Jack Spicer: Bio Notes & Publications

Jack Spicer: Publications

Spicer has a relatively complex history of publication, given that several of his books were published only posthumously; these mss. were either withheld or appeared during his lifetime in small poetry zines. The following bibliography has been arranged by category and in roughly chronological order of publication. Some of the books have gone through various permutations after Spicer's death (mostly new editions by different publishers, but with a peculiar instability re title etcetera); only the most familiar editions appear. For a more expansive list, cf. the bibliography in California Librarian (full citation below) and Robin Blaser's detailed bibliography in The Collected Books.

Books >

After Lorca (San Francisco: White Rabbit Press, Nov-Dec 1957)
Homage to Creeley (Annapolis, CA: privately printed by Harold and Dore Dull, Summer 1959)
Billy the Kid (Stinson Beach CA: Enkidu Surrogate, Oct 1959) illus. Jess Collins.
The Heads of the Town Up to the Aether (SF: The Auerhahn Society, 1962) illus. Fran Herndon
Lament for the Makers (Oakland: White Rabbit Press, 1962) illus. Graham Mackintosh
The Holy Grail (SF: White Rabbit Press 1964) illus. Graham Mackintosh
Dear Jack: The Spicer/Ferlinghetti Correspondence (SF: White Rabbit Press, 1964)
Language (SF: White Rabbit Press, 1965)

Journals/Anthologies >

The Occident (Berkeley) Winter 1946, 39-41

Contour Quarterly (Berkeley) v. 1 no. 1, April 1947, 17

Berkeley Miscellany (Berkeley) no. 1, 1948, 11-14

Berkeley Miscellany (Berkeley) no. 2, 1949, 31-32

The poet and poetry - a symposium in The Occident (Berkeley) Fall 1949, 42-45

Language: Journal of the Linguistic Society of America (Baltimore) v. 28 no. 3 Part I, July-September 1952, 348-359

Evergreen Review / San Francisco Scene issue (New York City) v. 1 no. 2, 1957, 52-58

Fifteen False Propositions Against God in Beatitude (SF) no.3, 23 May 1959

J nos. 2-5, and 8 (note: all iss. of J dated as "Fall 1959")

The New American Poetry, 1945-1960, ed. Donald Allen (NY: Grove Press, 1960) 142-147

The San Francisco Capitalist Bloodsucker / N (SF), Spring 1962

Open Space (SF) no. o, late 1963

Open Space (SF) nos. 1-11, January-November ? 1964

Recordings >

Evergreen Review / San Francisco Scene issue (New York City) v. 1 no. 2, companion recording (Hannover phonodisc HM 5001) September 1957

Jack Spicer reading Language (University of British Columbia) February 1965 - tape currently held by Simon Fraser University

Poetic dictation (Recorded at Warren Tallman's house in Vancouver, B.C.) 13 June 1965 - tapes currently held by Simon Fraser University

Lectures at Warren Tallman's house (Vancouver, B.C.) 15-17 June 1965 - tapes currently held by Simon Fraser University

Readings at the New Design Gallery (Vancouver, B.C.) June 1965, with Robin Blaser and Stan Persky - tape currently held by Simon Fraser University

Summer Days (Berkeley) July 1965, conversation and reading with Robin Blaser, Robert Duncan, Stan Perksy and others - tapes currently held by Simon Fraser University

A Lecture and Reading at the Berkeley Poetry Conference, July 14-15, 1965 - tapes currently held by the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley

Exact Change Yearbook #1, 1995, compact disk excerpt from Evergreen Review recording

Posthumous Publications: Books >

Book of Magazine Verse (SF: White Rabbit Press, c1966) illus. Graham Mackintosh

A Red Wheelbarrow (St. Aubens, Hove, Sussex England: limited offprint in 12 copies from Collection #1, 1968)

A Book of Music (SF: White Rabbit, 1969) illus. Graham Mackintosh

The Holy Grail eds. Sir Bercilak and Mogan LeFay [sic] (Berkeley: Jolly Roger Press, February 1969) rpt. - evidently a "pirate" edition

The Red Wheelbarrow (Berkeley: Arif, 1971) rpt.

Some Things from Jack (Verona, Italy: Plain Wrapper Press, 1972)

Admonitions (New York: Adventures in Poetry, c1974)

After Lorca (Toronto: Coach House Press, 1974) rpt.

A Lost Poem (Verona, Italy: Plain Wrapper Press, 1974)

An Ode and An Arcadia (Berkeley: Ark Press, 1974)

The Collected Books of Jack Spicer, ed. Robin Blaser (Los Angeles: Black Sparrow Press, 1975)

One Night Stand and other poems ed. Donald Allen (SF: Grey Fox Press, 1980)

Admonitions (Portree, Isle of Skye: Aquila/The Phaethon Press, 1981) rpt.

Collected Poems, 1945-46 (Berkeley: Oyez/White Rabbit Press, 1981)

Billy the Kid, trans. Joseph Guglielmi (France: fourbis, 1990) *french language version

The Tower of Babel: Jack Spicer's Detective Novel, eds. Ed Foster and Kevin Killian (Hoboken, N.J: Talisman House, 1994)

Posthumous Publications: Journals/Anthologies >

The Pacific Nation (Vancouver) no. 1, 1967, 31-33

Floating Bear (Brooklyn) nos. 33-34, 1967

The New Writing in the U.S.A. eds. Donald Allen and Robert Creeley (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1967) 267-271

A Red Wheelbarrow in Collection (Hove) no. 1, March 1968, 47-51

FUCK YOU (!) UNDERGROUND POETS UNTERGRUND GEDICHTE, ed. Rolf-Rainier Rygulla (Darmstadt, Joseph Melzer Verlag, 1968) 60-61. *facing German language version

Tish (Vancouver) issue d, undated - February 1969 ?

Admonitions in Writing (Vancouver) #2, 1970

Caterpillar (Sherman Oaks, CA) #12, July 1970, 45-212

California Librarian, October 1970, 250-261 *an excellent bibliography

Poetics of the New American Poetry, ed. Donald Allen (NY: Grove Press, 1973)

Manroot (SF) #10 / Spicer issue, Fall-Winter 1974

New York Times Book Review, 23 November 1975

Parnassus: Poetry in Review, Spring-Summer 1976

Boundary 2 #6 / Jack Spicer Issue, Fall 1977

Acts #6 / A Book of Correspondences for Jack Spicer, 1986

Exact Change Yearbook #1, 1995, 133-140

About Spicer >

Jack Spicer by Edward Halsey Foster (Boise, Idaho : Boise State University, c1991)

Poet be like God: Jack Spicer and the Berkeley Renaissance by Kevin Killian & Lewis Ellingham (Hanover, NH: Wesleyan University Press, 1998)

The House That Jack Built: The Collected Lectures of Jack Spicer, ed. Peter Gizzi (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1998)