from a paper finding aid by Robert Grenier. All stylistic errors in this finding aid result from the inability of encoding to accurately represent the structure of Robert Grenier's original finding aid and are not the work of the author.
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.
RG's Notebooks date from 1968 through 1994 and are divided into two subseries. Subseries 1 is a listing of RG's Notebooks from 1968-1989 and consists of 87 individual notebooks. Subseries 2 is a supplementary inventory of RG Notebooks dating from 1989-1994 (see Series I, Subseries 2 for a more detailed description). In general the Notebooks are identified by label (to the best of RG's ability, by internal references and occasional explicit dates) by date of composition, period of RG's writing and place of composition (e.g. "September 1972, Sentences period, Franconia, NH"). Notebooks are of varying sizes, with those of 150 sheets, 5 1/2" by 9 1/2" being most common. Notebooks are commonly filled on both sides of the sheets and for the most part contain RG's poems and occasional critical writings. There are some drawings and collaborative ventures by various hands (e.g. Anselm Hollo, John Bátki). The Notebooks listed in Subseries 1 are usually written in ink of one color those listed in Subseries 2 are commonly written in green, blue, black and red ink.
The first of ten (5 1/2" by 8 1/2") notebooks from RG's ongoing color holograph drawing poem project, "rhymms", dated/chronologized and counted (by pages of text ("pp."))
Written in Berkeley, northern Minnesota & Bolinas, CA (RG moved to Bolinas in September 1989) , containing poems in Minnesota (0 Books, 1991, see Preliminary Inventory, section XII.O.) & RG's first color drawing poems (155 pp. total)
Written in Bolinas (211 pp. total)
Written in Bolinas (131 pp. total)
Written in Bolinas, containing title image reproduced on green r h y m m s box cover & red tracing of RG's right hand designed for inside r h y m m s box back cover & other poems (178 pp. total)
Written in Bolinas (198 pp. total)
Written in Bolinas (148 pp. total)
Written in Bolinas (112 pp. total)
Written in Bolinas, containing "BJELDANES SERIES" (see Preliminary Inventory, sections VI.C.16. & X.BC.) & other poems (217 pp. total)
Written in Bolinas (229 pp. total)
Written in Bolinas, containing poems in :that:, No. 24 (August 1994) (see Preliminary Inventory, section VIII.W.) & other poems (143 pp. total)
Pub.in CB.'s Content's Dream (Sun & Moon Press, 1986)
Published in CB's Content's Dream (Sun & Moon, 1986)
Pub. in CB's Content's Dream (Sun & Moon, 1986)
Delivered at 80 Langton Street in San Francisco in January 1983, containing exchange w/ RG re irony in CB's work, pub. in CB's Content's Dream (Sun & Moon, 1986)
(discovered by RG February 1999, possibly only copy)
Part of September 2, 1993 ceremony in which JK, RG, Bill Berkson & Bill Beckman scattered JB's ashes into Pacific at Agate Beach, Bolinas
w/ DB & RG holograph changes
Pub. by X Press (1992)
Pub. in Hills, No. 9 (1981)
Pub. in Interruptions (1994)
Pub. in The Difficulties, No. 3 (1987)
Pub. by e.g. editions, 1986
Pub. in DB's Desire (Black Sparrow, 1988)
Pub. in RG's Phantom Anthems (0 Books, 1986)
Pub. in DB's Men, Women & Vehicles (Black Sparrow, 1990)
Inscribed for RG, pub. in DB's Desire (Black Sparrow, 1988)
Pub. in Magill's Literary Encyclopedia
(xerox from Magill's Literary Encyclopedia)
Pub. as A Twybl Broadside
Enclosing xerox of two poems from Sulfur (1989?), "BY DRAWING A LINE" & "A SET OF TWELVE"
Pub. in DB's The Harbormaster of Hong Kong (Sun & Moon Press, 1993)
Pub. in DB's The Harbormaster of Hong Kong (Sun & Moon, 1993)
Pub. in DB's A CAST OF TENS (Avec Books, 1994)
Some of which were pub. in DB's The Harbormaster of Hong Kong (Sun & Moon, 1993)
Written for DB's class
Enclosing DB print-outs of poems to be included in A CAST OF TENS (Avec, 1994) , "Of Billions" & "To--"
Pub. in 50: A Celebration of Sun & Moon Classics, ed. Douglas Messerli (Sun & Moon, 1995)
By DB, RG & Cecelia Belle Bromige (DB's wife) (unfinished).
From Contemporary Authors Autobiography Series, Vol. 26 (Gale Research, 1997) w/ photo of DB & RG
To be pub. in DB's book As In T As In Tethered (Chax Press, 2002) w/ introduction by RG
Pub. by The Alternative Press
By Joanne Kyger, Stephen Ratcliffe, Diana Middleton-McQuaid, Steve Tills & RG (from Bolinas)
w/ unknown person's drawing of RC (from SUNY/Buffalo? when?)
Contains LE holograph poem inscribed at inserted sheet ("cave/plowing/flying/head/tongue/space/upon time//// throats"--pub. in the 7)
(need to be checked against LE archive material--'new' poems here?)
Ed. Benjamin Friedlander (Roof Books, 1989)
(Pub. in Conjunctions, Spring 1995)
re Leslie Scalapino's introduction to RG's WHAT I BELIEVE TRANSPIRATION / TRANSPIRING MINNESOTA (0 Books, 1991)
Pub. by (Gale Research?)
Pub. in The Poetry Project Newsletter, No. 161 (1996 Apr - 1996 May)
(1st being purple creature, on cover of this 1 (1971))
story & pictures by Crockett Johnson (Scholastic Book Services, 1973)
(authors' edition, Manhattan Beach, CA, 1958)
A paper prepared for presentation at the Annual Conference of the Pacific Coast Branch, American Historical Association, Stanford University, 1985 June 28.
Pub. by Sun & Moon Press (1987), inscribed to RG & KF
re My Life & LH work generally
Inscribed "THANKS/&/GIVING,/at McGee Manor--/Big Love, to All In There:/Anselm 1 Dec 85", pub. by Coffee House Press (1987)
Many of which later occur in O'CLOCK (Reality Street Editions, 1995)
Pub. by Tuumba Press (1982)
Pub. by bp eight: dialogue press, lawrence, kansas, inscribed to RG (Oct. 64)
Sent RG by KI from Wild Dog 19/20 (Dec 1965)
Discovered & sent to RG by KI accompanied by KI holograph letter, 28 Jan 96
(many of these pub. in RELATION (Black Sparrow, 1970) & CATALPA (Tansy Press, 1977))
KI trans. of Pasternak poem "AFTER THE STORM"
w/note to Bob & Emily
Enclosing xerox of KI's "SOME NOTES ON GERRIT LANSING'S THE HEAVENLY TREE GROWS DOWNWARD" (KI ts.), pub. in CREDENCES, Vol. 2, Nos. 3-4 (March 1978)
w/ poem beginning "The bell of a train passing...", w/ KI holograph addition
Inscribed for RG (KI ts.), pub. in CALL STEPS (Station Hill/Tansy, 1992)
Inscribed for RG & KF, both later pub. in CALL STEPS (Station Hill/Tansy, 1992)
AS YET UNTITLED" (Later/pub. as CALL STEPS Station Hill/Tansy, 1992), dated November 1981 & inscribed for Bob & Kathleen, 1 DEC 81 (xerox of KI ts.)
(different version pub. as The Zelot, No. 4 (January 1982))
Inscribed for Bob & Kathleen (xerox of KI ts.)
Enclosing xerox of KI ts. of "ARCHIPELAGO/part one of the ms. of a book of poems 1974-1976 as yet untitled", inscribed to RG (KI notes "revised in a few places from the Tuumba version (ARCHIPELAGO, Tuumba Press, 1976), & some additions, too")
& xerox of KI ts. of KI's edition of MARY BUTTS POEMS /TYPESCRIPTS FROM NOTEBOOKS (unpublished as of 3/1/99)
Inscribed for RG, DEC 1984
Enclosing xerox of KI ts. of KI review/article "ROBERT DUNCAN. Ground Work: Before the War", inscribed for RG
Inscribed for RG, August 1985
Inscribed for Bob & Kathleen
Inscribed for Bob & Kathleen
Inscribed for Bob & Kathleen SEP 86
Inscribed for Bob & Kathleen, "to go w/ those of 22 JUL & 13-14 SEP 86"
Enclosing KI holograph worksheet & xerox of KI ts. draft of review, "Robert Duncan. Ground Work II: In the Dark"
Containing Robert Creeley's "Wisdom as Such: In Respect of Robert Duncan" & KI's pub. version of review, "ROBERT DUNCAN. Ground Work II: In the Dark"
Inscribed for RG SEP 89
w/ KI poem beginning "The students from Cracow leave..." & "POINT REYES POEM, 2", w/ notice of KI reading at Bolinas Library, June 21, 1990
w/ xerox of DR poem, "Mr. Peacock"
(xerox), inscribed for RG, August 1993 (pub. in Sulfur magazine)
(xerox of KI ts.), inscribed for RG, FEB 1994
Inscribed for RG, FEB 1997
Inscribed for RG, FEB 1997
(xeroxed from RILKE'S DUINO ELEGIES: CAMBRIDGE READINGS (Duckworth & Ariadne Press, 1996))
Inscribed "for Bob - to Greet Spring!"
w/ notice of large broadside poem "Through the Manacle" by RG, illustrated in letterpress & pochoir by Frances Butler, pub. by Poltroon Press in 1985, w/ photo of broadside work (see broadside in XII.L. below)
Pub. in San Francisco Chronicle (1991)
Signed by JK w/ Donald Guravich original holograph drawing
w/ ML holographic corrections
Requesting back-cover note for JM book of poems, WEST OF MASS (enclosed)
Enclosing xeroxes of passages relating to Egyptian "Ka" from Henri Frankfort's Kingship & the Gods & Budge trans. of The Book of the Dead
One, "Atlantis", pub. in this 5 (winter 1974)
BP address, "60 Kinnaird St.", indicates Cambridge, MA period (early 1970's), one, "Sentences", pub. in this 5 (winter 1974)
(1st 3 of these works were published in BP's 7 WORKS (The Figures, 1978))
Pub. in CREDENCES 7 (February 1979)
(draft of Spring-Summer 1993)
(SR DBaft, not final version)
Pub. by 0 Books (1990) w/ RG marginal notations
Some pub. in KR's RIDDLE ROAD (Tuumba Press, 1982):
Some pub. in KR's COVERS (The Figures, 1988)
Enclosing xerox of KR ts. of KR essay "The Gaiety of Language and the American Sublime" re Wallace Stevens' writing (from May 1986)
Pub. by Potes & Poets Press (1991)
Pub. by North Point Press (1988)
Pub. by North Point Press (1991)
Pub. by North Point Press (1991)
Pub. by North Point Press (1991), w/ LS ts. letter to RG, February 19, 1990
w/ xerox of LS letter to Shauna O'Donnell re "THE PRESENT", October 14, 1991
Collected in LS's Objects in the Terrifying Tense / Longing from Taking Place (Roof Books, 1993)
Pub. in LS's Objects in the Terrifying Tense / Longing from Taking Place (Roof, 1993)
w/ LS ts. letter to RG, June 17, 1992
w/ RG jottings on passages pertaining to RG (?) from LS essay "The Present"
w/ LS holograph letter to RG, August 24, 1993
w/ LS holograph note to RG dated "day after Thanksgiving" (1997?)
Consists of JS holograph letter to RG & notes, December 11, 1996.
(RS not officially enrolled in RG's Advanced Poetry Writing, but came regularly to RG's office hours)
(w/ RS holograph/drawing note to RG re poems Fall 1969)
Re enclosed RS ts. letter to Douglas Messerli, October 19, 1985 re RS dispute w/ DM re DM's projected "Language" poetry anthology (xeroxes)
While student at UC/Berkeley (for RG's Advanced Poetry Writing course)
Written while student at Iowa Writers Workshop:
Used by RG as reference material for courses at Franconia College
Contains fragment of exchange between Clark Coolidge & BW, October 16, 1975 (xerox)
Pub. in L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E, Vol. 1, No. 5 (October 1978)
Made for Kris Hemmensley in Australia
Re ms. of RG's TRANSPIRATION/TRANSPIRING sent GY
Proposing RG participation in show of works on paper, "ART WRITING" & postcard noticing actual show (which included RG's OWL/ON/BOU/GH, Post-Apollo Press, 1997)
Pub. in Jimmy & Lucy's House of "K", No. 5 (1985)
Re RG color drawing poems from "rhymms" project (unpublished)
w/ RG holograph notations (xerox), pub. in Jimmy & Lucy's House of "K", No. 6 (1986)
From unpublished book of DB criticism
w/ extensive RG holograph notations (unpublished)
as pub. in Writers, The Newsletter of The New York State Writers Institute, Vol. 10, No. 1 (Fall 1994)
(xerox) (unpublished)
w/ work by RG, "From the Language Poets":
w/ notice of RG's work
Pub. in the Newsletter of the Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church (date?)
Scheduled for pub. in RG issue of BURL, ed. David Baptiste Chirot (never appeared).
As pub. in The Daily Iowan (U. of Iowa campus paper), January 1971 (?)
w/ work by RG from ca. 1986, pub. in The American Book Review (n.d.)
w/ extensive RG holograph annotations (xerox), scheduled for pub. in RG issue of BURL, ed. David Baptiste Chirot (never appeared)
Re AG essay
As pub. in Score Review, No. 10 (1987?), ed. Crag Hill
w/ RG pencil annotations, as pub. in Poetics Journal, No. 7 (1986) (xerox)
On RG's work, w/ extensive RG holograph annotations
Returning BP chapter & commenting on same.
Pub. in Witz (Spring 1996) w/ extensive RG holograph annotations
Written to announce publication of book, w/ RG holograph annotations
Enclosing LS notes on "Robert Grenier's Colored 'Scrawl' in Xerox" (LS print-out)
unpublished
Print-out from 0 Books website, together w/ Leslie Scalapino's introduction to RG's What I Believe Transpiration/Transpiring Minnesota.
(written while graduate student in poetics at SUNY/Buffalo)
(unpublished?)
Sent RG in 1979 (xerox)
And especially BP's discussion of RG's work therein, in chapter "Here and Now on Paper", as pub. in The Impercipient Lecture Series, Vol. 1, No. 4 (May 1977)
As pub. in The Harvard Advocate, Vol. 101, No. 3 (December 1967)
Version of ST essay "On Grenier's A Day at the Beach" w/ ST holograph annotations. Scheduled for pub. in Score, ed. Crag Hill (when?)
Includes juvenilia, high school, college and family material documenting RG's upbringing and experience in Minnesota and years at Harvard College.
Photo taken when RG was 17 days old.
Photo from the Minneapolis Tribune.
The "highest building in the Upper Midwest" at the base of which RG's father, Judson A. Grenier, had his home office (Studebaker-Packard Corp.) in the 1950's.
RG went up 2-3 times a year for fishing opening & summer vacations: important spirit place.
Purportedly from one "Algenon" (signed "Algenon").
Questionable if this letter was ever posted
RG's first published writing, appeared in Gems (Minneapolis English Teachers' Club, 1959) (see 12th Grade section below).
Clippings are in regard to the Roosevelt basketball team w/ photo of RG (second-string point guard) & Official Program of Twin City Basketball Championship
Sponsored by American Legion, at U. of Minnesota Farm Campus w/ RG 'in middle'.
Discusses Roosevelt basketball team's season (RG starting point guard, All-City & All-District 17) & Roosevelt golf team (RG fourth in state tournament) & Official Program of Minneapolis High School Basketball Tournament.
(graduation issue), w/ notice of Senior Prom, Sallie Quan & RG's Citizenship Awards (w/ photo), SQ & RG's Scholarship Awards (Western & Harvard) (w/photo), Senior Train Ride, RG's 4th place finish in, State Golf Meet & RG's Athlete of the Year Award (w/ photo).
Written 1958, pub. in Gems, Vol. 3 (Minneapolis English Teachers' Club, May 1959).
Occurred in Massachusetts in November 1977 during brief reunion (after almost 20 years).
From The Carthage Press, 1964, and contains Poems for Gordon Cairnie, w/ RG's "Song" (noted in Monitor article).
Notice for the year 1964 - 1965.
The Media materials require at least two weeks' advance notice to use in order to allow staff time to have use copies made from the original items.
Containing AJ transcript of conversation "TYPEWRITER v. TYPEFACE/...AN INTERVIEW WITH POET ROBERT GRENIER..." w/ photo of RG's SENTENCES (Whale Cloth Press, 1978) (17 pp. total)
Some pub. in Selected Poems: Georg Trakl (Jonathan Cape, 1968), ed. Christopher Middleton.
Regarding this & that & asking for contribution to this 1 w/ RG poems from. "Fall/Winter Family Home", pub. in Series (This Press, 1978).
(speaking to CF's writing & soliciting contribution to this 1, w/ RG poems from "Fall/Winter Family Home" & commentary thereon)
A Symposium on Clark Coolidge, ed. Ron Silliman, & in IN THE AMERICAN TREE (National Poetry Foundation, 1986), ed. Ron Silliman.
(apparently designed for L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E magazine feature on LE, Feb. 1978, but doesn't appear there--Why?)(unpublished?)
(intended for L=A=N=G=U=A=GE magazine but unpublished)
(unpublished; declined by Poetry Flash w/out acknowledgement of receipt of ts.)
(bad 'translation' into a conventional format)
(i.e. poem as it should appear)(see IX.C.II below)
Written at beach near Pigeon Point in San Mateo County re method of poems in A Day At The Beach (Roof Books, 1985) & Costanoans/possible archaic sources.
Pub. in Jimmy & Lucy's House of "K", No. 4 (1985)
(apparently unpublished, though possibly intended for Irby issue of some magazine?)
(see two KR/RG Conversations in V.C. above)
re LH text My Life & recent LH poems
(unsatisfactory attempt to 'translate' holograph Drawing poems from start of r h y m m s project to ts.: ms. had to be ts. to be 'poems' for purposes of application)
Proposing both RG selection of 10 pp. for anthology & that RG send "selection, however large or small, of ... new work"
(unfortunately not used by KS, for reasons unspecified)
(reprinted, w/ additional text, in LS's Objects in the Terrifying Tense / Longing from Taking Place, Roof Books, 1993)
(unpublished?)
(see V.A.26, V.C.15 above)
Re inclusion of RG material there.
Pub. in 0, No. 4 (1993) (Subliminal Time), ed. Leslie Scalapino & reprinted in: that:, Second Series, No. 1 (1996) as part of "GRENIER TALK"
Re 'sonata form'/3-line stanzas.
Re CB's Content's Dream (Sun & Moon Press, 1986)
Re CB's Artifice of Absorption (Paper Air, 1987)
Re CB's Dark City (Sun & Moon Press, 1994)
(book never appeared)
(unpublished)
Written for Small Press Distribution catalogue.
Pub. in Laura Moriarty's online zine non 2
(unpublished)
(photo found by Emily Lord on trash night in Newtonville, MA)
Working from RG ms. then called "Coming and Going" (see VIII.C. below), partially realized, w/ photo of Emily, Bob & daughter Amy at Big Sur, July 4, 1968
Mostly unpublished/ transitional poems between Dusk Road Games & Series (some in Series), written 1967-68 in England, Iowa & northern California
Being an expanded version of Coming and Going (see VIII.C. above)
Many pub. in Series (This Press, 1978), written 1969-70 in northern California & travelling cross-country to & from New England
('UR' version/first draft), poems by RG/watercolors by Amy Grenier, written October 1969 - May 1970 during a number of day trips from Berkeley to Pacific beaches near Pigeon Point in San Mateo County (beginnings of project culminating in RG's completely different book, A Day At The Beach, Roof Books, 1985) (unpublished)
('UR' version/final draft), poems by RG (only), in two vols., being an expanded version of material in VIII.F. above, written October 1969 -January 1971, San Mateo beaches/Berkeley/New Hampshire/ Gloucester (unpublished)
RG poems written in Lanesville, MA, collected in Series (This Press, 1978)
In Franconia College printshop (see magazine in X.BF.2. below)
Produced as half-tones at Littleton Courier shop in Littleton, NH & occurring in sequence in this, No. 2
In Franconia College printshop, typed on IBM Executive typewriter in President Leon Botstein's office (see magazine in X.BF.3. below)
Being RG selection from work written 1967 - 1971, w/ 3 cover designs for book by RG, John Bátki & Francie Shaw (Francie's was used) & 4 photomat shots of RG from early 1970's (n.b. a 'thing'/make facsimile edition)
Discussing page design & enclosing a number of possible cover designs by RG & John Bátki (none used)
Mostly unpublished/transitional poems (a few in RG's SENTENCES), written March/April 1971 in Lanesville, MA
Containing some pub. work ("Sticky Fingers" occurs in Series, a few poems in SENTENCES), very 'upbeat' overall
(i.e., selection attributed to RC, all evidence of RG editing/making of book omitted, RG introduction dropped, crucial sequence of poems altered by art dept. etc.) (xerox of October 19, 1976 letter)
Unique in RG's work for its narrative structure, pub. in this, No. 7 (Spring 1976), ed. Barrett Watten
Pub. as Fascicle 28 in A Curriculum Of The Soul series (The Institute Of Further Studies, 1985)
--RG holograph first draft (ca. September 1984). --RG ts. second draft w/ holograph revisions (Sept. '84). --RG ts. third draft w/ holograph revisions (Sept. '84). --RG ts. fourth draft w/ holograph revisions (Sept. '84). --Xerox of RG fifth draft w/ Barrett Watten (co-editor of Poetics Journal) holograph suggested revisions & RG holograph note concerning same/withdrawal of ms.
--Jack Clarke ts. letter to RG, March 24, 1984, proposing RG write Attention fascicle for A Curriculum Of The Soul. --JC ts. letter to RG, April 5, 1984, confirming same. --Xerox of RG holograph letter to JC, October 22, 1984, commenting on & enclosing. --RG ts. of "ATTENTION or NARRATION / NARRATION AS ATTENTION / SEVEN NARRATIVES" (w/ xerox of same). --JC ts. letter to RG, January 27, 1985 re ms. --JC holograph postcard to RG, February 13, 1985, conveying Albert Glover ok to publish essay. --Albert Glover ts. letter to RG, June 31, 1985. --AG ts. letter to RG, August 1985, enclosing 10 copies of Attention / Seven Narratives. --AG ts. letter to RG, August 30, 1985 re Curriculum Of The Soul project. --Signed copy of Attention / Seven Narratives fascicle.
(designed to contain ca. 90 color xerox images of RG holograph drawing poems from 1989 on)
Master' for box lid (w/ xerox images of same), used for box production.
Enclosing corrected first proofs & letter to person setting text, Sasha X.
Translating typewriter spacing to letterpress & system of Larry Eigner's poems
(unpublished as of April 1999)(for Leslie Scalapino), written/gathered in 1993 as an investigation/demonstration of some meanings/uses of strange word 'that' (& as a commentary on Leslie Scalapino's writing as well)
(w/ Fanny Howe holograph comment on work to this point)
(publish this version, exactly as shown, as offset/xerox edition, if time comes...)
Ed. Stephen Ellis & Stephen Dignazio
Combining citations from Defoe (Sun & Moon Press, 1994) w/ RG observations, Wanda Landowska liner notes, poems by Whitman & Williams, RG color holograph drawing poems & other materials.
(publish this version, exactly as shown, as offset/xerox edition, if time comes...)
From Karl Young's Light & Dust website, w/ Karl Young introduction.
Comment: Beginning w/ the (unpublished) 'UR' version of ms. called A DAY AT THE BEACH (see VIII.F. & G. above), one can see RG beginning to recognize/zero in on the material conditions/situation of writing as the 'place' of 'literature' (doubtless influenced by William Carlos Williams' mysterious emphasis on whatever is the 'local' & by 'opening his eyes'), both as regards writing directly from noticing what's 'going on' & in re having a regard for the literal/physical agencies used (notebooks, pens, etc.) to 'say something' into existence & to translate/ manifest 'same' into (further) public existence: there's responsibility to carry the thing through from start to finish, so that whatever it is can be whatever it is (including this inventory). Therefore, a (good!) case can be made that each work 'exists' here (in this Archive) in the facts of its making (see esp. IX.B. below) as well as in its eventual result (for which, see section XII below, RG Published Works). Material records of RG's making of CAMBRIDGE M'ASS should be here, except there's no 'history' (but see VII.M. & N. above) since large offset master was devoured in printing process (unless preserved in archives of Lyn Hejinian's Tuumba Press?) More importantly, RG's approximately 90 4-color holograph drawing poem notebooks from 1989 - 1999 (& continuing) must be here, eventually, as artifacts/'the thing itself' because of problems/expense of various techniques of 'reproduction' (but see slides in section XI. below) & because drawn image in notebook now is 'what it is' ! The main thing is recognition that something is 'said' & 'exists' exactly in that form entirely: e.g. IBM.
Selectric typewriter image (like this one) or in RG Drawing 'hand' writing. Similar histories could be developed based on RG's commitment to a 'craft ethic'/ making of various other works in this Archive, e.g. attention to particulars of transcription of taped sounds in many of the materials in V.C. above (e.g., see stuff re RG Conversation w/ David Bromige in V.C.7. above) & attention to particulars of translation of notebook drawing poems to magazine presentation/format in re production of RG issue of :that:, No. 24 (VIII.W. above).
In what follows, short descriptions of the works noted are succeeded by accounts of Archive materials related thereto and brief commentaries on the whole business.
SENTENCES was designed/produced by RG & pub. by Michael Waltuch (Whale Cloth Press, 1978) in an edition of 200 (numbered) copies. It's 500 5" by 8" index cards w/ centered RG poems on them (in effect, as an 'invented form', giving back to the Oxford Index Card Company the 500 index cards that one bought, except w/ poems on them) 'bound' in a folding Chinese (Hong Kong/common) box, blue (then inexpensive/purchased through MW 'connection' through Harvard Far East Studies/Widener Library where he worked), widely used for loose-leaved materials. It was (offset) printed by the Harvard University Press (which was a 'gas' to RG at the time) directly from RG IBM Selectric (Courier 72/10 pitch) typewriter images & collated by RG, MW, John Bátki & students in JB's fiction writing class at Harvard College in the Spring of 1978 (by going round & round the stacks of 506 on seminar tables) as a 'lesson to them'.
"Sentences rejects (Oct. 26/77)", being 160 cards (80 poems + duplicates) & "Sentences rejects / 11/30/77", being 126 cards (63 poems + duplicates)
(where RG taught, 1971-76)
Are 'works in themselves'/alternate material embodiments of SENTENCES text which were shown by Bob Perelman in San Francisco on July 14, 1977 to interested persons at the beginning of the Language Writing scene in SF & again shown & interpreted by RG during RG talk series "Language/Site/ World" in SF in Fall 1982 (see V.A.3 & V.C.2 above)
COMMENT: SENTENCES was written over a 7-year period, beginning in Spring 1971 in Lanesville (Gloucester), MA (during/after completion of RG's Series, see RG ts. in VIII.K. above) & continuing/focussing into itself in Franconia & Sugar Hill, NH (where RG went to teach at Franconia College, Fall 1971-Spring 1976) (increasingly bearing direct relation to/seeming 'of'/'from' that isolate/clearly defined/attractive but repugnant/silent/'substantial' but elusive/cold/'compelling'/dreamily beautiful & strange-place (e.g. hot day jumping off granite boulders into freezing Pemigewasset/swimming to live to shore), where words (if words) were (equally) solitary/as if composed entirely of particular ('solid') letters made into words, which were 'of the place' but 'only of language itself' at the same time), w/ a few from Oakland & Bolinas, CA & some (later ones) from RG's residency in Cambridge, MA (Fall 1976-Spring 1978). It's an attempt to 'stop Time'/'destroy the Book' in reaction to method (apparently achieved/'over with') of Robert Creeley's beloved Pieces (or, e.g., "Sticky Fingers" in RG's own Series) (see RG note on Pieces in VI.C. 4 above), to let each (anything) be that one (& not 'rush on'), but it still has to do w/ time w/in/across each letter-made poem but (almost/as if) just moving left-to-right cross space (as in poem "kept on going to the corner store") & also ends up being an 'investigation of narrative structure' (despite avowed (?)/apparent attempt to eschew such) (various 'stories' must be made by each reader, seeing different one-after-the-others by turning cards to read, loose-leaved cards) (see Ron Silliman's review of this work in III.B.22 above) & 'continuation of the story' 'of Bob, Emily & Amy' going on in RG's long poem, "Fall/ Winter Family Home" in Series, except different stories/thousands of them happen necessarily & continuingly/ continuously (potentially) or 'happen at once'. The form of SENTENCES has a lot to do w/ the IBM Selectric Typewriter, which was the 'Office Machine' in the early 1970's--i.e. one could see every word composed of equal ('width' & 'value') letters (see RG Conversation w/ Alastair Johnston in V.C.5. above) & led to 'early recognition' of principle-becoming-innate-recognition of counting letters as compositional method (see Ron Silliman emphasis on 'balance' in review of SENTENCES noted above) (out of Louis Zukofsky's line determined by # of words in the late A?). After much other stuff, this noticing of space (long after the typewriter) & writing in space has everything to do w/ RG's color holograph drawing poem project, r h y m m s. SENTENCES weighs about 6 pounds. In that sense, as something 'wanting to join nature by writing itself', it anyway attains mass/weight briefly.
Cards typed by RG in Tufts U. English Dept. Office (via old RG teaching connection) on brand spanking new Selectric, as noted above, destroyed in production process (but see A.5. above). So be it! The 'gradual genesis' of the work itself can be traced, from RG notebooks of the period (in section I. above) through RG ts. versions (in IX.A.l-5. above). RG thanks Michael Waltuch.
RG's work typing typewritten mss. by Larry Eigner/copying these for (potential) publication must be noted here too, beginning in Fall/Winter 1970-71, as drawing RG's literal attention to 'literature' w/in field of typewriter page.
A DAY AT THE BEACH was designed/typed by RG, produced by Diane Ward (as a 70% reduction/offset from RG Selectric ts. images) & pub. by James Sherry's Roof Books in NYC in 1985 (says '1984' on copyright page but issued in early 1985) in a edition of 1000 (600?/RG's records show both) paperback copies, w/ photos of RG at beach on inside covers by Donald Guravich. It's 216 poems arranged (3 per page/6 on facing pages) on 6" by 10" pages, organized in 3 sections ("Morning", "Midday" & "Afternoon/Evening") w/ 72 poems each, making an account of an imaginary 'day' which moves through time but preserves/ opens multiple narrative possibilities (depending on how each reader 'travels' through 6 texts on facing pages), w/ 8 'testamonials' to work on back cover.
COMMENT: A DAY THE BEACH/the present text, as chronicled in the materials above, was written 1980-1982 (probably also some from 1979, see RG Notebooks in section I. above), but its 'roots' go back, for RG, to waking up in the morning in Minnesota & looking to the West (the Norwegian side of RG's family had indeed 'gone West' (Augusta Bjeldanes was born in Oregon) but been driven back to Norwegian town of Madison, MN (almost on South Dakota border, west of RG's suburban home in Minneapolis) & RG's older brother, Judd, 'went West' from the U. of Minnesota to the U. of Cal. in Berkeley to 'graduate school' + everyone wanted to 'go West': for RG, to physically arrive at the/land's end/ water barrier, the Pacific Ocean--there, doubtless, was 'Life'/the 'second Nature' one was born for! And so (despite evidently being 'influenced' heavily by family matters & historical conditions) it has proved to be!
Louis Zukofsky writes 'somewhere' "the lowly do not tune the senses' (quoting/translating someone?) (& this is 'a representative instance' of RG's 'scholarship'/laziness), but in fact RG has, over many years, beginning in 1968 (in complete consternation re what 'writing is', as shown in ms. in VII.A above) by getting out of town/driving out of Berkeley/U.C. west & south & exploring different ways to get to the beach/beaches/trails & what it 'felt like there' / what was 'interesting about it'. Rolling over & over in sand, swimming, writing "SAND" in the 'sand', was fun & a useful learning experience/combined w/ RG's daughter Amy's early language speaking & made the (all-too-readable) 'UR' version of A DAY AT THE BEACH (see VIII.F. & G. above), deservedly unpublished but bearing clear signs of a refocussing of attention/usage.
Going back & back to the 'same beach' again (after a move back West in 1978 w /Amy), between Pigeon Point & Ano Neuvo Island in San Mateo County, on innumberable day trips from Oakland & Berkeley --bringing the 'method' forged in SENTENCES this time/language phenomena attention to what's going on--produced better results, if RG may say so. Important for writer to 'have a vocabulary'.
Going back & back to the World, then, was established as a 'procedure' during this period (still going on, in RG day trips to RCA beach in Bolinas, 1999).
The 'achieved Result' here is the ts./ms. in B.8. above, from which a facsimile edition should be made in time.
Structurally, one can see further RG attempt (after OAKLAND (see XII.H below) & CAMBRIDGE M'ASS (XII.G.)), to reinhabit space/'format' of the 'book'/while allowing individual poems the 'whole world' they had in SENTENCES. This involved inventing a page design which would allow 6 individual poems on facing pages to be themselves AND 'telling a story' (or others making a 'story' otherwise) left-to-right/top-to-bottom & be history of an imagined 'day' (which is only turning pages of book themselves), in dutiful reading of imaginary facts of that place. (Some, in fact, were written back home in Berkeley.)
Also, it's an investigation of possible 'times in the work' (see RG Reading & Discussion of A Day At The Beach in V.A.4. & V.C.3. above), an investigation of narrative including 3 different 'times'. (?)
Seeking to write what happens at the edge of the World (see Robert Creeley note in III.B.7. above).
"Fall/Winter Family Home" in RG's Series (made of 4 poems on 2 facing pages) provided RG w/ instigation/inspiration.
w/ RG holograph note "NARRATION / for Bernadette Mayer" re time in the 'day' written on outside of envelope (155 pp. total)
Written on top, containing 386 RG Selectric ts. poems centered on 386 5" by 8" index cards.
Includes other information re design of the work written on top, containing 216 RG Selectric ts. poems centered on 216 5" by 8" index cards (219 cards total w/ section headings), numbered on backs, w/ top card inside bearing RG holograph note outlining design of "BEACH POEM" (being RG preliminary model for book eventually produced)
216 poems arranged (3 per page) on 72 8½" by 14" pages, w/ section headings (80 pp. total), stapled in brown covers (produced by RG on Kodak copier in Berkeley & given to friends) (RARE / SAVE !)
Reproduction of Roof Books edition of A DAY AT THE BEACH, enclosing Charles Bernstein xerox reduction from RG-produced 1st edition (in B.5. above) toward 6" by 9" Roof format then under consideration (too small!)
Regarding legibility problems ensuing from reduction to 70% from RG-produced masters for 1st edition, acknowledging agreed-upon 6" by 10" page format (a compromise/RG wanted 6" by 11"), enclosing 2 sample pages (1 typeset) & proposing to resolve problems by typesetting ms. (RG wanted to preserve typewriter spacing which, after basis established in SENTENCES, was then crucial to thinking/ procedure in RG poems, & so set about re-typing whole ms. w/ bigger letter images on better Selectric, see B.8. below)
(much better / decision to make book with these)
Enclosing 8 'testamonials' to work (compiled by RG from solicited statements & letters previously sent RG re 1st ed.) for use on back cover + Donald Guravich photos for inside covers (9 pp. total)
Enclosing page proofs for book (text & photos, w/ RG holograph annotations), DW holograph letter to RG, November 16, 1984 re cover colors & DW holograph letter to RG, December 13, 1984 (on back of further proofs of photos for inside covers) (89 pp. total)
Enclosing contract for book (written contract needed for National Endowment for the Arts grant purposes)
re contract
re contract
(RG has in his possession contract signed by both RG & JS w/ "600 copies" changed to "1000 copies", apparently by JS holograph .
PHANTOM ANTHEMS was designed/typed & produced by RG (as an 82% reduction/offset from RG Selectric ts. images) & pub. by Leslie Scalapino's 0 Books (as the 1st 0 Books book) & RG in 1986 in an edition of 1,000 (unnumbered) paperback copies (LS financed the 1st 600/RG the remainder), w/ covers designed by LS. It was written between 1982 & 1986 & consists of 118 poems variously arranged on 7½" by 9" acid-free pages in 9 sections (112 pp. total)
COMMENT: To RG's surprise, although some poems in PHANTOM ANTHEMS echoed the methods/concerns of those in A DAY AT THE BEACH & a few were written in late afternoon/early evening (in westward-facing grasslands in the Berkeley hills), most were written indoors/in the kitchen at 2338 McGee Ave., Berkeley on loose 8½" by 11" sheets of paper (rather than the various notebooks which had been (& are now again) the basis of RG's practice) between 4 & 7 in the morning, in a condition of exhaustion/exasperation & (even) 'moral outrage' recovering as possible from RG's night shift as a legal proofreader in the 'belly of the beast' (which 'organ' was 25 floors in the air in the San Francisco financial district, a 'skyscraper' w/ sealed/plate glass 'views' of the very Bay Area 'real estate' the language of capitalism RG was helping to repair/activate (e.g. in shopping center leases) was gathering itself through the night into a sticky mass of Jaundice & Jarndyce-like provisions & provisos to utterly/completely destroy) where RG worked for a big corporate law firm 'to the best of his ability' some 28 hours per week for 16 years. Shocking. The language & subject matter of PHANTOM ANTHEMS directly reflect/ embody the material conditions of this new environment ('new' to RG!) where 'personnel' are but further/'human' 'resources' to be ground up into cash/sucked dry & discarded/terminated when profit-making potential's past (e.g. elimination of 'proofreading function' by BP & H in. May 1998, restoring 7 'oldtimers' to the pavement) ---i.e. there's a lot of legal diction, arguments w/ everything & everyone, hortatory bombast (Whitman's "puff"), rants against 'ills of civilization' etc. even more excessive (as usage, throwing more & 'wrong' words into the charm) than those RG was 'processing' in 'Document Processing' (as if, thereby, to cause the whole business to 'explode/ implode' & 'save the World?), contrasted w/ patient studies of dawn/light coming/walnut tree & roses visible life & 'values' evident yet out backyard window, 7 a.m.
So that strange night work gave RG vision of morning / specificity of things piecing themselves together out from 'naught' (reversing focus on, essentially, sun going down in beach poem), as well, & it was quiet in house then (w/ Amy, Kathleen Frumkin, KF's son Ezra & Larry Eigner (for whom RG was also working) asleep), to write.
And, there were xerox machines (many of them) at BP & H, so that RG was able to (learn to) struggle to produce the 82% reduction (from RG ts. original) documented above, from which offset master for book was made.
(RARE / SAVE! -cd be instrumental in making a future edition.)
-cd be used again to make future edition !)
Re ms. of book, enclosing paper sample
, 1986, signed/accepted by LS
Enclosing camera ready copy & printer's dummy for production of book
WHAT I BELIEVE TRANSPIRATION/TRANSPIRING MINNESOTA was designed/typed & produced by RG as a xerox edition (from RG manual ts./holograph drawing writing images) on 8½" by 11" acid-free pages loose-leaved in sturdy black hinged box & pub. by Leslie Scalapino's 0 Books & RG in Oakland in 1991 in an edition of 400 (unnumbered) copies. It was written between 1987 & 1989, w/ 86 poems organized in 3 sections, w/ an introduction by LS on inside box covers (68 pp. total).
COMMENT: The 'idea' in WHAT I BELIEVE TRANSPIRATION/TRANSPIRING MINNESOTA (in retrospect & very probably then) was to get off the IBM Selectric typewriter RG had made so many works/images on (including typing roughly half of Larry Eigner's poems on a Selectric, 1980-82) & in fact to get off the typewriter back into hand writing. In WHAT I BELIEVE, as pub. in A*BACUS edition made by RG (& oddly reproduced as 1st section of 0 Books work), typewriter images are doubly-struck on RG's old/high school manual Remington typewriter (& thus in result 'drawn'), & the rest are (reproduced) RG (sometiines/ left-handed) hand-drawn words--the dark/black 'thingness' of the letters was what was being sought ('sort of/like' thickness/ opacity of that condition 'spoken of'/in these poems). What a relief! (Elsewise 'trapped' in Charles Olson/ Larry Eigner/RG 'ownmost' construct (cf. 'voice' in NYC)). RG's developing aversion to 'corporate mentality' felt emanating from International Business Machines images was reinforced by evident impossibility of ts. 'translation' of many texts in WHAT I BELIEVE (see ms. in D.3. above) & esp. 4 poems on 4 pp. (pp. 13-16 of finished work, w/ PP., RG hand-numbered on backs of sheets) presenting 4 drawn versions of the 2 lines "my heart is beating / I am a beast" inscribed upon each other/making 1 interwoven knot (cf. Hugh Kenner's use of Buckminster Fuller's 'patterned integrity' in exegesis of Pound's 'vortex' in The Pound Era, pp. 145 ff.)--holding these 4 pp. (13-16) together up to the light makes 'something like' the fact of a heart beating in physical (paper) space/time. (RG balked at providing glosses to accompany holograph texts at the time, proposed by Leslie Scalapino (see exchange in D.15. above), disinclined to substitute any 'traducement'.)
However, faced w/ problem of how to extract holograph images 'directly' from RG notebooks via xerography, RG soon discovered that xerox images were also ('different') translations, that in fact decent first-stage xerox 'copies' were better than their originals (w/ darker/thicker/more legible lines), esp. those made on Kodak machines (darker/grainier images), & that it was going to be a lot of work to produce 1st the masters for 0 Books edition (see D.11. above) & then to locate/learn to run the best machine to make the second-stage xerox 'copies' (better than first-stage--actually 'new poems'!--whereas third-stage images begin to disintegrate/lose detail) (see history documented in D.12.-14. above) which are WHAT I BELIEVE TRANSPIRATION/TRANSPIRING MINNESOTA itself.
Boxes were made, to RG's design (see D.1b. above), when it was felt loose-leaved format wd allow individual pages to be taken up/seen (1 possible sequence preserved by RG hand-numbering 24,800 pp.). RG glued on box hinges, & RG & daughter Amy glued Leslie Scalapino's introduction to inside box covers (w/ acid-free glue) by learning how.
RG & Kathleen Frumkin separated in October 1988.
Ed. Peter Ganick & in eventual 0 Books edition (including original RG color holograph 4-page poem "my heart is beating / I am a beast", pub. in color in 0, No. 4 (1993), ed. Leslie Scalapino, which marks the beginning of RG's color holograph Drawing poem project r h y m m s) (RARE / SAVE!) + xerox copy of RG ms. sent Peter Ganick for A*BACUS version of WHAT I BELIEVE
(many of these images included in eventual xerox master for edition), showing numerous examples of production of single 8½" by 11" pages from separate RG notebook pages
Including those in MINNESOTA (written in northern Minnesota, Sept. 1989), many of which are originally in more than one color in notebook (RG still content to copy them in black & white xerox), w/ xerox copies marked w/ white-out to eliminate 'blips' toward second-stage reproduction.
Being RG final-stage xerox images (some bearing RG holograph additions) + Leslie Scalapino ts. 2-page introduction (glued on inside box covers), RG first-stage xerox image of LS introduction & RG second-stage xerox image of introduction (marked w/ white-out for production) (72 pp. total) (RARE / SAVE! -- may be used to produce future edition of this work)
(in D.11. above) by RG on different photocopiers at different settings on different days in different shops in February & March 1991, in effort to find best machine to use to produce 0 Books edition of work
(doesn't cut off borders of #1 Master images, nice & dark/clean copies) of #1 Master of T/T & MINNESOTA made on unknown (prob. Xerox) copier at shop called "alphagraphics", 450 Sansome Street, San Francisco in early April 1991--decision made to produce work there & edition was made April 4 & 11, 1991 (at cost of $696.97 for 400 copies + $691.04 for Neenah Laser Bond LP acid-free paper) (43 pp. total) (alphagraphics estimate & receipts for copying & paper enclosed)
OWL / ON / BOU / GH was designed & produced by RG as a color xerox work (made from RG blue/black/red & green holograph notebook drawing poems) on thick/white (32/80 lb.) acid-free Hammermill 11" by 17" paper in a black portfolio & pub. by Simone Fattal's Post-Apollo Press (& RG) in Sausalito, CA in an edition of 100 (numbered) copies in 1997. Its 34 poems on 32 loose-leaved sheets were written between December 1996 & March 1997 in Bolinas, CA & chronicle a passage through winter into spring (34 pp. total w/ title page & 1 blank).
COMMENT: As RG's work draws farther away from what is recognizably 'Literature', there may be some hope for realization in parts of RG's lifelong desire to (contribute to) 'name' what is going on/happening (largely unbeknownst) with/in 'unlikely' material condition of drawn letters (for longevity/advance declaration of this hope see RG's notes on/citations from Gertrude Stein's Lectures in America, pub. in this 1 (1971; see VI.C.5. above) & RG's note on method of Tender Buttons, pub. in L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E mag. (October 1978; see VI.C.19. above)). As with William Carlos Williams' ('opaquely') declared intent in the prose in Spring & All (1923), the task is to 'destroy the world'/'recreate it' just like it was except NEW/anew in drawn letters/shapes (an absurd undertaking, since all know 'words'/'letters' but 'arbitrary' human invention). This world's shapes/being alive say, "Give it a try!"
Few would concur that 'what is' can be right there!
OWL / ON / BOU / GH is the result of 12 days in the shop (Copy Central Rose/Shattuck) where RG made the edition from RG first-stage masters (see E.3. above). There were many 'interruptions'/machine breaking down/added 'blips'/ other customers demanding immediate access. Onward!
The edition 'as we know it' is the result of RG standing on bench, looking down at ping-pong table at each one 'simultaneously'/arranging sequence based on how many wd 'fit' on ping-pong table. See all at once different/same: 32 11" by 17" color xeroxes/4 rows of 8/1 'rectangle' telling a 'story' if one reads through (winter to spring). Or each one individually.
The drawing/writing has progressed considerably from that in WHAT I BELIEVE TRANSPIRATION/TRANSPIRING (which now looks 'transitional' from 'just writing words' toward drawing 'what gets said' in that shape). The shapes of letters in particular in this work now seem drawn toward each other (as the words in poems get made out of letters 'affiliating' in hand writing, as if each letter cd be proved by the poem to 'derive'/be capable of being drawn 'from' every other) (so that 'all 28'/29 or howsomany of them there are perceived to be 'one letter' in flux & in 'combination', making what gets said). For example, in no. 5 (pp. again RG hand-numbered on backs), crudely rendered "OWL/GLIDES" (for discussion purposes), an owl flies twice across a small meadow (top left to lower right &/or upper right to lower left (upside down)) through the agency of the 'W' in "OWL" intermingling w/ the 'D' in "GLIDES" ('as if' they were the same letter). Page 5 is the 'meadow'.
Color xerox being so much more expensive than black/white OWL / ON / BOU / GH (at April 15, 1999) remains the 'tip of the Iceberg' (along w/ slides taken by RG & Ken Botto, see section XI. below, & RG works at Karl Young's Light & Dust website, see XII.R. below & 12 from r h y m m s, see XII.P. below) re works to be made from RG Notebooks 1989- 1999 & possibly continuing. Thanks to Simone Fattal.
Of course it (must be) in color, so it's these 4 colors.
RG insisted that he pay for copies 76-100 (since RG felt less than 100 was not 'an edition'). SF purchased the portfolios. No one can 'afford' retail price of $120 (though 'instantly' a 'collector's item'), too bad!
More info on RG's r h y m m s project in V.C.16 & V.C.17 above. (Moon's shining tonight, folks! AFTER FOG !)
Produced at shop called Demand Printing Solutions in San Francisco in Spring 1997 on Canon 100 (early/'old') color copier by pressing open 5½" by 8½" notebook down hard on glass & enlarging image to fit on 11" by 17" copy paper (while trying results from different color settings), marked "REJECTS" (being poems considered/excluded from OWL / ON / BOU / GH)
Produced at Demand Printing Solutions in Spring 1997 (by method described in E.l. above), marked "DUPLICATES" (i.e. other versions of poems considered/included in OWL / ON / BOU / GH)
Being 32 RG first-stage xerox copies from RG holograph notebook poems (produced as described in E.l. above), numbered on backs & arranged in sequence of text in work, + RG master image of title page & materials related thereto (52 pp. total) (RARE / SAVE! -- may be used to produce future edition of this work)
Made by RG from production masters (in E.3. above) on different copy machines using different settings on different days in different shops in San Francisco & Berkeley in Spring 1997, in effort to find best machine (& best price) to produce edition
Made by RG from production masters on then state-of-the-art Canon 800 copiers (too expensive)
Made by RG from production masters in March 1997 on good/'old' Canon 100 copier at Copy Central Rose/ Shattuck shop in Berkeley (negotiated best available price of $.99/copy for decent images w/ manager & liked people/ 'working conditions' there so arranged to produce edition)
On Kodak machine (also available at 'reduced' $.99/copy price via manager's kindness) said to be more dependable through long run, which looked quite good (decided to use Kodak machine rather than Canon 100)
Trying various settings (complicated!)/learning to use machine
'Outtakes' during production run of OWL / ON / BOU / GH in April/May 1997
COMMENT: Beginning in the summer of 1992, RG began engaging photographer Ken Botto to help document/extract images from RG's ongoing color holograph drawing poem project, r h y m m s, initially to preserve 'better' images (in case notebooks themselves were lost/destroyed etc.) & because the other available means of 'publication', color xeroxing, was (& continues to be) so expensive. Slides are taken outdoors in Bolinas in horizontal late afternoon sunshine to minimize shadows & maximize color (RG holding notebook open while KB shoots away, it being often hot & difficult/exacting labor). It became soon evident that the slides thus produced were not only preserving images, but were collaborative works in themselves--further/original ('literary') occasions in which words reside, in very different ways from those possible in the materials of notebook pages or color xerography. In 1992 RG began showing/interpreting slides as a form of 'poetry reading'/public performance of the text--so that people could literally see what letters/words have to say. These slides also have begun to make possible 'publication' of work from RG's ongoing r h y m m s project in digital form on the Web (via 'translations' from slides by Karl Young & others, see XII.R.3. below). Another (expensive!) possibility is to make large prints from selected slides (as KB does w/ his own photographs) for gallery exhibit.
At
These slides are arranged in chronological order & document the beginnings of RG's developing relation w/ Susan Friedland (& represent a 'first draft' of RG work devoted to same)
Principally course descriptions, reading lists, RG notes, assignments, materials discussed in class, tapes of classes, student work, catalogues & curriculum development papers from literature & writing courses at UC Berkeley, Tufts University, Franconia College, New College of California & Sonoma State University, organized chronologically & counted (by pages of text ("pp.") ).
(2 pp. total)
(36 pp. total)
(15 pp. total)
(68 pp. total)
(71 pp. total)
(31 pp. total)
(18 pp. total)
(12 pp. total)
(30 pp. total)
(2 pp. total)
(14 pp. total)
(3 pp. total)
(1 p. total)
(21 pp. total)
(41 pp. total)
(30 pp. total)
(11 pp. total)
(8 pp. total)
(45 pp. total)
(35 pp. total)
Largely consisting of RG's anthology of lyric poetry in English from anonymous 15th Century verse to Leslie Scalapino, being exemplary instances of verse structure with RG holograph analyses (293 pp. total)
Complete except for one class (October 29, 1980), consisting of 20 archival-quality 90 minute cassette tapes.
(38 pp. total)
(c. 3/4" thick)
(27 pp. total)
(107 pp. total)
(95 pp. total)
Includes course description for RG's workshop, Spiritual Topographies & notice of lecture, Drawing Form Nature (see materials referenced in sections V.A.24. and 26., and V.C.14. & 15). (64 pp. total)
From RG's tape collection (1/3 box total)
The Media materials require at least two weeks' advance notice to use in order to allow staff time to have use copies made from the original items.
(tape given RG by Marthe Rexroth in Spring 1962 in San Francisco)
(intro RG)
With a sampling from PB's collection: early Edward Dorn poems read by ED, Octavio Paz reading with English translations of Paz read by Clayton Eshelman (side 1), Louis Zukofsky reading (from "A-9" & "A-11") & PB reading his poems (side 2) (this tape dates from ca. 1962-63)
(both sides)
(side 1)
(side 2)
(intro RG)