No Mountains Poetry Project

Last updated
No Mountains Poetry Project
Status not currently active
Founded 1975
Founder Amazingrace Coffeehouse, TriQuarterly Magazine, Whole Earth Center, The Ravine Press
Country of origin USA
Headquarters location Evanston, IL
Publication types broadside series
Nonfiction topics literary performance and the book arts

The No Mountains Poetry Project [1] was a unique and popular interdisciplinary program of workshops, live readings, recordings, and letterpress broadsides located in Evanston, Illinois during the 1970s. Its objectives were to bring poets and writers together with academic and non-academic audiences in non-traditional settings, to encourage poetry-as-performance, and to collaborate with the book and poster arts.

Broadside (printing) historical printing format; large sheet of paper printed on one side only

A broadside is a large sheet of paper printed on one side only. Historically, broadsides were used as posters, announcing events or proclamations, commentary in the form of ballads, or simply advertisements.

Evanston, Illinois City in Illinois, United States

Evanston is a city in Cook County, Illinois, United States, 12 miles (19 km) north of downtown Chicago, bordered by Chicago to the south, Skokie to the west, and Wilmette to the north. It had a population of 74,486 as of 2010. It is one of the North Shore communities that adjoin Lake Michigan and is the home of Northwestern University. The boundaries of the city of Evanston are coterminous with those of the former Evanston Township, which was dissolved in 2014 by voters with its functions being absorbed by the city of Evanston.

Contents

The project was the result of a collaboration between TriQuarterly magazine, Amazingrace Coffeehouse, The Whole Earth Center, [2] and the Ravine Press.

TriQuarterly is an American literary magazine published twice a year at Northwestern University that features fiction, nonfiction, poetry, drama, literary essays, reviews, a blog, and graphic art.

Amazingrace Coffeehouse was a notable and influential counterculture music and performance venue in Evanston, Illinois, during the 1970s. Run by a collective called the Amazingrace Family, it was best known for its welcoming atmosphere, eclectic menu, excellent sound system, and respectful audiences. Amazingrace was the top music club in the Chicago Reader poll 1973-1975, plus Number 3 in the 1975 wrap-up of "Who's Who in Chicago's Alternative Culture". Performers from a wide variety of genres played at Amazingrace from its beginning on the campus of Northwestern University until its final incarnation at The Main on Chicago Avenue in Evanston.

Participants

The series featured leading practitioners in a wide variety of styles. Diane di Prima and Anne Waldman represented the Beat tradition. [3] [4] Ed Dorn was a member of the Black Mountain poets. John Hawkes was a proponent of postmodern literature. Robert Coover and William H. Gass worked in the style that has come to be known as metafiction. And Charles Bukowski has been characterized as a rock star “pulp” writer. [5] Poet essayist, and short-story writer Tess Gallagher and poet Laura Jensen provided strong voices from the Pacific Northwest.

Diane di Prima American writer

Diane di Prima is an American poet. She is also an artist, prose writer, memoirist, playwright, social justice activist, fat acceptance activist and teacher. Di Prima has authored nearly four dozen books, with her work translated into more than 20 languages.

Anne Waldman American poet

Anne Waldman is an American poet. Since the 1960s, Waldman has been an active member of the Outrider experimental poetry community as a writer, performer, collaborator, professor, editor, scholar, and cultural/political activist. She has also been connected to the Beat poets.

The Beat Generation was a literary movement started by a group of authors whose work explored and influenced American culture and politics in the post-war era. The bulk of their work was published and popularized throughout the 1950s. The central elements of Beat culture are the rejection of standard narrative values, making a spiritual quest, the exploration of American and Eastern religions, the rejection of materialism, explicit portrayals of the human condition, experimentation with psychedelic drugs, and sexual liberation and exploration.

Several of the No Mountains Poetry Project participants went on to achieve Poet Laureate status. Diane di Prima was appointed Poet Laureate of San Francisco, [6] Mark Strand was the fourth US Poet Laureate [7] and Galway Kinnell was Poet Laureate for Vermont.

Mark Strand Canadian-American poet, essayist, translator

Mark Strand was a Canadian-born American poet, essayist and translator. He was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1990 and received the Wallace Stevens Award in 2004. Strand was a professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University from 2005 until his death in 2014.

Galway Kinnell poet

Galway Kinnell was an American poet. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his 1982 collection, Selected Poems and split the National Book Award for Poetry with Charles Wright. From 1989 to 1993 he was poet laureate for the state of Vermont.

Locations

The workshops took place on the campus of Northwestern University, primarily for the academic community. The performances for the larger community took place either at Amazingrace Coffeehouse (845 Main St., Evanston, IL) or the Whole Earth Center (530 Dempster St., Evanston, IL). The Charles Bukowski reading sold out all 400 seats available. The Whole Earth Center served as distributor for the authors’s books and the broadsides.

Northwestern University Private research university in Illinois, United States

Northwestern University (NU) is a private research university based in Evanston, Illinois, United States, with other campuses located in Chicago and Doha, Qatar, and academic programs and facilities in Miami, Florida; Washington, D.C.; and San Francisco, California. Along with its undergraduate programs, Northwestern is known for its Kellogg School of Management, Pritzker School of Law, Feinberg School of Medicine, Bienen School of Music, Medill School of Journalism, and McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science.

Broadsides

The limited edition broadsides were printed by The Ravine Press on a No. 4 Vandercook proof press on Arches paper. The color illustrations were done by Amazingrace using the hand-pulled screen printing process. Print runs varied from 150-199. Advisors were The Art Institute of Chicago on paper and ink, and the Newberry Library on typography. Complete sets are available for viewing at the New York Public Library Special Collections and the Northwestern University Library Archives, Amazingrace Coffeehouse collection.

Vandercook & Sons was a manufacturer of proof presses, founded in 1909 by Robert Vandercook. They dominated the 20th century proof press industry by developing the first and the most widely used proof presses that did not rely on gravity for the force of their impression. As a result, Vandercook's geared presses were easier and more precise for an operator to use.

Arches paper is a brand of air-dried paper that is used by printers and watercolorists. It has a warm white colour and is produced in hot-pressed, cold-pressed, and rough varieties. Arches paper is made in the village of Arches in the Vosges, France.

Screen printing printing technique

Screen printing is a printing technique whereby a mesh is used to transfer ink onto a substrate, except in areas made impermeable to the ink by a blocking stencil. A blade or squeegee is moved across the screen to fill the open mesh apertures with ink, and a reverse stroke then causes the screen to touch the substrate momentarily along a line of contact. This causes the ink to wet the substrate and be pulled out of the mesh apertures as the screen springs back after the blade has passed. One color is printed at a time, so several screens can be used to produce a multicoloured image or design.

Performance & Publication History

Date Poet/Writer Broadside Title Edition Notes Reading Location
Oct 1975 Anne Waldman Dance Song 13” x 20”; 150 signed and numbered Amazingrace
Oct 1975 Mark Strand From Two Notebooks 10” x 20”; 150 signed and numbered Amazingrace
Nov 1975 Robert Coover The Fallguy’s Faith 13” x 20”; 150 signed and numbered Amazingrace
Nov 1975 Charles Bukowski winter 13” x 20”; 199 signed and numbered, with additional cartoon illustrations by the author Amazingrace
Jan 1976 John Hawkes Travesty 13” x 20”; 150 signed and numbered Amazingrace
Feb 1976 Diane di Prima The Bell Tower 13” x 20”; 150 signed and numbered Amazingrace
Feb 1976 Ed Dorn Hello, La Jolla 13” x 20”; 150 signed and numbered Amazingrace
Apr 1976 William H. Gass Mad Meg in the Maelstrom 13” x 20”; 150 signed and numbered Amazingrace
Apr 1976 Galway Kinnell Saint Francis and the Sow 13” x 20”; 150 signed and numbered Amazingrace
May 1976 Tess Gallagher Amazingrace
May 1976 Laura Jensen Amazingrace
Sept 1976 Mark Strand My Son 13” x 20”; 150 signed and numbered Amazingrace
Nov 1976 Peter Michelson Whole Earth Center
Dec 1976 Eugene Wildman Whole Earth Center

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References

  1. ↑ Sullivan, James D. “On the Walls and in the Streets: American Poetry Broadsides from the 1960s.” University of Illinois Press, p. 188
  2. ↑ ”The Whole Earth Center,” American Libraries, Mar 1975, p.148
  3. ↑ Waldman, Anne, edt. “The Beat Book,” Shambala Publications, Boston, MA 1996, pp. xx-xxiv
  4. ↑ Elkholy, Sharin, edt. “The Philosophy of the Beats.” The University Press of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 2012, pp. 19-29
  5. ↑ Kirsch, Adam. “Smashed,” The New Yorker, Mar 14, 2005
  6. ↑ Raskin, Jonah. “Interview with poet Diane di Prima,” SFGate, Nov 7, 2014
  7. ↑ Library of Congress Information Bulletin, https://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/strand/strand.pdf
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