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Charles Bukowski — 4 Poets

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the synaesthesia press published an essay on the state of American Poetry according to Mr. Charles Bukowski. It appeared in synaesthesia press chap book #2, 4 Poets. The chap book is long out of print.

Bukowski wrote the essay in 1964. It was discovered in an old notebook that’s in the special collections department at the University of Arizona’s library. It’s in one of those 39 cent spiral-bound notebooks you buy for school. There’s beer stains and doodles all over it, and most of the contents are random thoughts and the kind of rants you’d find in someone’s personal journal. And right in the middle is this great essay.

So without asking anyone’s permission, I published it.

John Martin didn’t like it. But he bought almost the entire run. Maybe he’s got some laying around, but I wouldn’t know.

Every once in a while a copy shows up on eBay, but I’m not the seller. Because I don’t have anymore left; besides, I promised Black Sparrow no more sales.

In the same notebook was the first draft — in Buk’s hand — of “The Day It Snowed in L.A.” It was published almost 20+ years later, and almost verbatim, as what sits in that notebook.

I found the cover illustration I took for my book in that notebook, too.

I can’t tell you how excited I was to hold that notebook in my hands. It was a special experience I don’t think I could ever relive, cause I’m 20 years older now, and those sorts of feelings have long left me.

There were 243 copies printed; in addition, I printed 11 special copies that had another essay called “The House of Horrors” tipped in. The 11 copies were printed using 11 variant covers, all different mock-ups I had in mind for the regular edition.

Oh — “The House of Horrors” was in that same notebook, too.

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Lawrence Ferlinghetti — Four Poets

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I went to a reading Mr. Ferlinghetti gave at the Caravan of Dreams, in Fort Worth Texas; this was in 1992, I think.

Ferlinghetti read for an hour or so, and afterward, he signed books and answered questions. While I was getting a book signed, I asked if I could have a poem to print, and, without a second thought, he opened up the folder he was carrying and handed me one.

What a gentleman.

Pure class.

It would be the last poem Steve Fisher and I would get for a then-untitled project, and it really completed what was to become 4 Poets.

Mr. Ferlinghetti’s poem, “Poet as Fisherman”, later appeared in These Are My Rivers: New & Selected Poems 1955-1993, published by New Directions.

4 Poets was published in an edition of 232 copies, with 11 “special copies” that had a variant cover. The variant covers were simply mock-ups of different papers I was experimenting with for cover stock.

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Denis Johnson — 4 Poets

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It’s 1990 — maybe 1991. I’m on the phone with a cat named Steve Fisher. We’re in some pretty serious talks about starting a publishing company. Steve makes a suggestion: “let’s call it the synaesthesia press.”

“I’m all for that,” I said.

Steve suggests we contact some writers we both admire and solicit them for work. Our original thoughts are to launch a broadside series first, then get into chapbooks.

We talk about it some more, hang up, and I run to my dictionary to look up the word synaesthesia.

Steve secures a poem from Denis Johnson, and of course it’s a keeper.

Then, some things get into the way. Steve vanishes, and, later I discover, it’s for good.

In the winter of ’94, I made a commitment to synaesthesia press, and the following spring I published its first two books.

The Denis Johnson poem appears in the second book, 4 Poets. As do the rest of the poems from writers I solicited — and a few I never spoke to.