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Some Black Sparrow Droppings That Are Solid Gold Nuggets
Here are two pieces of vintage Black Sparrow ephemera from the early days of the press. The card announces the publication of a Wallace Berman poster from 1967. John Martin mailed the notice to...
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The Grey Fox in the Chicken Barn
I have never been able to fully embrace the work of Lew Welch. He has been suggested to me numerous times over the years as a poet whose work I would enjoy, and thus I dutifully track down a copy of...
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Mekas on Underground Film and the Mimeo Revolution
I just finished reading Jonas Mekas’ Movie Journal. But despite reading Daniel Kane’s We Saw the Light and seeing Ed Sanders’ glyphs depicting the full scope of his total assault on the culture, I...
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From the Sustaining Air
Mimeo Mimeo is not dead. It is only sleeping. For those of you writing Mimeo Mimeo off, here is a glimpse into Mimeo Mimeo's beginnings. I first came into contact with Kyle through his Creeley;s...
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Mimeo Mimeo Has Not Forgotten You
And to prove it here is a complete run of John Perreault's Elephant, an unjustly overlooked mag from, what is for me, one of the sweet spots of the Mimeo Revolution: the Lower East Side from 1964 to...
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A Weekend in Bolinas
So what do you do when everything is going to shit in the big city? You pack your bags, check your head and head to Bolinas. I have been feeling a bit overwhelmed here in Charm City so for the past...
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Genius
Before we leap into Big Sky, let's have a few encores from the Kings of Leon, a poetic jam band if there ever was one.JB
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And We Are Off At A Gallup
Just out of bed. No coffee. No cheese danish. No bacon sizzling. That will have to wait. First I have to serve all those Mimeo Mimeo fans out there clamoring for the promised Big Sky posts. You...
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All This All Weekend
Joanne Kyger All This Every Day (1975). 1500 copies with 26 signed and lettered. This is her third collection of poems. Here is Dale Smith on Kyger and the every day from Jacket2.JB
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That 70s Show
Next up, Jim Brodey's Blues of the Egyptian Kings published in an edition of 1200 in 1975. Catch Brodey reading on that 70s show on PennSound a few years after the Big Sky edition. Great stuff.JB
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You Only Regret What You Do Not Buy
Kyle has written about Bolinas Journalbefore and he ends his piece eagerly awaiting the Library of America collected Brainard, which includes this first offering by Berkson's Big Sky Press. For my...
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Schneeman's Cover Composition: Lazy or Crazy?
Not sure how I feel about these literary compositions since I have not read them, Although reading through Big Sky magazine Padgett surely knows how to bring the crazy. In fact, I find that when I...
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The Company You Keep
1500 copies published 1976. Tom Veitch first flickered on my radar screen because William Burroughs cut-up Veitch's Literary Days in an issue of C. Burroughs left quite an impression on Veitch and as...
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Enigma Variations
If Big Sky remains a mystery to majority of readers, to those in the know, the work of Philip Guston serves as one of the press's signature features. The mingling of text and image is an important...
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The Proof Is Always With the Taste in Language Poetry
Barrett Watten typed up several issues of Big Sky for the printers where he worked. I find that interesting. Watten attended the Iowa Workshop and self-printed his first book on a letterpress. I...
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Not A Lot of Notley Currently On The Market
750 copies, cover by Alex Katz. By and large, if you want a Big Sky book you can get your hands on one. The print runs are pretty big. Even 750 copies is a rather large run when you figure that...
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Coolidge Jazz
People I know and respect swear by Clark Coolidge. I just cannot wrap my head around it and he makes my head hurt when I try. I get a little feeling of dread every time I come across his name in a...
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Have Cash and You Can Carey
Kyle remembers this book as being very difficult to locate or very expensive. Memory like the cover of Carey's Gentle Subsidy fades. Kyle's recollection might have been true at some point but at the...
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Book of Questions
300 copies from 1976. Fourteen page, seven poems in much smaller print run than typical of Big Sky publications. I find the idea of this publication very appealing. Fagin contributed several poems...
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The Norman Rockwell of Big Sky
David Anderson's The Spade in the Sensorium is almost a complete blank for me. I do not recognize the author or his work, but I immediately know this book is a Big Sky publication. Thanks to Secret...
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