Douglas Messerli
6022 Wilshire Boulevard
Los Angeles, California 90036
(323) 857-111
FAX: (323) 857-0143

EDUCATION:

1975-1979: PhD, English, University of Maryland major field: 20th Century American and British Literature; concentration: Contemporary Poetics and Fiction
1972-1974: M.A., English, University of Maryland
1971-1972: B.A., English, University of Maryland
1966-1969: undergraduate work, University of Wisconsin-Madison

POSITIONS:

2004 : Part time faculty, Comparative Literature and Scandinavian Studies, University of California, Los Angeles
1997 - Present: Founder and Publisher, Green Integer
1976 - 2004: Publisher and Founder, Sun & Moon Press
1983 - 2004: Director, The Contemporary Arts Educational Project Inc.
1987 - 1989: Part time faculty, The California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
1989 - 2004: Part time faculty, Otis College of Art & Design
1979 - 1984: Professor, Dept. of English, Temple University, Philadelphia
1973 - 1977: Graduate Asst, Dept. of English Teacher, Advisor and Coordinator of Internship Program
1969 - 1970: Assistant Head of Protocol, Columbia University, New York
1967 - 1969: Admissions Counselor, University of Wisconsin-Madison

SKILLS:

As the founder and publisher of Green Integer and Sun & Moon Press I have functioned in all editorial and publishing areas including manuscript selection, foreign and subsidiary rights, promotion, distribution, copyediting, layout, and book and cover design. I have also worked with bookkeeping, sales representation, and the general administration of staff.

In teaching, I have taught courses in contemporary and modern poetry, British and American fiction (contemporary and modern), world literature, the Norwegian novel, international short stories, critical theory, philosophical fictions, book reviewing, creative writing (fiction and poetry), film, and editing. At the University of Maryland I created and regularly taught a course in avant-garde fiction.

OTHER TEACHING:

I have taught creative writing courses and courses in fiction and poetry at the following institutions part-time.

Otis College of Art and Design, California
Occidental College, Los Angeles, California
The California Arts Institute, Valencia, California
The California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
Otis Parsons College of Art and Design, Los Angeles
The Writer's Center, Bethesda, Maryland

DIRECTORY LISTINGS:

Who's Who in America
Who's Who in the West
International Authors and Writers
Who's Who in American Publishing
Contemporary Authors
American Scholars and Critics
International Who's Who of Intellectuals
The Columbia Guide to American Literature
The Greenwood Guide to American Poetry
and elsewhere

AWARDS:

The Harry Ford Award for Achievement in Editing, 1994
The National Book Award for Publishing, 1998
The ALTA Award of Contributions to Translation, 1999
Grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Performance, 2001
Officer de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, French Government, 2000

RECOMMENDATIONS:

Dr. Marjorie Perloff, the Sadie Dernham Porter Professor in the Humanities, Stanford University
Dr. David Antin, University of California-San Diego
Dr. Jackson Bryer, University of Maryland
Prof. Charles Bernstein, Professor of Literature, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
Dr. Michael Henry Heim, University of California, Los Angeles, Dept. of Slavic Studies

PUBLICATIONS

I. Poetry, Fiction, and Drama

A. Books

Dinner on the Lawn. College Park, Maryland: Sun & Moon Press, 1979 [poetry]

Some Distance. New York: Segue Books, 1982 [poetry]

River to Rivet: A Manifesto. Washington, DC: Sun & Moon Press, 1985 [poetry]

River to Rivet: A Poetic Trilogy. Collection of three volumes above in slip case. Washington, DC: Sun &Moon Press, 1985 [poetry]

Maxims from My Mother's Milk/Hymns to Him: A Dialogue. Los Angeles: Sun & Moon Press, 1988 [poetry]

Silence All Round Marked: An Historical Play in Hysteria Writ. Los Angeles: Corner Books/Blue Corner Drama 1992. [drama]

An Apple, A Day. Riverdale, Maryland: Pyramid Atlantic, 1993 [poetry]

Along Without: A Fiction in Film for Poetry/Part I of The Structure of Destruction. Los Angeles: Littoral Books, 1993 [fiction/film/poetry]

[as Kier Peters] The Confirmation. Los Angeles: Sun & Moon Press, 1993 [drama]. A scene from this play has been chosen for inclusion in The Best Stage Scenes of 1994, published by Smith and Kraus

The Walls Come True: An Opera for Spoken Voices/Part II of The Structure of Destruction. Los Angeles: Littoral Books, 1995 [poetry/drama/fiction]

Still in Love, CD of an opera, based on Past Present and Future Tense, composed by Michael Kowalski, Equilibrium, 1997

After Los Angeles: Sun & Moon Press, 1997

Primeiras palavras. Edited by Régis Bonvicino and translated into the Portuguese by Régis Bonvicino and Claudia Roquette-Pinto.

São Paolo: Ateliê Editorial, 1999. [includes selections from First Words and the play A Dog Tries to Kiss the Sky, and interviews and other material]

Letters from Hanusse (as Joshua Haigh). Part 3/The Structure of Destruction. Los Angeles: Green Integer, 2000. [fiction]

Bow Down (with art by John Baldessari). Piacenza, Italy: ML & NLF, 2002 In Italian and English. [poetry]

A Dog Tries to Kiss the Sky: Six Short Plays [as Kier Peters] Los Angeles Green Integer, 2004

First Words. Los Angeles: Green Integer, 2005 [poetry]

 

B. Poems and other short works have appeared in the following selected magazines and anthologies:

Roof
La-bas
Poetry in Motion
Paris Review
The World
Interstate
New Directions Annual
boundary 2
Washington Review
OAR.S
Mississippi Review
Hambone
Sagetrieb
Painted Bride Quarterly
Temblor
Ariel
Conjunctions
Santa Monica Review
New American Writing
Spazio Umano (Italy)
Central Park
Talisman
Gargoyle
Lowlands Review
Calvert Review
Periodics
Los Angeles Times
The [UCSD] Archive Newsletter
The Legionnaire
The Niagara Magazine
Koff
Credences
Sideshow
Object Permanance (Scotland)
Ribot
Hot Bird
Proliferation
Arshile
lower limit speech
Salt (Australia)
Avec
Cathay
disturbed guillotine
Private Arts
Zyzzyva
Hambone
Folha de San Pãulo (Brazil)
50: A Celebration of Sun & Moon Classics
From the Other Side of the Century: A New American Poetry 1960-1990
Out of This World: An Anthology 1966-1991
The Art of Practice: 45 Contemporary Poets
Rhizome
Zazil
Duetos (Brazil)
Lowghost
The L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E Book
Verse

and elsewhere

E. Anthologies and Books Edited

Contemporary American Fiction, with an Introduction. College Park, Maryland: Sun & Moon Press, 1986

"Language" Poetries, with an Introduction. New York: New Directions, 1987

From the Other Side of the Century: A New American Poetry 1960-1990, with an Introduction. Los Angeles: Sun & Moon Press, 1994

The Sun & Moon Guide to Eating Through Literature & Art, with a Note. Los Angeles: Sun & Moon Press, 1994

50: A Celebration of Sun & Moon Classics, with a Preface. Los Angeles: Sun & Moon Press, 1995

The Gertrude Stein Awards in Innovative American Poetry 1993-1994, with a Preface. Los Angeles: Sun & Moon Press, 1995

The Gertrude Stein Awards in Innovative American Poetry 1994-1995, with an Introduction. Los Angeles: Sun & Moon Press, 1996

From the Other Side of the Century II: A New American Drama 1960-1995 [edited with Mac Wellman] with a Preface. Los Angeles: Sun & Moon Press, 1999

The PIP Anthologies of World Poetry of the 20th Century, vols. 1, 2, 3, 4 Green Integer: Los Angeles, 2000-2004

I have also edited numerous collections of work by Gertrude Stein and Djuna Barnes, and have edited over 250 books on Sun & Moon Press

F. Interviews, essays, and articles (in whole or part) which evaluate my writing

"Interview with Douglas Messrli," by Vicki Hudspith, Poetry Project Newsletter, no. 71 (January 1980), n.p. [6]

"Statement [on my poetry]," The Difficulties, no. 1 (l980), n.p. [4-5]

"Statment on Manifestoes," in Manifestoes issue, Washington Review, no. 9 (August-September 1983), 2-3

"Language in Action: An Interview with Douglas Messerli," Gargoyle, no. 24 (l984), 136-148

"An Interview with Charles Bernstein and Douglas Messerli," Sagetrieb

Aerial no. 4 [Douglas Messerli issue]. Complete issue devoted to my poetry and commentary on my work by others, including:
 "Interview with Douglas Messerli," by Marjorie Perloff
 "Poultry to Poetry: Playing Chicken with the Muse or Avanto
 "Bite His Text: Speculations on Messerli's Orality," by Tom Beckett
 "Blown Wind," by A. L. Nielsen
 "Of a Further Instant's," by Gil Ott
 "Something That's Where," by Joe Ross
 "An Interview with Douglas Messerli by Régis Bonvicino," Folha de São Paulo/Mais, October 1, 1995
 "Making Things Difficult: An Interview with Douglas Messerli by Charles Bernstein, São Paulo: Sibilia, 2005

G. Dramas [performed]

The Confirmation [as Kier Peters], premiered at The Vineyard Dimson Theatre, New York, July 6, 1994

The Confirmation was presented by Stages Theater, Los Angeles, on August 15, 1994

Past Present and Future Tense will premiere at The Next Stage, produced by Common Cultural Practice, San Francisco, October 8, 1994

Still in Love, an opera with music by Michael Kowalski, produced at Context Studios, New York, July 17, 18, 20, 1995. [Based on Past Present and Future Tense]

A Dog Tries to Kiss the Sky, Intentional Coincidence, and The Business were presented in a reading of The Contemporary Drama Series with Bottom's Dream, Los Angeles, April 30, 1996


II. Critical and Scholarly Works

A. Books

Djuna Barnes: A Bibliography [with an essay, "Djuna Barnes: Legendary and Unknown"]. New York: David Lewis, 1976

Index to Periodical Fiction in English, 1965-1969. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1977

Editor, Smoke and Other Early Stories, by Djuna Barnes [with an Introduction titled, "The Newspaper Tales of Djuna Barnes"]. College Park, Maryland: Sun & Moon Press, 1982

Editor, Contemporary American Fiction [with an Introduction titled "Synchronic Fiction."] Washington, D.C.: Sun & Moon Press, 1983

Commentary and Foreword to Interviews, by Djuna Barnes. Washington, D.C.: Sun & Moon Press, 1985

Editor, "Language" Poetries: An Anthology [with an Introduction] New York: New Directions, 1986

Editor, From the Other Side of the Century: A New American Poetry 1960 to 1990. Los Angeles: Sun & Moon Press, 1994

Editor, From the Other Side of the Century II: A New American Drama 1960-1995 Los Angeles: Sun & Moon Press, 1998

B. Essays and Reviews

"The Problem of Time in The Sound and the Fury: A Critical Reassessment and Reinterpretation," Southern Literary Journal, VI (Spring 1974), 19-41

"John Wieners and a 'Post-Moderist' Quandary," Sun & Moon, no. 2 (Spring 1976), 86-104

"The Problem of Time in Welty's Delta Wedding," Studies in American Fiction, V (Autumn 1977), 274-277

"The Making of Allen Ginsberg," The Washington Post Book World (October 2, 1977), E3

"Metronome and Music: the Encounter between History and Myth in The Golden Apples," in John F. Desmond, ed., A Still Moment: Essays on the Art of Eudora Welty
Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1978, pp. 82-102

"Testing His Creations," The Washington Post Book World (1978) [on Knut Hamsun]

"Vorticist Lewis/Vorticist Pound," Art Quarterly (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), I (Autumn 1978), 397-402

"Abandoment, Involvement, and Surrender," The American Book Review (1979). [on Djuna Barnes's Ryder]

"'A Battle with Both Sides Using the Same Tactics'": The Language of Time in Losing Battles," in Peggy Prenshaw, ed., Eudora Welty: Critical ssays. Jackson, University Press of Mississippi, 1979, pp. 351-366

"Keeping History a Secret," American Book Review, (1980) [on Susan Howe]

"Experiment and Traditional Forms in Contemporary Literature," in Bill Henderson, ed., The Pushcart Prize, VI: Best of the Small Presses. Wainscott, N.Y.: Pushcart Press, 1981, pp. 304-324.

"Making the Mind Whole: Charles Bernstein's Controlling Interests," Paper Air, III, no. 1 (1982), 39-45

"The Barnes, The Life," New York Native, July 1982. [on the death of Djuna Barnes.]

"Wordscape Artists," The Village Voice, 1982. [on "Language" Poetry]

"The Role of Voice in Nonmodernist Fiction," Contemporary Literature, 25 (Fall 1984), 281-304

"A World Detached: The Early Criticism of William Carlos Williams," Sagetrieb 3 (Fall 1984), 89-98

"Crashing Through the Ceiling of Despair," El-E-Phant: A Language Arts Review, (August 1993), 1-3 [on Tony Kushner's Angeles in America: Millenium Approaches]

"The Verge of Possibility," El-E-Phant: A Language Arts Review (August 1993), 10-11. [on John Steppling's "Sea of Cortez"]

"Djuna Barnes's Roots," in At the Roots of the Stars: The Short Plays of Djuna Barnes (Los Angeles, Sun & Moon Press, 1995)

"A Simplicity of Saying," Mr. Knife, Miss Fork, no. 1 (1997). [on Remco Campert]

"Forget Fugi!" Mr. Knife, Miss Fork, no. 1 (1997). [on Hayashi Fumiko]

"A Real Doll," Rain Taxi (2000) [on Unica Zürn

"Truth-Telling in a World of Lies," The Los Angeles Times Book Review, April 2001. [on Juan Goytisolo]

"At Point Zero," The New Review of Literature, I. no. 2 (April 2004), 210-211.[on Anne Portugal]

"Word Faces," The New Review of Literature, I, no. 2 (April 2004), 200-203 [on Gennadi Aygi]

"The Death of the Mother," The New Review of Literature, II, no. 1 (October 2004), 139-145

"Falling out of Being," Rain Taxi (August 2004). [on Brian Evenson]

"A Rain of Alphabets," The New Review of Literature, II. no. 2 (April 2005) [on Inger Chrisensen]

"Three Children of the Fifties: Holden, Lolita, Malcolm," The New Review of Literature, II, no. 2 (April 2005)

"The Prom King: or, How I Learned You Can't Take It With You," The New Review of Literature, II, no. 2 (April 2005)

"The Possibility of Rectitude," The New Review of Literature, II, no.2 (April 2005)

"Listen to the Mockingbird," in Folksongs and Popular Music Lyrics of the 19th Century (Los Angeles: Green Integer, 2005)

E. Readings

I have read and performed extensively across the country, including at the following institutions and reading venues:

St. Mark's Literary Center, New York (2)
Beyond Baroque Foundation, Los Angeles (3)
Ear Inn, New York (4)
The Painted Bride Arts Center, Philadelphia (1)
San Francisco State University (1)
The Kennedy Center, Washington, DC (1)
Washington, D.C. Public Library (1)
Intersection Center for Arts, San Francisco (1)
The Writer's Center, Bethesda, Maryland (2)
The University of Maryland (1)
University of California, San Diego, La Jolla (2)
Bridge St. Books, Washington, D.C. (1)
Washington Project for the Arts, Washington, D.C. (1)
DCAC (District of Columbia Arts Center), Washington, D.C.
The Kooteny School of Writing, Vancouver, Canada
Elliott Bay Book Company, Seattle, Washington
Powell's Books, Portland, Oregon
Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago
The Poet's Theatre (New York)
Segue, New York
the Los Angeles Poetry Festival, Balcony (Los Angeles)
The French Poetry Biennale (Paris),
Los Angeles County Museum of Art Reading Series, Chapman College (Orange)
The Mountain (Los Angeles)

and elsewhere.