Ron Kolm (born 1947) is an American poet, [1] writer, editor, archivist, and bookseller based in New York City. Known as "one of the mainstays of the downtown (literary) scene," [2] Kolm is also a founder of the Unbearables, a "ragtag bunch of downtown poet-troublemakers." [3]
Kolm moved to New York in 1970 and got a job at the Strand bookstore, where he worked with Tom Verlaine and Patti Smith. [4] Kolm's career in NYC independent bookstores spans some forty years and includes working at Eastside Bookstore, the original Coliseum Books on 57th Street, Shakespeare & Co. on Broadway at Astor Place, St. Mark's Bookshop, and Posman Books in Grand Central Terminal.
Kolm now works at the Posman Bookstore in Chelsea Market on the west side of Manhattan and lives in Long Island City. [5]
Kolm is one of the "insurgent" writers [6] and editors who emerged during the "blatant transformation and decay" of New York City in the 1970s and '80s. [7] Kolm's writings frequently focus on anti-institution and anti-establishment themes along with issues such as residential squalor, recent control, the real estate boom, [8] and everyday life in the lower east side of Manhattan before it was gentrified. [8] [9] The works of Kolm and other writers from this time have been called "radical postmodernism." [10]
Kolm's writings have been printed in hundreds of small magazines along with books and anthologies such as the Penguin Books anthology Between C & D: New Writing from the Lower East Side Fiction Magazine, [11] The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry, and Up Is Up, But So Is Down; New York's Downtown Literary Scene, 1974-1992 from New York University Press. His other publications include collections of his short fiction and poetry. He also collaborated on a novel, Neo Phobe, written with Jim Feast.
In addition to his writing, Kolm edited several downtown magazines during the 1970s and '80s. [7] In 1980 Kolm established his own small press; Low-Tech Press. Before calling it quits a decade later, he had assembled a backlist of ten books (The Low-Tech Manual, Five Plus Five, Girlie Pictures and several Mike Topp titles). As he said to Levi Asher of Literary Kicks: "I published Art Spiegelman, Tuli Kupferberg and Hal Sirowitz, among others." [12] In 2012 Ron Kolm became a contributing editor of Sensitive Skin Magazine, and the editor of The Evergreen Review. His tenure at the Evergreen Review came to an end in 2015.
From 2012 through 2019, Ron Kolm participated in Michael Rothenberg's and Terri Carrion's international event, One Hundred Thousand Poets for Change (100 TPC). In 2013 he became a member of Brevitas: a community of invited poets who email 1 to 2 original poems (14 lines maximum) to the group on the 1st and 15th of each month. Kolm has also been the featured weekly poet in the Poetry Super Highway three times. [13]
In June 2014, Ron Kolm became a member of PEN America. That year he also read at the Sprachsalz in Hall, Austria. [14] [15] He previously read and performed his work in Prague, in 2012, and in Florence, in 2013.
On June 6, 2013, Kolm was presented with an ‘Acker Award’ at a ceremony in the Angel Orensanz Foundation by Clayton Patterson, for his editorial work. Ron Kolm and Jim Feast, who was also given an award, got them largely for their work at the Evergreen Review. [16]
Historian Robert Siegle describes Kolm as "an editor and facilitator for magazines and presses as well as a writer of fiction and poetry" who "carried boxes of little magazines around to bookstores, passed around copies of new work, and connected people" [17] in general, noting that "wherever we look along with the networks that hold together the diverse creative talents who constitute this cultural revolution, we find Kolm." [18]
The Ron Kolm papers represent over 3,500 works of the downtown arts scene since the 1970's [5] [2] and contain works by "several hundred artists, plus 300 periodicals, film, fine art, and six boxes" of David Wojnarowicz's journals. [19] The collection was purchased in 1996 by the Fales Library at New York University, where it is now stored. [20] [5]
Since placing this collection in the NYU Library, Kolm has continued to build archives of downtown materials, with an emphasis on Unbearables publications (the novels they've published, runs of magazines and other ephemera). There are now archives at The University of Rochester library, [21] the Avant Writing Collections at Ohio State University (John M. Bennett, Librarian/Curator), [22] The Poetry Collection at SUNY Buffalo (Michael Basinski, Curator), the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin, the main branch of the New York Public Library, the Museum of Modern Art Library and the library at Poets House in New York City.
In 1985 Kolm, Bart Plantenga, Mike Golden, and Peter Lamborn Wilson founded the Unbearables, [23] "a loose confederation of poets and writers who came of age in 1980s and 90s New York. Infamous for their high-minded aesthetics and low, barroom manners, the group has sought to torment literary powers-that-be throughout its more than two decades of existence." [24] The group was based on Wilson's precepts (written under the nom de guerre Hakim Bey), as set forth in his seminal book, TAZ (Temporary Autonomous Zone). David Life, the owner of the Life Cafe, gave them berets and renamed them "The Unbearable Beatniks of Life." Shortly after this, they did an event they called 'The Crimes of the Beats,' during which they dropped the word 'Beatnik' from their name, becoming simply 'The Unbearables.' [23]
The group is best known for organizing a 1995 boycott of The New Yorker to protest "its flaccid, middle-of-the-road poetry" [24] and for taking on the Beat generation (in an attempt, in Kolm's words, to "deconstruct the Beats myth in order to make it useful again." [25] ) During a 1995 conference about Jack Kerouac at New York University, Kolm "put on a dress and wig to portray Mr. Kerouac's domineering mother." [3]
They also lined the Brooklyn Bridge every September 13 (right up until 9/11, when they stopped) and read erotic poetry to people walking home from work.
Kolm has edited a number of anthologies featuring writings by members of the Unbearables, all published by Autonomedia. [25] [24] [26]
Past and present members of the Unbearables include Kolm, Sharon Mesmer, Max Blagg, Chavisa Woods, Michael Carter, Jim Feast, Bonny Finberg, John Farris (d. 2016), Peter Lamborn Wilson, Merry Fortune, Joe Maynard, Alfred Vitale, Shalom Neuman, Jill Rapaport, Thaddeus Rutkowski, Hal Sirowitz, Sparrow, Susan Scutti, Mike Topp, Lee Klein, Carl Watson, Carol Wierzbicki, Bart Plantenga, Tom Savage, Steve Dalachinsky (d. Sept. 2019), Yuko Otomo, Tsaurah Litzky, Fly and many others, continue to publish and perform in a variety of configurations and at a plethora of venues.
Thomas Michael Disch was an American science fiction author and poet. He won the Hugo Award for Best Related Book – previously called "Best Non-Fiction Book" – in 1999, and he had two other Hugo nominations and nine Nebula Award nominations to his credit, plus one win of the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, a Rhysling Award, and two Seiun Awards, among others.
Darren Wershler, aka Darren Wershler-Henry, is a Canadian experimental poet, non-fiction writer and cultural critic.
Derek Alexander Beaulieu is a Canadian poet, publisher and anthologist.
Ron Padgett is an American poet, essayist, fiction writer, translator, and a member of the New York School. Great Balls of Fire, Padgett's first full-length collection of poems, was published in 1969. He won a 2009 Shelley Memorial Award. In 2018, he won the Frost Medal from the Poetry Society of America.
Between C & D (1983–1990) was a Lower East Side quarterly literary magazine, edited by Joel Rose and Catherine Texier. The name of the magazine references the apartment where Rose and Texier lived and produced the magazine, which was located between Avenue C and Avenue D in the East Village. However, it has also been suggested that the title is short for "between coke and dope," giving an indication of the transgressive content and ethos. The tagline of the magazine was "Sex. Drugs. Danger. Violence. Computers."
Pattiann Rogers is an American poet, and a recipient of the Lannan Literary Award for Poetry. In 2018, she was awarded a special John Burroughs Medal for Lifetime Achievement in Nature Poetry.
Milkweed Editions is an independent nonprofit literary publisher that originated from the Milkweed Chronicle literary and arts journal established in Minneapolis in 1979. The journal ceased and the business transitioned to publishing. It releases eighteen to twenty new books each year in the genres of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Milkweed Editions annually awards three prizes for poetry: the Lindquist & Vennum Prize for Poetry, the Jake Adam York Prize, and they are a partner publisher for the National Poetry Series. In 2016, Milkweed Editions opened an independent bookstore.
Lydia Tomkiw was an American poet, singer, and songwriter, best known for her work with the new wave musical group Algebra Suicide, along with her husband Don Hedeker.
Chicago Review is a literary magazine founded in 1946 and published quarterly in the Humanities Division at the University of Chicago. The magazine features contemporary poetry, fiction, and criticism, often publishing works in translation and special features in double issues.
Sensitive Skin was a magazine created and edited by B. Kold and Norman Douglas. Started in 1991, the first four issues were titled Peau Sensible, which is French for "Sensitive Skin". Subsequent issues were titled in English. In 1994, John Farris, Patricia Winter, and Darius James joined the editorial team. That same year, Mr. E. Oso took over editorial duties for the final issue. The magazine is based in Mill Valley, California.
Four Way Books is an American nonprofit literary press located in New York City, New York, which publishes poetry and short fiction by emerging and established writers. It features the work of the winners of national poetry competitions, as well as collections accepted through general submission, panel selection, and solicitation by the editors. The press is run by director and founding editor Martha Rhodes, who is the author of five poetry collections. Four Way Books titles are distributed by University of Chicago Press. The press has received grants from New York State Council on the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, and The Council of Literary Magazines and Presses through their re-grant program.
Sharon Mesmer is a Polish-American poet, fiction writer, essayist and professor of creative writing. Her poetry collections are Annoying Diabetic Bitch, The Virgin Formica, Vertigo Seeks Affinities, Half Angel, Half Lunch and Crossing Second Avenue. Her fiction collections are Ma Vie à Yonago, In Ordinary Time and The Empty Quarter. She teaches in the undergraduate and graduate programs of New York University and The New School. She has lived in Brooklyn, New York since 1988 and is a distant relative of Franz Anton Mesmer, proponent of animal magnetism and Otto Messmer, the American animator best known for creating Felix the Cat.
Charles "Chuck" Taylor Jr. is an American author of books of poetry, essay, short story, and novels who was born in Minneapolis but has lived most of his life in Texas. He teaches creative writing at Texas A&M and operates small press Slough Press, publishing since 1973. His contribution to building the literature scene on the Third Coast in Austin, Texas, includes activities as both a writer and publisher. He published leading poets, fiction and non-fiction writers whose books received numerous awards and were later published by larger presses. His titles, such as the poetry collection What do You Want, Blood? received the 1988 Austin Book Award and regional critical acclaim. He is one of the legendary figures of the Austin–San Antonio–Dallas triangle culture that nurtured the eccentric, free-spirited independence of Texan bohemia and cross-cultural innovative creativity, especially in the literary arts. Taylor's novel, Drifter's Story, and his poetry book, Ordinary Life, explore the lives of the working poor. He has taught in the NEA Poets-in-the-Schools Program and was CETA Poet-in-Residence for the City of Salt Lake.
Ron Whitehead is an American poet, author and activist. Whitehead was born on a farm in Kentucky, but traveled to the University of Louisville and Oxford University to pursue his academic interests.
Janet Hamill is an American poet and spoken word artist. Her poem "K-E-R-O-U-A-C" was nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and her fifth collection, titled Body of Water, was nominated for the William Carlos Williams Award by the Poetry Society of America. Her first collection of short fiction, titled Tales from the Eternal Cafe, was named one of the "Best Books of 2014" by Publishers Weekly.
Glass Mountain is an undergraduate literary magazine at the University of Houston that was established in 2006. The title is an allusion to a short story with the same title by Donald Barthelme. The magazine publishes poetry, fiction, non-fiction, reviews, literary essays, and art written by undergraduates. Each issue also includes interviews with notable literary figures, including Mat Johnson, Mark Doty, Nick Flynn, Tony Hoagland, and others. The publication is listed in the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses and launched its first national issue in 2011. In 2013, the journal was awarded the Director's Prize for content by the Association of Writers & Writing Programs.
Bart Plantenga is a writer who has been called "the world's expert on yodeling and the "Alan Lomax of not just the yodeling world but yodeling worldwide." He is also a pirate radio station disc jockey known for his radio show on Radio Patapoe, "Wreck this Mess."
John Farris (1940–2016) was an American poet and novelist who lived in the East Village neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan. He is the author of a volume of verse It's not About Time which was published by Fly by Night Press (ISBN 9780963740502) in 1993. He is the also author of the novel The Ass's Tale published Unbearable Books (ISBN 9781570272219). Farris won the 2013 Acker Award in the fiction for the volume.
Thaddeus Rutkowski is an American author.
Samuel James Cornish was Boston’s first poet laureate. He was associated with the Black Arts Movement. He taught at Emerson College.
