The Mimeo Revolution (or Mimeograph Revolution) of the 1960s and 1970s was an active period of small-scale, non-commercial, literary publishing facilitated by the accessibility of the mimeograph. It is distinguished from the traditional private press by its emphasis on quick, cheap production.
Presses associated with the Mimeo Revolution often published experimental and underground work, and were important venues for poets, writers and artists ignored by mainstream magazines. Their emphasis was often (but not always) on poetry, including work by the Black Mountain poets, the poets of the Beat Generation, the New York School, and the San Francisco Renaissance, as well as such experimental genres as Concrete Poetry. Unlike mainstream literary magazines, they were usually published by the poets and communities of poets whose work appeared in them. They were alsp widely used by grass roots groups, especially campus-based groups, opposing the Vietnam War during the 1960s and 1970s to announce upcoming demonstrations, fund raising events as well as regular communications with their memberships through newsletters, emergency announcements, etc. The low cost of acquiring a (usually used) machine, and the reliability low cost and ease of operation made the medium very attractive for groups with limited resources producing up to a few hundred copies per stencil. Experiments with color inks developed in the art community were often used to enhance the predictable and drab looking copies and attract what we'd now call "eyeballs", often resulting in broadening the appeal of the messages appearing in announcements of demonstrations and/or fund raising events.
Significant Mimeo Revolution magazines and presses include 7 Flowers Press, Angel Hair, Beatitude, Big Table, “C” Press, Duende, Floating Bear, Fuck You, L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E, Little Caesar, Ole', Toothpaste, White Rabbit Press, Wormwood Review and Yugen.
A fanzine is a non-professional and non-official publication produced by enthusiasts of a particular cultural phenomenon for the pleasure of others who share their interest. The term was coined in an October 1940 science fiction fanzine by Russ Chauvenet and first popularized within science fiction fandom, and from there the term was adopted by other communities.
A mimeograph machine is a low-cost duplicating machine that works by forcing ink through a stencil onto paper. The process is called mimeography, and a copy made by the process is a mimeograph.
Duplicating machines were the predecessors of modern document-reproduction technology. They have now been replaced by digital duplicators, scanners, laser printers and photocopiers, but for many years they were the primary means of reproducing documents for limited-run distribution. The duplicator was pioneered by Thomas Edison and David Gestetner, with Gestetner dominating the market up until the late 1990s.
Performance poetry is a broad term, encompassing a variety of styles and genres. In brief, it is poetry that is specifically composed for or during a performance before an audience. During the 1980s, the term came into popular usage to describe poetry written or composed for performance rather than print distribution, mostly open to improvisation.
The Language poets are an avant-garde group or tendency in United States poetry that emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The poets included: Bernadette Mayer, Leslie Scalapino, Stephen Rodefer, Bruce Andrews, Charles Bernstein, Ron Silliman, Barrett Watten, Lyn Hejinian, Tom Mandel, Bob Perelman, Rae Armantrout, Alan Davies, Carla Harryman, Clark Coolidge, Hannah Weiner, Susan Howe, James Sherry, and Tina Darragh.
American poetry refers to the poetry of the United States. It arose first as efforts by American colonists to add their voices to English poetry in the 17th century, well before the constitutional unification of the Thirteen Colonies. Most of the early colonists' work was similar to contemporary English models of poetic form, diction, and theme. However, in the 19th century, an American idiom began to emerge. By the later part of that century, poets like Walt Whitman were winning an enthusiastic audience abroad and had joined the English-language avant-garde.
D.A. Levy, born Darryl Alfred Levey, was an American poet, artist, and alternative publisher active during the 1960s, based in Cleveland, Ohio.
In the United States, a little magazine is a magazine genre consisting of "artistic work which for reasons of commercial expediency is not acceptable to the money-minded periodicals or presses", according to a 1942 study by Frederick J. Hoffman, a professor of English. While George Plimpton disagreed with the diminutive connotations of "little", the name "little magazine" is widely accepted for such magazines. A little magazine is not necessarily a literary magazine, because while the majority of such magazines are literary in nature, containing poetry and fiction, a significant proportion of such magazines are not. Some have encompassed the full range of the arts, and others have grown from zine roots.
Eileen Myles is a LAMBDA Literary Award-winning American poet and writer who has produced more than twenty volumes of poetry, fiction, non-fiction, libretti, plays, and performance pieces over the last three decades. Novelist Dennis Cooper has described Myles as "one of the savviest and most restless intellects in contemporary literature." The Boston Globe described them as "that rare creature, a rock star of poetry." In 2012, Myles received a Guggenheim Fellowship to complete Afterglow, which gives both a real and fantastic account of a dog's life. Myles uses they/them pronouns.
Jesse Glass is an American expatriate poet, artist and folklorist.
South of No North is a collection of short stories by Charles Bukowski, originally published in 1973 as South of No North: Stories of the Buried Life by John Martin's Black Sparrow Press. South of No North also is a play that debuted off-Broadway in 2000 based on nine stories from the book.
Laugh Literary and Man the Humping Guns was a mimeographed literary magazine published between 1969 and 1971 in Los Angeles, California by Charles Bukowski and Neeli Cherkovski. The original title was to be "Laugh Literary and Man the Fucking Guns," but Cherkovski convinced Bukowski to substitute a less graphic word due to censorship concerns. In the late 1960s, the U.S. Post Office was actively prosecuting publishers for sending "obscene" publications through the mail. At the time of its publication, Bukowski was working as a clerk at the Post Office, having not yet made the transition to full-time writer.
Ole' magazine was one of the first small literary magazines produced by mimeograph to reach a nationwide audience. Published by Sacramento poet and editor Douglas Blazek, Ole' was at the heart of the Mimeo Revolution which saw underground presses publish non-establishment poets who could not get published in mainstream literary magazines such as Poetry Magazine.
Lewis Warsh was an American poet, visual artist, professor, prose writer, editor, and publisher. He was a principal member of the second generation of the New York School poets,; however, he has said that “no two people write alike, even if they’re associated with a so-called ‘school’ .” Professor of English at Long Island University and founding director (2007–2013) of their MFA program in creative writing, Warsh lived in Manhattan with his wife, playwright-teacher Katt Lissard, whom he married in 2001.
Larry Fagin was an American poet, editor, publisher, and teacher, and a member of the New York School.
Maureen Owen is an American poet, editor, and biographer.
The Untide Press, founded in 1943, attempted to bring poetry to the public in an inexpensive but attractive format. It was founded by writer William Everson, architect and printer Kemper Nomland, actor Kermit Sheets and editor / librarian William Eshelman, in a camp of conscientious objectors in Waldport, Oregon in 1943. The name was a challenge to the official camp magazine the Tide Press. Camp Angel was a Civilian Public Service (CPS) camp, one of many camps across the United States where conscientious objectors were given unpaid jobs of "national importance" as a substitute for World War II military service. Camp Angel was unique as the only Fine Arts Program camp in the entire CPS system.
Granary Books is an independent small press and rare books and archives dealer based in New York City. Owned and directed by Steve Clay, Granary has published hundreds of books that "produce, promote, document, and theorize new works exploring the intersection of word, image, and page." As a rare books and archives dealer, Granary Books also assists in the placement and preservation of authors' and artists' archives. In addition to these activities, Granary Books administers projects such as "From a Secret Location," a digital repository of materials related to the small press and mimeograph revolutions from the 1960s to 1980s. Its trade books are distributed by D.A.P./Distributed Art Publishers and Small Press Distribution.
Fran Herndon is an American artist associated with the central poets of the San Francisco Renaissance. Trained at the California School of Fine Arts in print-making and painting, Herndon is known for her lithographs and collages, many of which were produced in tandem with Jack Spicer's poetry, and intended for joint viewing and reading. More recently, Herndon has branched out to work in drawing and pastels.
Samuel James Cornish was Boston’s first poet laureate. He was associated with the Black Arts Movement. He taught at Emerson College.
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