Faculty of Arts and Philosophy
2015-2016
Julie Stokx
WOMEN EDITING BEAT LITTLE MAGAZINES
Analyzing Hettie Jones’ Role as Co-editor of the
Beat Little Magazine “Yugen” (1958-1962)
Promotor: Professor dr. Isabelle Meuret
Dissertation submitted in partial
fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Master of Arts in American Studies
Acknowledgments
Studying literature, I have always enjoyed reading. However, I never thought about how
manuscripts of famous writers actually found their way to printed works. Thus, when I first
started this project, researching the editing work of the women of the Beat Generation, I
did not realize that I would become so interested in the actual process of editing and
publishing. And, yet, today I pay more and more attention to the way texts are crafted, and,
to the small names in books under the actual author. While the creative minds of our time,
writing beautiful poetry and stories, continue to amaze me, I cannot help but ask “what
about the editors?”
Thus, I am grateful to have had the opportunity to write about this aspect, which I knew so
little about. Of course, I would not have been able to do it alone. Therefore, I want to thank
my promoter Professor dr. Isabelle Meuret for her advice, feedback, and inspiration. I also
appreciated all the support of the other professors of the MAAS-program and my fellow
colleagues. Lastly, I want to thank Hettie Jones. I was able to have a correspondence with
her about her time working as an editor of the little magazine Yugen. Not only did her
answers to my questions add great depth to my research, she will also forever inspire me.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 2 II. Theoretical Framework ..................................................................................................... 6 1. The Little Magazine in America .................................................................................... 6 1.1 Definition ................................................................................................................. 6 1.2 Historical Context: Magazines and the Mass Market .............................................. 8 1.3 Characteristics of Little Magazines ........................................................................ 11 2. The Beat Generation .................................................................................................... 15 2.1 Rebels at a Time of Conformity and Repression ................................................... 16 2.2 “This is really a Beat Generation”.......................................................................... 17 2.3 Silent Girls in Black: The Women of the Beat Generation .................................... 21 2.3.1 Historical Context: the Domestic Ideal of the 1950s ....................................... 21 2.3.2 Women Beats ................................................................................................... 24 3. The Little Magazines of the Beat Generation .............................................................. 28 3.1 Beats and the Media ............................................................................................... 29 3.2 Beat Little Magazines............................................................................................. 30 3.3 Women editors ....................................................................................................... 33 III. Analysis ......................................................................................................................... 38 1. Methodology ................................................................................................................ 38 2. Setting the Scene: the Editors, the Story, the Magazine .............................................. 38 3. Analysis of Yugen and the role of Hettie Jones as co-editor........................................ 42 3.1 Editorial policy ....................................................................................................... 42 3.2 Content and contributors ........................................................................................ 43 3.3 Financial Issues ...................................................................................................... 46 3.4 Production .............................................................................................................. 48 3.6 Audience................................................................................................................. 49 3.7 Editorial Strategy.................................................................................................... 49 3.8 Yugen’s Impact on the Beat Generation and on Hettie Jones ................................ 50 3.9 “So, were you just the typist?” ............................................................................... 52 IV. Conclusion ..................................................................................................................... 55 Bibliography ........................................................................................................................ 57 Appendix ............................................................................................................................. 61 1
I. Introduction
In the 1950s many literary “little” magazines started to appear in the United States. These
little magazines were called little, not so much because of their actual size, but because of
their small audience, their short lifespan, and their little economic profit. The literary
content of these magazines was considered not commercial. This meant that the writers
published in little magazines were usually unknown, or that their material was avant-garde
or experimental. While the type of content of little magazines varied from fiction and
poetry to literary criticism, it was characterized by its nonconformity and eccentricity.1
This kind of material was not suited for the money-minded popular periodicals because,
unlike the editors of little magazines, their editors had to take the literary tastes of their
audience into account. And, these popular periodicals were often more concerned about
actually selling the magazines and making a profit from them. Conversely, the intent of the
editors of little magazines was selfless. They wanted to give new writers and new literary
movements a platform. Little magazines were not a specific phenomenon of 1950s
America, although there was definitely an increase in such magazines at that time. Indeed,
little magazines had been around since the nineteenth century, and there were many
examples of little magazines in Britain and other parts of the world.2
Additionally, during the 1950s, a new literary movement that originated in the late 1940s,
started to flourish: the Beat generation. This generation is mostly known for its three main
literary icons: Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William Burroughs. However, there
were more writers that but it also included Gregory Corso, Michael McClure, Gary Snyder,
and Lawrence Ferlinghetti as well as the younger generation of beat writers such as Bob
Kaufmann and LeRoi Jones. Also, women were no strangers to the Beat Generation, often,
seen as a “boy-gang,” centered on the famous male writers. The contributions of women
were ignored and the women themselves were labeled as “silent beat chicks.” The
omission of the women of the Beat generation from history and the literary canon is an
often-studied phenomenon. Since the 1990s, feminist and Beat scholars and have
continuously made efforts to recognize the significance of these women Beats.
1
Eliot Anderson and Mary Kinzie, eds., The Little Magazine in America: A Modern Documentary History,
(New York: The Pushcart Press, 1978), 3.
2
Ibid.
2
Additionally, these women were often the “agents of their own recovery by writing
themselves into Beat and postwar history” via memoirs. Among the most famous women
of the Beat generation are Joyce Johnson, Diane di Prima and Hettie Jones.3
The surge of little magazines in the 1950s and the emergence of the Beat generation were
connected. Even though, critics frequently claim that there is no truly “beat little
magazine,” multiple little magazines were publishing beat poetry before mainstream
publishing caught on. One of those little magazines was Yugen: A New Consciousness in
Arts and Letters (1958-1962). It only ran for eight issues but offers such a wide range of
literature that it can be compared to the many poetry anthologies that were documenting
the New American Poetry. These anthologies were published after 1960, such as Donald
Allen’s The New American Poetry: 1945-1960. In Yugen a similar diversity of material can
be noticed. To illustrate, in Yugen 1 Jack Micheline, a lesser known beat, and Allen
Ginsberg appear side by side, and Yugen 4 presents work of both Jack Kerouac and New
York School poet Frank O’Hara. Although Yugen is frequently mentioned as an important
little magazine in both beat and little magazine studies, a comprehensive analysis of the
magazine as such is missing. According to The Oxford Critical and Cultural History of
Modernist Magazines, Yugen was one of the only magazines that “ended up looking
anything like an American beat little magazine.”4 However, since the magazine published
works of various schools of poetry, can it really be characterized as a Beat little magazine?
Yugen was a project created by LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka (1934-2004) and Hettie Jones
(1934-) in New York. They were married at the time and they put the magazine together,
by hand, and sold it for 50 cents a copy. In her memoir, Hettie Jones states that Yugen was
LeRoi’s idea but that she “threw herself at it.”5 She was the one who did all of the physical
work, such as typing and binding, while also contributing to the selection and editing of the
texts that appeared in the magazine. Hettie Jones also maintained a full-time job at
Partisan Review, a popular though alternative literary magazine, and was able to provide a
far wider audience for Yugen than most little magazines at that time because of the
connections she made at Partisan. Even though Hettie Jones was clearly an important part
3
Nancy M. Grace, and Ronna C. Johnson, ed., Girls Who Wore Black: Women Writing the Beat Generation.
(New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2002) 3.
4
Peter Brooker, and Andrew Thacker ed., The Oxford Critical and Cultural History of Modernist Magazines.
Volume II, North America 1894-1960 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 1024.
5
Hettie Jones, How I Became Hettie Jones (New York: Grove Press, 1990), 53.
3
of Yugen, she is often ignored in the historical narrative. Indeed, some studies have
acknowledged her work, specifically studies that focus on the Beat Generation and the
women of the Beat Generation. Still, others do not, or merely mention her as the typist, and
give all the credit to LeRoi Jones. However, it is very clear that she was a lot more than the
typist and that the project of Yugen was collaboration, rather than a one-man-job. By
looking at her and LeRoi’s memoir, interviews, and accounts of other beat writers, and
given that her name is on the magazine itself, Hettie’s significance as an editor is evident.
Thus, a few questions remain unanswered in both the area of Yugen and the role of its coeditor Hettie Jones. Firstly, what kind of magazine is Yugen? Can it be described as beat?
And, what kind of influence did it have in that literary community in New York?
Furthermore, what was its purpose, audience, or financing like? Secondly, what exactly did
Hettie Jones do in the magazine? What was her editorial strategy? And, did her time at
Yugen have a significant impact on her?
To answer these questions, I analyze both the little magazine Yugen and the role of its coeditor. This dissertation is divided into two parts. First, I offer a discussion of the little
magazine in America. After defining the term and contextualizing the emergence of little
magazines, I consider a few characteristics of the typical little magazine. These
characteristics will be applied in the analysis chapter. Next, I explore the Beat Generation,
its definitions, characteristics, and main members will be discussed here. Subsequently, the
women Beats will be addressed. Finally, I will consider how these two areas – little
magazines and women of the Beat Generation – intersect. Thus, an overview of women in
editing will be provided. In the second part of this thesis, the case-study of Hettie Jones as
a co-editor of Yugen will be thoroughly analyzed. The focus will be on the editorial policy,
the contributors of the magazine, the financial issues, and production of the magazine.
Each of these aspects will be connected to the role of Hettie Jones. However, primarily the
parts on the editorial strategy and the impact of Yugen, as well as a separate section
discussing her as an editor, will deal with Hettie Jones’ role in the magazine.
Essentially, I will demonstrate that Yugen is a beat little magazine because of its content,
editorial policy, funding, audience, and impact. This will suggest that this little magazine
had a fundamental role in supporting and promoting the authors of the Beat Generation and
that it was vital in the creation of a literary community. Furthermore, I argue that Hettie
4
Jones was an active editor of Yugen, even though critics have often limited her importance.
This will prove that women had an important role in the editing and publishing of Beat
Generation literature.
5
II. Theoretical Framework
1. The Little Magazine in America
1.1 Definition
In The Little Magazine: A History and a Bibliography (1947), Frederick J. Hoffman,
Charles Allen and Carolyn F. Ulrich proposed a definition in their influential study of little
magazines from 1912 to 1945. More recent little magazine studies still use this seminal
work as a source for their research. These include Eliot Anderson and Mary Kinzie’s The
Little Magazine in America: A Modern Documentary History (1978), which discusses little
magazines from 1950 to the late 1970s, and Ian Morris and Joanne Diaz’s The Little
Magazine in Contemporary America (2015), which concentrates on little magazines from
the 1980s to the present day.6 Accordingly, the definition of Hoffman et al. will also be
considered in this dissertation.
Hoffman et al. define little magazines as magazines “designed to print artistic work, which
for reasons of commercial expediency is not acceptable to the money-minded periodicals
or presses.”7 Anderson and Kinzie elaborate on this definition, highlighting the artistic
value of little magazines: “little magazines generally put experiment before ease and art
before comment.”8 Furthermore, they emphasize the financial aspect: “as a rule, they do
not and cannot expect to make money.”9 Similarly, Morris and Diaz include “penury” as
one of the key characteristics of little magazine publishing. 10 However, they mainly
emphasize the significant role of little magazines “to promote the avant-garde.” They
assert that “little magazines function as a ‘front guard’ that anticipates the newest
movements in literature, politics, and art.”11
6
Frederick J. Hoffman, Charles Allen and Carolyn F. Ulrich eds., The Little Magazine: A History and a
Bibliography (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1947); Eliot Anderson and Mary Kinzie, eds., The
Little Magazine in America: A Modern Documentary History, (New York: The Pushcart Press, 1978); Ian
Morris and Joanne Diaz, The Little Magazine in Contemporary America (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 2015).
7
Hoffman et al., The Little Magazine, 2.
8
Anderson and Kinzie, The Little Magazine in America, 3.
9
Ibid.
10
Morris and Diaz, The Little Magazine in Contemportary America, x.
11
Ibid., xiv-xv.
6
Essentially, a little magazine was characterized by its specific artistic content and its little
funds. However, these magazines were called little not because of these aspects, or because
of their physical size – Hoffman et al. note that they were in fact always small. Actually,
their littleness derived from their audience. Hoffman et al. describe this audience as “a
limited group of intelligent readers” who were interested in learning about new literary and
artistic movements.”12 Consequently, little magazines usually arose from a community of
people with common literary or artistic interests. 13 Finally, little magazines can be
categorized as such because of the way they were produced, their impact and function, and
the intent of their editors. These aspects will be discussed in a separate section below.
Although little magazines were mainly designed to publish literature – primarily poetry
and fiction – other content could find its way to little magazines. Examples include literary
criticism, art in the form of drawings and paintings, and even political manifestos.14
Hoffman et al. attempted to categorize little magazines from 1912 on by their content, and
differentiated six types: poetry, leftist, regional, experimental, critical and eclectic little
magazines. However, they emphasize that this kind of classification was merely “in the
interest of convenience” when discussing a large corpus of little magazines. Usually, these
categories overlapped.15 Moreover, Hoffman et al., as well as Anderson and Kinzie and
Morris and Diaz, recommend considering a little magazine on itself in its proper literary,
cultural, and historical context.16
LeRoi and Hettie Jones published the first issue of their little magazine Yugen in 1958.
However, according to Hoffman et al., the United States had witnessed a long history of
little magazines. Already in the nineteenth century, Margaret Fuller and Ralph Waldo
Emerson printed The Dial (Boston, 1840-1844): “the parent of the American little
magazine.”17 Thus, Yugen emerged at a time where little magazines were widespread –
Warren French states in his 1961 article about little magazines that there had never been as
12
Hoffman et al., The Little Magazine, 3.
Michael Anania, “Of Living Belfry and Rampart: On American Literary Magazines since 1950,” in The
Little Magazine in America: A Modern Documentary History, edited by Eliot Anderson and Mary Kinzie
(New York: The Pushcart Press, 1978), 11; Andrew Thacker and Peter Brooker eds., The Oxford Critical and
Cultural History of Modernist Magazines. Volume II, North America 1894-1960, (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2012), 7.
14
Morris and Diaz, The Little Magazine in Contemporary America, x.
15
Hoffman et al., The Little Magazine, 8.
16
Ibid., 8-17; Anderson and Kinzie, The Little Magazine in America, 3-5; Morris and Diaz, The Little
Magazine in Contemporary America, vii-xiv.
17
Hoffman et al., The Little Magazine, 7.
13
7
many little magazines as in the 1950s 18 – and the genre already well established.
Subsequently, the history of this specific kind of magazine has to be taken into account.
1.2 Historical Context: Magazines and the Mass Market
According to Andrew Thacker, a surge in the production of little magazines occurred in the
beginning of the twentieth century.19 As aforementioned, little magazines were distributed
already in the nineteenth century. However, the following century witnessed a significant
increase. Thacker observes a similar increase in the publication of magazines in general.
To illustrate, the amount of magazines in the US in 1860 was 575. By 1905, that amount
had risen to 7500.
Thacker believes this was a result of “improvements in printing
technology” and “cheaper postal rates.” He also highlights the growing public interest in
illustrated magazines. Resultantly, it became considerably easier and cheaper to produce a
magazine. Moreover, the magazines’ prices dropped which, in turn, generated more
circulation. Furthermore, Thacker connects this development to the growth of industrial
production in the United States at the end of the nineteenth century. Consequently, the rise
in “consumer goods” needed new and more markets. To reach these new markets,
industries relied heavily on advertising. Naturally, magazines benefitted. Specifically, the
“mass-market magazines” – magazines for mass markets about mass culture: sports,
fashion, literature, celebrities, entertainment, society, and current events, such as
McClure’s and Ladies Home Journal20 – filled their magazines up with advertisements.
Thacker states that, by 1908, 54 % of the content of these magazines consisted of
advertisements.21
Thacker asserts that the emergence of little magazines must be considered in this context
of that mass market. Indeed, he perceives early little magazines to be “a simple rejection of
the culture of the mass market.”22 Additionally, John Tebbel and Mary Zuckerman indicate
18
Warren French, “Little Magazines in the Fifties,” College English 22, no. 8 (1961), 547.
Andrew Thacker, “General Introduction,” in The Oxford Critical and Cultural History of Modernist
Magazines. Volume II, North America 1894-1960, edited by Andrew Thacker and Peter Brooker (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2012), 22.
20
The Gale Group Inc., “Mass Market Magazine Revolution,” St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture,
2000, accessed July 10, 2016,
http://www.encyclopedia.com/article-1G2-3409001606/mass-marketmagazine-revolution.html
21
Thacker, “General Introduction,” 22.
22
Ibid., 23.
19
8
the emerging consumer culture, specifically as a factor in the growth of little magazines. In
the nineteenth century “quality monthlies” and “literary weeklies” were willing to print
anything literary. However, at the turn of the century, the contents of such magazines
needed to be aligned with the new, larger audiences. Editors did not want to risk their
success by publishing literature that was too avant-garde for their wide-ranging
audiences.23 Moreover, they did not want to lose their sponsors who bought advertisement
space. Thus, by relying on advertisements the “periodical codes” were influenced.24 In
general, little magazines were not designed for advertisements. The little magazine did not
need to be commercial; they functioned primarily as a sponsor of innovative literature.
However, Thacker does mention that the American little magazine occasionally used
advertisements. He compares them to British little magazines that never published any
advertisements. Primarily, advertisements in American little magazines were for other little
magazines, for new small presses and bookshops, or for events, plays, and readings of
poets and artists. These kinds of advertisements were part of the creation of a literary
community and this was one of the key aspects of little magazine publishing.25
The history of the American little magazine officially started in 1912. However, its main
precursor was The Dial, which was primarily focused on transcendentalism and published
writers like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry Thoreau. Other examples of nineteenthcentury magazines that resembled the twentieth-century little magazines were Saturday
Press (1858-1866) and M’lle New York (1895-1899). After a break, a “renaissance” of
little magazines started in the 1910s. Harriet Monroe’s Poetry: A Magazine of Verse is
considered the most famous and influential little magazine of that time. This magazine is
still published today, which makes it an exception among other little magazines. Ezra
Pound functioned as a foreign correspondent for this magazine between 1912-1917.26 The
Little Review (1914-1929) edited by Margaret Anderson is another influential modernist
little magazine. Notable contributors were Ford Madox Ford, James Joyce, Ezra Pound,
Sherwood Anderson, William Carlos Williams, and W.B. Yeats. 27 Other magazines
include the Masses (1911-1917) by editors Floyd Dell and Max Eastman, and Alfred
23
John Tebbel and Mary Ellen Zuckerman, eds., The Magazine in America: 1741-1990 (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1991), 213.
24
Thacker, “General Introduction,” 22.
25
Ibid., 7.
26
Jayne Marek, Women Editing Modernism (Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, 1995), 24-57.
27
Ibid., 60-61.
9
Kreymborg’s Others (1915-1919).28 These little magazines were essential in the growth of
new literary movements. Herein lies the cultural and historical significance of these types
of magazines. Thacker asserts that modernism “took roots first in periodical publishing.”
He also notes that without that kind of publishing modernism would not be the same.29
From the 1920s on, American universities became vital in the process of little magazine
publishing. They started sponsoring little magazines that were specifically linked to the
institution. Universities were primarily interested in the publicity that these magazines
offered, but they also supported new literary movements. Tim Woods questions the notion
of rebellion in such magazines and describes them as “academic magazines” rather than
little magazines. Fundamentally, the editors of university based magazines were hindered
by the authority of the university to censor material that was considered unfit “for the
image of major institutions of education as upholders of social morals and the standards of
public culture.”30 An example of such a magazine was Chicago Review (1946-), and a
particularly controversial episode in its history shows exactly what the difference between
an academic and little magazine is.31 The 1958 spring issue of the University of Chicago’s
Chicago Review concentrated on a new group of avant-garde writers from San Francisco.
It featured Robert Duncan, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Philip Lamantia, John Wieners, Philip
Whalen, Michael McClure, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and the first chapter of William
Burroughs’ Naked Lunch. Then, the summer issue continued this trend. It had a “Zen
theme” and published Kerouac, Gary Snyder, and Whalen. In the fall issue, similar
experimental writing appeared from Joel Oppenheimer, Whalen, Brother Antonius and the
second chapter of Naked Lunch. All the issues had spurred controversy among the readers
of Chicago Review. However, the University of Chicago decided that the last issue was
overboard and they threatened to end the magazine if the editors did not “tone [it] down.”32
Consequently, one of the editors Irving Rosenthal decided he no longer wanted to be
28
Tebbel and Zuckerman, The Magazine in America, 215.
Thacker, “General Introduction,” 1.
30
Tim Woods, “Academic Magazines,” in The Oxford Critical and Cultural History of Modernist
Magazines. Volume II, North America 1894-1960, edited by Peter Brooker and Andrew Thacker (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2012), 945.
31
Warren French, “Little Magazines in the Fifties,” College English 22, no. 8 (1961), 547-548, 550.
32
R.J. Ellis, “ ‘Little…Only with Some Qualifications’: The Beats and Beat ‘Little Magazines,’” in The
Oxford Critical and Cultural History of Modernist Magazines. Volume II, North America 1894-1960, edited
by Peter Brooker and Andrew Thacker (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 1014.
29
10
hindered by censorship and went on to establish Big Table, a little magazine that would
continue to publish the censored material from Chicago Review.33
In the 1950s, there was again a surge of little magazine publishing – although it would be
the 1960s that truly developed as the decade of little magazines with the mimeograph
revolution.34 Michael Anania argues that the magazines in the 1950s had really close ties to
the modernist like Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams. What was different about the
1950s magazines is their lack of literary criticism, essays and book reviews. These
magazines focused more on poetry. Anania links this to the existence of many universitybased magazines that offered that kind of material instead. Just like the little magazines
promoted the modernist literature of the early twentieth century, Beat Generation writers
and other groups benefitted greatly from this type of literary magazine in the 1950s.35 In
part II.3.2 of this dissertation, I will discuss some beat little magazines briefly to set the
context for the analysis of Yugen.
1.3 Characteristics of Little Magazines
Although little magazines should be considered separately, there are certain characteristics
that typify them. Thus, it is useful to list these characteristics in order to analyze the little
magazine discussed in this dissertation.
Firstly, little magazines were recognized by their content. While this was usually poetry
and fiction, non-literary pieces were accepted.36 However, the content’s foremost aspect
was its avant-garde nature.37 Little magazines published primarily unknown or relatively
unknown writers and, consequently, promoted “new and unorthodox literary theories and
practices.”38 Little magazines thrived on experimentation with new forms of expression.
Accordingly, editors frequently discovered innovative artists and were able to promote
their early work.39 Unfortunately, the little magazine’s avant-garde spirit could hinder the
33
Ibid., 1014-1015.
Anania, “Of Living Belfry and Rampart,” 14-15.
35
Ibid.
36
Morris and Diaz, The Little Magazine in Contemporary America, x.
37
Anania, “Of Living Belfry and Rampart,” 11.
38
Hoffman et al., The Little Magazine, 4.
39
Ibid., 2
34
11
appreciation of its readers. Often, little magazines published material merely for its
“novelty,” which led to the accusation that their editors certainly printed new artistic
pieces, but not necessarily quality work.40 Yet, little magazines did have the benefit that
their content did not need to be “stylistically conform, or categorically topical.” 41
Essentially, they were able to do what the commercial magazines could not: ignore public
taste and go against the literary conventions and traditions.42
Secondly, financial obstacles were a typical feature of little magazines. Editors generally
did not make any profit from publishing a little magazine. Additionally, they even had to
be prepared to lose money. Being poor was part of creating a little magazine.43 However,
that did not stop the editors. As Daisy Aldan, editor of Folder (1953-1956) put it:
“Certainly being poor never deterred a really gifted person from creating art.”44 Morris and
Diaz state that this quote might as well be the motto of little magazines.45 Usually, the
editors financed little magazines themselves, without any sponsors. This was possible
because the production of a little magazine was relatively inexpensive. To illustrate, the
emergence of offset printing46 at the end of the nineteenth century and beginning of the
twentieth century provided an easy method to print material. In the sixties, the mimeograph
machine47 made that process even easier and cheaper.48 Essentially, any resources that
were required were accessible. Additionally, the editors did most of the work themselves:
typing, editing, printing, and binding. Naturally, this meant that little magazines did not
always look as professional as commercial magazines. 49 Furthermore, apart from
promoting similar little magazines as a way of mutual advertising, editors generally
40
Ibid., 5.
Anderson and Kinzie, The Little Magazine in America, 3.
42
Hoffman et al., The Little Magazine, 2-4.
43
Morris and Diaz, The Little Magazine in Contemporary America, x; Anderson and Kinzie, The Little
Magazine in America, 3; Hoffman, The Little Magazine, 2.
44
Dennis Barone, “Daisy Aldan, An Interview on Folder,” in The Little Magazine in America: A Modern
Documentary History edited by Eliot Anderson and Mary Kinzie (New York: The Pushcart Press, 1978),
278.
45
Morris and Diaz, The Little Magazine in Contemporary America, xi.
46 This was “also called offset lithography, or litho-offset, in commercial printing a widely used printing
technique in which the inked image on a printing plate is printed on a rubber cylinder and then transferred
(i.e., offset) to paper or other material.” Encyclopedia Brittanica Online, s.v.,“Offset Printing,” accessed July
15, 2016, <https://www.britannica.com/technology/offset-printing>
47
A “ duplicator for making many copies that utilizes a stencil through which ink is pressed” Merriam
Webster Dictionary Online, s.v., “Mimeograph,” accessed July 15, 2016, <http://www.merriamwebster.com/dictionary/mimeograph>
48
Morris and Diaz, The Little Magazine in Contemporary America, xi-xii. explain dictionnary of media and
communications
49
Ibid., xii.
41
12
deferred from using advertisements as an income – as explained above.50 Moreover, the
editors did not need to pay the contributors of the magazines. Because of the writers’
limited recognition, appearing in a magazine usually sufficed for them.51 Thus, a little
magazine could be considered as a non-commercial endeavor. Subsequently, it was not
intended to be profitable. However, that did influence their survival. More often than not,
little magazines collapsed because of lack of funds.52
That leads to the third characteristic of little magazines: their “probability of collapse.”53
Usually, financial problems caused a little magazine to cease its existence. However, there
were other explanations. Firstly, the lifespan of a little magazine went hand in hand with
the interests of its editors. Either they were frustrated with and no longer passionate about
creating little magazines or the new movement that their magazine was promoting had
become mainstream or had ceased to exist. Secondly, sometimes editors decided on
publishing a set amount of issues of a little magazine. This was generally linked to the
amount of funds that were available, though. Thirdly, the little magazine’s content could
sometimes be too avant-garde and offend certain people. This could lead to government
persecution of the editors, or a censorship trial, and, consequently, the end of the magazine.
Lastly, the magazine could perish if – when there was more than one editor – the editors
had a misunderstanding, either in general, about the direction of the magazine, or about the
distribution of responsibilities.54
A little magazine usually had one or two editors. Naturally, they were an important
element to little magazines and their personality constitutes the fourth aspect of little
magazines. According to Hoffman et al. the history of little magazines is “a history of
personalities.”55 This explains why every little magazine was different. Editors of little
magazines were sometimes contributors themselves. Generally, they were dissatisfied with
the literary status quo or with publishers who ignored artistic work because it did not
conform to the “conventional tastes and choices.”56 These editors were always convinced
50
Ibid.; Anania, “Of Living Belfry and Rampart,” 18.
Hoffman et al., The Little Magazine, 2.
52
Hoffman et al., The Little Magazine, 5; Anania, “Of Living Belfry and Rampart,” 10.
53
Hoffman et al., The Little Magazines, 5.
54
Hoffman et al., The Little Magazine, 5; Anania, “Of Living Belfry and Rampart,” 10.
55
Hoffman et al., The Little Magazine, v.
56
Morris and Diaz, The Little Magazine in Contemporary America, ix; Hoffman et al., The Little Magazine,
3.
51
13
that “our attitudes toward literature need to be reformed or at least made more liberal.”57
Ultimately, their intention remained pure and selfless. They produced art for art’s sake and
not for any commercial gain. Essentially, they were the guardians of innovation, but also
“by necessity innovators” themselves, “operating outside of prevailing modes of
commercial publishing.”58 The purpose of the editors was expressed in the editorial policy
or statement. Although this became in some cases merely “a ritualistic declaration and part
of the magazine’s acknowledgment of its lineage among magazines of the first part of the
century,” 59 it did express the ideals and purpose of a little magazine. Moreover, it
explained the “school of political or aesthetic thought” the magazine was expressing and
represented the “urgency with which [the editors] felt a reform in modern letters was
needed.”60 However, it could also simply be “an expression of generosity to those who are
akin in spirit.”61
The fifth characteristic of little magazines, its audience, essentially indicated its littleness.
This was always a select and small group of people, interested in the specific artistic
quality of a little magazine. To illustrate, the circulation of a particular little magazine
typically did not exceed 1000 subscribers. This “specialized readership” accepted the
editors’ choices. 62 Morris and Diaz explain that: “altering […] content for to attract more
subscribers would strike most little magazine editors as precisely beside the point.”63
Furthermore, Michael Anania emphasizes that little magazines were really created for
writers and not for readers. Though “readers are welcome, sometimes even actively sought
out,” little magazines were often created in a community of writers, as well as bought and
read by writers.64
Lastly, the significance or impact of a little magazine was an important quality. Primarily,
it had an important role in supporting and introducing new literary movements. In the
1920s and 1930s, little magazines played a vital role in the emergence of modernism. In
the 1950s and 1960s, they were an essential part of the budding countercultural
57
Hoffman et al., The Little Magazine, 5.
Morris and Diaz, The Little Magazine in Contemporary America, xii.
59
Anania, “Of Living Belfry and Rampart,” 11.
60
Hoffman et al., The Little Magazine, 5.
61
Ibid.
62
Ibid., 2.
63
Morris and Diaz, The Little Magazine in Contemporary America, xi.
64
Anania, “Of Living Belfry and Rampart,” 10.
58
14
movement.65 Accordingly, little magazines contributed significantly to twentieth-century
history by giving it “an abundance of suggestions and styles which popular or academic
taste scarcely could tolerate or accept.”66 Consequently, little magazines are also a “source
of information about twentieth-century writing.”67 Additionally, the little magazine was
often the only place a new writer could be published. This motivated new writers and
installed confidence in them to continue their literary experiments.68 Editors often accepted
“second rate writing” when they saw real talent.69 Indeed, editors founded little magazines
precisely “to overcome the commercial and material difficulties” that writers face “whose
commercial merits [had] not been proven.”70 This publishing opportunity provided the
writer with recognition, which sometimes led to mainstream “money-minded” presses and
periodicals to accept them as legitimate authors.71 Frequently, editors of book publishing
houses and established periodicals even “scanned through the pages of little magazines
looking for new talent.”72 Finally, the little magazine’s importance lies with the people that
surrounded it. Undeniably, by bringing together like-minded people, little magazines
stimulated the creation of literary communities.73 Herein lies their vital importance in
literary history.
2. The Beat Generation
One of those literary communities stimulated by little magazines was the Beat Generation.
This American literary and cultural movement originated in the 1940s and fully developed
in the 1950s. While it began in New York, the Beat movement also developed in San
Francisco. There, it had close ties with the San Francisco literary renaissance and the New
York School poets.74 Additionally, the Beats were often linked to the Black Mountain
Poets in, who were students of the Black Mountain College in North Carolina, an avant-
65
Morris and Diaz, The Little Magazine in Contemporary America, ix.
Hoffman et al., The Little Magazine, 4.
67
Ibid., v.
68
Anderson and Kinzie, The Little Magazine in America, 3.
69
Hoffman et al., The Little Magazine, 15.
70
Ibid., 5.
71
Ibid., 3.
72
John Tebbel, The American Magazine: A Compact History (New York: Hawthorn Books Inc., 1969), 214.
73
Morris and Diaz, The Little Magazine in Contemporary America, xi.
74
William T. Lawlor, ed., Beat Culture: Icons, Lifestyles, and Impact (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, Inc.,
2005), xiii.
66
15
garde school that focused on “an alternative liberal arts education gained through
communal experience and interdisciplinary study.”75
2.1 Rebels at a Time of Conformity and Repression
The historical and social context of postwar American society was important for the Beat
movement. Martin Halliwell describes the 1950s as a period marked by “dualities,
tensions, and contradictions.”76 To illustrate, World War II had a significant and beneficial
impact on the American economy. Consequently, the life standard of Americans improved
drastically. Primarily middle-class Americans had the opportunity to enjoy the subsequent
improvements in housing and education, and the ability to afford the many new consumer
products. The development of a culture of mass consumption was well under way.
Essentially, the growth in industrial production had not only affected the magazines, but
also society in general. Indeed, materialism had become the new way to happiness.
Furthermore, the American soldiers had come home and were eager to resume their prewar jobs and to settle down in the suburbs with their wives and children.77
Despite these improvements, the decade was also burdened by the aftermath of the war.
The events of the Holocaust and the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945
had shocked the world. The creation of Hydrogen Bombs and the emergence of the Cold
War, the arms race, and the Nuclear Age made people fear the possibility of the complete
man-made destruction of humanity. Essentially, the fear of a nuclear attack and anxieties
caused by the Cold War left American society in distress. Although the Soviet Union was
the main enemy, the Cold War also roared at home. The idea of communism scared the
American people and there was a legitimate fear of communist traitors seeking to destroy
the American way of life from within. Senator Joseph McCarthy’s communist witch-hunt
and the subsequent Red Scare further stimulated that climate of suspicion.78 Additionally,
75
Terrence Diggory, Encyclopedia of the New York School Poets (New York: Facts on File, 2013), 64;
Among the Black Mountain poets were Charles Olson, Robert Creeley, Ed Dorn, Larry Eigner, Paul
Blackburn, Hilda Morley, John Wieners, Jonathan Williams, Fielding Dawson, Joel Oppenheimer, and
Denise Levertov. (Diggory, 64-65)
76
Martin Halliwell, American Culture in the 1950s (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007), 3.
77
Ibid., 1-3.
78
Ibid., 2.
16
the inauguration of Eisenhower in 1953 promoted an image of conservatism in the US.79
Essentially, the times were changing and American society was desperate to hold on to
traditional values. Moreover, the conformism and consumerism of the decade both fit in
the Cold War ideology that was projecting an American way of life, full of opportunities,
happy families, and freedom. Fundamentally, this combination of a changing society and
prevailing anxieties led to a decade of “inward-looking conservatism.”80
During this period of turbulence and conformism, “the Beat spirit was born.”81 Essentially,
not everyone was on board with the reaffirmation of conservative traditional values. From
this paradox of fear and anxiety versus domestic bliss and economic consumerism, arose a
generation of “disaffiliated young people” who were not only influenced by the aftermath
of the war but also seriously questioned the image of happiness and prosperity that the
American media was putting forward.82 William Lawlor states that the Beats did not
believe in the benefits of consumerism in the context of the fear of a nuclear attack: “What
good were a house with a picket fence, a shiny car, and a washing machine if one had to
dig a fallout shelter and be ready to enter it at a moment’s notice?” Moreover, the Beats
laughed in the face of conformity because “[w]hat good were a career and social status if
society required conformity in dress, language, taste, and thought?” Lastly, they were upset
with how society dealt with difference and nonconformity: “What good was a family if
divergence from expectations about marriage and parenthood meant that sons and
daughters might be committed to institutions for mental health and undergo electroshock
treatment?”83 The Beats rebelled against the conformist spirit of the 1950s by professing
“individuality,” “spontaneity,” and “a desire to dismantle control.”84
2.2 “This is really a Beat Generation”
The Beat Generation is characterized by its heterogeneity. Consequently, there are multiple
definitions of the Beat spirit. Moreover, Beat writing does not have a fixed set of
79
Ibid., 7
Ibid., 3.
81
Regina Weinreich, “The Beat Generation is Now About Everything,” in Postwar American Literature and
Culture. Edited by Josephine Hendin (Malden: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2004), 72.
82
Ibid.
83
Lawlor, Beat Culture, xiv.
84
Ibid. Xiii-xiv.
80
17
characteristics. 85 Of course, beat writers and critics have made efforts to define this
countercultural movement. Jack Kerouac – “king of the Beats” and author of the
quintessential Beat novel On the Road (1957) – used the term “Beat Generation” during a
conversation with his friend and writer John Clellon Holmes in 1948. 86 They were
pondering about the Lost Generation – the post-World War I group of writers like Ernest
Hemingway who were disillusioned about the horrors of the war – and Kerouac decidedly
called their current generation “really a Beat Generation.”87 In 1952, Holmes introduced
the term to the world in his article “This is the Beat Generation.” In it, he believed this
generation had been influenced by the war and therefore had something in common, a
“general quality which demands an adjective.”88 Holmes described “beat” as followed:
More than mere weariness, it implies the feeling of having been used, of being raw.
It involves a sort of nakedness of mind, and, ultimately, of soul; a feeling of being
reduced to the bedrock of consciousness. In short, it means being undramatically
pushed up against the wall of oneself. A man is beat whenever he goes for broke
and wagers the sum of his resources on a single number; and the young generation
has done that continually from early youth.89
In 1959, when the Beat Generation had become notorious in American society, Playboy
asked Kerouac to explain what his definition of his generation was. He called it a “slogan
or label for a revolution in manners in America.”90 “Beat,” however had various meanings
according to him, ranging from “poor, down and out, deadbeat, on the bum, sad, sleeping
in subways” to people that had a “new gesture or attitude” that Kerouac described as “a
new more.”91 In this article, Kerouac described how his friend Herbert Huncke, a Times
Square hustler, had originally coined the word “beat” in 1944 while talking with Kerouac
and William Burroughs in relation to drugs. Kerouac accounts how Huncke said, “Man,
I’m beat,” and how he immediately understood what Huncke meant.92 However, “beat”
had been used in Jazz circles after the Second World War where it meant “poor and
85
Nancy M. Grace and Ronna C. Johnson, eds., Girls Who Wore Black: Women Writing the Beat Generation
(New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2002), 2-3.
86
Ann Charters, Beat Down to Your Soul: What Was the Beat Generation? (New York: Penguin Books,
2001), xv-xvi.
87
88
John Clellon Holmes, “This is the Beat Generation,” in The Beat Generation: A Gale Critical Companion
ed. Lynn M. Zott (Farmington Hills, MI: Gale, 2003), 4.
89
Ibid.
90
Jack Kerouac, “The Origins of the Beat Generation,” in The Beat Generation: A Gale Critical Companion
ed. Lynn M. Zott (Farmington Hills, MI: Gale, 2003), 22.
91
Ibid.
92
Ibid., 23.
18
exhausted.” Moreover, Ann Charters observes that the word was used as early as the Civil
War, where it was applied to men who disregarded their military duty. Later the meaning
broadened and people traveling with circuses used it. Here it related to having no place to
stay. In the twentieth century, “beat” received its drug connotation. It could refer to an
addict being in “acute physical distress.” However, used as a verb, it indicated, “to be
cheated or robbed,” specifically in the context of a drug deal.93 Then, Kerouac and Allen
Ginsberg added a spiritual meaning to the word. Ginsberg was convinced it was more than
“a slang term used by junkies and jazz musicians.” Indeed, he understood it as being “wide
eyed” or “receptive to a vision.” He was thinking of poets like William Blake and Walt
Whitman and how they expressed this openness of mind. Furthermore, Kerouac, a catholic
himself, saw a religious element in the word beat because he associated it to the word
“beatific.” Essentially, this referred to “possessing beatitude,” thus, having a saintly or
angelic appearance. Kerouac thought of this when he was visiting a church in his
hometown of Lowell, Massachusetts, where he became fascinated by “the holy silence of
the church.”94 Additionally, that spirituality of the Beats was noticeable in their interest in
Eastern religions philosophies, and meditation. Many Beats found “refuge” in the
teachings of Zen Buddhism.95
Others have often questioned the term generation. Beat author Gary Snyder argued that
there was no such thing as a Beat Generation since only three or four people belonged to it,
namely Herbert Huncke, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, and Jack Kerouac. He
subsequently stated, “Four people don’t make up a generation.”96 Hettie Jones expressed a
similar concern when she was asked about her identification with the Beat Generation. She
called term a “misnomer” explaining that “at one point everyone identified with it [the
Beat Generation] could fit into my living room, and I didn’t think that a whole generation
could fit into my living room.”97 Jones and her husband LeRoi Jones frequently hosted
gatherings in their apartment in Greenwich Village, which became one of New York’s
central hangouts for Beat writers. However, she adds that the movement became so
93
Charters, Beat Down to your Soul, xiii.
Ibid.
95
Lawlor, Beat Culture, xv.
96
Ibid., xv.
97
Ibid., 618.
94
19
popular at the end of the 1950s that “pretty soon the parties got so big that the whole
generation couldn’t fit in my living room.”98
Beat literature was as heterogeneous as its adherents. Some recurring characteristics are
“spontaneous composition, direct expression of mind, no censorious revision, Jazz-based
improvisation.”99 Because the Beats’ themes were difficult to express in conventional
modes, they had to find inspiration in the “rhythms and accents of natural speech” and “the
unpredictable flow of jazz phrasing.” Furthermore, they were inspired by Walt Whitman’s
long verses and his attention to detail. And they drew from “the imagism of William
Carlos Williams and Ezra Pound.” Surrealism in poetry and paintings was also one of their
main inspirations.100
Of course, there were more than three people in the Beat Generation. However, Kerouac
(1922-1969), Ginsberg (1926-1997), and Burroughs (1914-1997) were indeed the chief
representatives of this movement. Their seminal beat works, respectively, On the Road
(1957), “Howl” (1956), and Naked Lunch (1959) were characterized by “spontaneity, an
unwillingness to revise, and anarchist spirit, and the influence of jazz music.”101 The
famous poetry reading Six Gallery in San Francisco, where Ginsberg introduced his poem
“Howl,” on October 7, 1955, could even be considered as an unofficial start of the Beats’
popularity. Ginsberg described his poem as a “protest against the dehumanizing
mechanization of American culture.”102
While Kerouac was seen as the main example of a beat writer and the inventor of the term
“Beat Generation,” Ginsberg is credited with the promotion of the movement in the media
and in literary criticism. Additionally, he was the glue that held everyone together and “the
charismatic person whose personal contacts and public oratory helped the Beats to emerge,
flourish, and endure.” 103 Burroughs, then, was the oldest of the group and “had the
intellectual resources to stimulate diverse reading and conversation.”104 Other influential
98
Ibid., 623.
Grace and Johnson, Girls Who Wore Black, 2.
100
Lawlor, Beat culture, xv.
101
Weinreich, “The Beat Generation is Now About Everything,” 72.
102
Ann Charters, Beat Down to Your Soul, xv-xvi.
103
Lawlor, Beat Culture, xiii.
104
Ibid., xii-xiv.
99
20
Beat authors include Philip Whalen, Lew Welch, Ted Joans, Gary Snyder, Gregory Corso,
Michael McClure, and LeRoi Jones.
2.3 Silent Girls in Black: The Women of the Beat Generation
As iconic as its male figures are, a large group of women was also part of the Beat
Generation. Unfortunately, they have often been left out of the historical narrative. Until
the efforts of feminist critics to recover women writers of the twentieth century, it seemed
that women Beats were relatively nonexistent. The women that were present were referred
to as “silent girls in black” or “Beat chicks,” implying they were merely girlfriends and
sexual partners of the male Beats.105 Now, however, it is clear that they contributed
substantially to the canon of the Beat literature. They have written poetry and fiction, but
their main contribution to literary history was in the form multiple memoirs that reveal
much about the Beat Generation as well as what it meant to be a woman in American
society of the 1950s. Consequently, the omission of women from the narrative surrounding
the Beat Generation is problematic. It distorts the history of this artistic community.106
Ultimately, by acknowledging women Beats, the Beat Generation can be considered in a
broader perspective and prevailing gender roles of the 1950s can be challenged.
2.3.1 Historical Context: the Domestic Ideal of the 1950s
The 1950s have often been described as a period of conservatism for women. During the
war, their efforts to support the domestic economy by taking over the men’s jobs, while
simultaneously providing for their family, were celebrated. However, when the men came
back from the war, the women who had replaced the men in factories and other professions
were led back to the domestic sphere. The men were eager to put the memories of the war
behind them and American families moved to the suburbs to live a quiet life of conformity.
Women reprised their roles as wives and mothers, which required all their attention.
Naturally, this postwar ideal of domesticity limited women’s professional opportunities.
105
Ronna C. Johnson, “Mapping Women Writers of the Beat Generation,” in Breaking the Rule of Cool.
Interviewing and Reading Women Beat Writers, edited by Nancy M. Grace and Ronna C. Johnson (Jackson:
University Press of Mississippi, 2004), 3.
106
Amy L. Friedman, “ “Being There as Hard as I Could:” The Beat Generation Women Writers,” Discourse
20, no. 1 (1998), 230-231.
21
Essentially, the ground that women had won during the war years seemed to disappear.107
Moreover, the emerging Cold War also created an ideology that celebrated the stability of
the American family. This had become a weapon against the communist threat and nuclear
anxiety. The person in charge of that stability was the woman. As housewife and mother,
she assumed the role to strengthen the family ideal and thereby providing the security that
so many Americans longed for in this period of distress. Naturally, this growing
importance of a domestic role for women deeply influenced their identities.108
This domestic ideal was also heavily promoted in magazines, on television, and in
Hollywood movies. Consequently, the stereotype of “the women’s retreat to domesticity”
became so readily recognizable that it influenced historians in their accounts on the
1950s.109 Of course, not only mass media played an important role in this perception,
social scientists were also eager to promote this idea. The domestic ideal is not just based
on dreamy Hollywood images. A number of signs facts strengthened it. Primarily, there
was an increase in families moving to the suburbs and an increase in homeowners. Then,
after the industrial shift “from war production to the production of consumer goods” home
appliances such as refrigerators were sold on a large scale. Additionally, a baby boom was
well under way with the average woman having 3 kids in the 1950s. Essentially, these
trends promoted “the 1950s variant of the domestic ideal [where] the woman at home is
repeatedly drawn as a white, middle-class, suburban mother, caring for kids in a well
equipped-home.”110
In 1963, journalist Betty Friedan criticized the image of the happy housewife in her
successful publication of The Feminine Mystique (1963). She explained that there was a
problem “that has no name” and “that lay buried, unspoken, for many years in the minds of
American women.”111 Essentially, she noticed a deep dissatisfaction in women of twentieth
century America:
107
Joanne Meyerowitz, Not June Cleaver: Women and Gender in Postwar America, 1945-1960
(Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1994), 1-11.
108
Ibid., 3.
109
Joanne Meyerowitz, “Rewriting Postwar Women’s History, 1945-1960,” in A Companion to American
Women’s History, edited by Nancy A. Hewitt (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2005), 382.
110
Ibid.
111
Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1963), 15.
22
Each suburban wife struggled with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for
groceries, matched slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her
children, chauffeured Cub Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husband at night –
she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question – “Is this all?”112
Friedan argued that experts in books and articles prescribed women’s identity as wives and
mothers. This domestic ideal was the embodiment of true femininity. Women, who were
unhappy because of their inability to pursue their dream, whether in the form of a career or
something else, were to be pitied. Moreover, said Friedan, women went to college now,
only with the goal of finding a husband and no longer to establish their own identity.113
Friedan’s publication left a deep impression on many American women who recognized
their own lives in The Feminine Mystique. Joanne Meyerowitz states that this book
ultimately stirred protestation against the domestic ideal, and, consequently “launched the
[…] feminist movement.”114
However, Joanne Meyerowitz and other revisionist historians have also argued that the
narrative of the domestic housewife was only part of the story of the 1950s. Undeniably,
American women suffered from the societal restraints and the conservatism of the 1950s.
However, Meyerowitz questions this focus on the “women’s subordination,” arguing that it
“erases much of the history of the postwar years.” Not only does this “downplay women’s
agency,” it also victimizes them. The postwar years witnessed tremendous social and
economic changes and subsequently the 1950s woman cannot be reduced to one major
ideal image. This problematizes the complexities that came out of the back of the postwar
years.115 For example, it appears that there were actually more women at work during the
1950s than during the Second World War. Moreover, historians tend to see the 1950s as a
period of sexual repression for women. However, “[women] also engaged actively in
contemporary debates over competing visions of appropriate sexual behavior.” 116
Meyerowitz states that there are two approaches for discussing the postwar decades:
scholars either focus on the conservatism of the 1950s and its association with the Cold
War climate or they inquire the universality of the postwar domestic ideal. Both are still
being used. However, Meyerowitz considers the second approach as more rewarding.
112
Ibid.
Ibid., 16-18
114
Joanne Meyerowitz, “Beyond the Feminine Mystique: A Reassessment of Postwar Mass Culture, 19461958,” The Journal of American History 79, no. 4 (1993), 1455-1456.
115
Meyerowitz, Not June Cleaver, 4.
116
Meyerowitz, “Rewriting Postwat Women’s History,” 390.
113
23
Essentially, whereas the 1960s is usually seen as a reaction against the conservatism of the
previous decade, that second approach considers the 1950s as the beginning of an
evolution that would fully develop in the 1960s. Thus, “[i]n this view, […], the civil rights
movement, feminist movement, gay liberation movement, anti-war movement, sexual
revolution, and counterculture all had their roots in the postwar years.”117 This view adds
more complexity to the 1950s and provides the context for the women of the Beat
Generation.
2.3.2 Women Beats
During the 1950s, certain groups of young women tried to break themselves free from the
restraints of domesticity. Usually, when social commentators reported on rebellion among
young people, the focus was on the men.118 Of course, “the only rebellion in town,” was
the Beat Generation. Stereotypically, Beats were male poets. However, Wini Breines states
that women were also attracted to this “cultural rebellion.”119 The Beats were averse
towards “bourgeois respectability” and “the banality of middle-class values.”120 Those
values were exactly what fueled the gender expectations for women in the 1950s, and,
consequently, this explains why women yearning to break free from those expectations
were attracted to the Beats.121 Unfortunately, the Beats were often described as “macho
and sexist.”122 They celebrated “male bonding” and “[exalted] in a brotherhood of male
friendship in love.”123 Women were allowed in the boys’ club, but existed mainly for the
Beats’ sexual satisfaction, or to provide for them while they went on the road or while they
were pursuing their literary dreams.124 Nonetheless, the women were willing to see past the
Beats’ sexism, since the “possibility to break with domesticity” was worth the price.125
That price came in multiple forms. Women who rebelled in the 1950s were often either
abandoned by their families or put in mental institutions. To illustrate, during a 1992
117
Ibid., 393.
Wini Breines, Young, White, and Miserable: Growing up Female in the Fifties (Chicago: The University
of Chicago Press, 2001), 128.
119
Ibid.
120
Ibid., 136.
121
Ibid.
122
Ibid., 145.
123
Ibid., 146.
124
Ibid., 143-146.
125
Ibid., 147.
118
24
tribute to Allen Ginsberg at the Naropa Institute in Boulder, a panel of Beat writers was
organized and an audience member asked why there were so few women among the Beat
writers. Gregory Corso gave a very telling answer:
There were women, they were there, I knew them, their families put them in
institutions, they were given electric shock. In the ‘50s if you were male you could
be a rebel, but if you were female your families had you locked up. There were
cases, I knew them, someday someone will write about them.126
Evidently, being part of the Beat Bohemia was already difficult in terms of general societal
expectations. However, arriving in a male-dominated scene where women were primarily
viewed as sexual objects enhanced these women’s struggles. Moreover, although the
women wanted to part with domestic expectations, often they would fulfill their roles of
wives and mothers anyway.127 Yet, this was more an appropriation of the domestic ideal.
Indeed, in the context of Beat Bohemia, women were able to transform “their consignment
to the domestic making that realm the place of their agency.”128 This was contrasted by the
“male Beats [who] abandoned the domestic sphere, reckoning it as a point of departure for
the flight from constraint.”129
The restraints of 1950s American society and the prevailing sexist environment that the
Beats created made it difficult for the women of the Beat Generation to stand their ground
and find their voice. Historically, they have often been neglected or omitted from the
literary and cultural history of the Beats. However, this would be a mistake.130 Brenda
Knight asserts that many of these women “escaped the eye of the camera,” but were still
writing, albeit more underground. Moreover, she argues that these women were essential in
the “literary legacy of the Beat Generation” and “participated in a revolution that forever
changed the landscape of American literature.”131 Finally, by pushing boundaries and
126
Brenda Knight, Women of the Beat Generation: The Writers, Artists and Muses at the Heart of a
Revolution (Berkely CA: Conari Press, 1998), 141.
127
Nancy M. Grace and Ronna C. Johnson, Breaking the Rule of Cool: Interviewing and Reading Women
Beat Writers (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2004, 26.
128
Ibid., 28
129
Ibid.
130
Amy L. Friedman, ““Being there as hard as I could,” 229-231.
131
Brenda Knight, Women of the Beat Generation, 1-2.
25
rebelling against gender expectations, they played an essential role in paving the way for
the second-wave feminist movement of the 1960s.132
Additionally, the women have often been seen as “mere passive facilitators and financial
supporters.”133 Indeed, often it would be the women who were supporting the men by
taking on jobs so that the men could go on the road and write. Johnson explained that these
women functioned in different areas of Beat Bohemia besides living their life as an artist
within the Beat movement. She asserts that they functioned as editors and publishers, or as
organizers of Beat salons. They were sometimes seen as merely sexual beings, however,
ironically, their jobs also entailed bringing in money, keeping the house, and being a
mother. Lastly, some critics see these women as muses or models for the male Beats.134
This kind of criticism essentially downplays the importance the women Beats. Especially
the word “merely” is striking. Jean Stefancic, for example, relates how women in some
cases actually made the whole “Beat” experience for men possible:
During the war years and later, the men broke free from social roles and grayflannel suit lives, but only on the backs of the hard-working wives and girlfriends
who steadied them and brought home the bacon.135
Moreover, they were also writers. Many of the women Beats, like Diane di Prima and
Lenore Kandel, would write at the height of the Beat movement. Others, like Hettie Jones,
repressed their early writing and only started later. Moreover, many of the works of
women writers such as Joyce Johnson’s Come Join the Dance (1962) and Brenda Frazier’s
Troia: Mexican Memoirs (1969) had gone out of print.136
Women Beats were considered the “Silent Generation.”137 Herein lies one of the causes of
their omission. Most of the women assert that the male Beats did not necessarily stop them
from writing; in some cases they even felt supported. On the other hand, male Beats did
not actively promote the literature of women Beats. Allen Ginsberg, for example, did not
132
Ronna C. Johnson and Nancy M. Grace, Girls who Wore Black: Women Writing the Beat Generation
(New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2002), 8-9.
133
Jean Stefanic, “On the Road Without a Map: The Women of the Beat Writers.” Seattle University Law
Review 37, no. 1 (2013), 19.
134
Ronna C. Johnson, “Mapping Women Writers of the Beat Generation,” 28.
135
Stefancic, “On the Road Without a Map,” 19.
136
Johnson, “Mapping Women Writers of the Beat Generation,” 4.
137
Hettie Jones, How I Became Hettie Jones (New York: Grove Press, 1990), 10.
26
believe that there were many women, he only named Diane di Prima, who were as good of
a writer as Kerouac. 138 Interestingly, the male Beats were very active in promoting each
other’s literature: “male beat writers, whose tightly knit community was not only a group
of friends but also a powerful vehicle for developing and promoting each man’s
writing.”139 Though this was limiting for women, it ultimately led to “self-reliant artistic
individuality” in their experience as writers, which was one of the fundamentals of Beat
writing.140 Moreover, another reason that women Beats were missing from the literary
canon lies in the fact that the “boy-gang” of Beat authors gained so much attention and
popularity in the years after the Beat movement was at its height.141 Literary criticism
solely put their focus on the male Beats, and it seemed that the women Beats had actually
not been there at all. It was not until the women “started writing themselves into Beat and
postwar literary history” with numerous memoirs that literary criticism caught on.142
The literature of the female Beats was different from the male Beats. Johnson and Grace
notice that a few follow the “model of spontaneous composition.”143 However, most of the
women Beats were actually great revisers and “careful crafters of their texts.” This goes
against the stereotypical Beat writing “which disavow revision for the purity of the
unmodified literary utterance.” 144 The women were also not averse toward more
“conventional poetic techniques.”145
Generally, the women of the Beat Generation are divided in three generations. The first
group was born between 1910 and 1920: Madeline Gleason (1903-1979), Helen Adam
((1909-1992), Sheri Martinelli (1918-1996), Ruth Weiss (1928-), and Carol Berge (1928-).
Ronna C. Johnson and Nancy M. Grace note that these women were writing at the same
time as Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Burroughs and that they had a similar desire to change
“traditional literary models.”146 The second generation was born in the 1930s and included
Joanna McClure (1930-), Bobbie Louise Hawkins (1930-), Lenore Kandel (1932-), Elise
Cowen (1933-1962), Joanne Kyger (1934-), Diane di Prima (1934-), Hettie Jones (1934-),
138
Johnson and Grace, Women who Wore Black, 4-6.
Ibid., 17.
140
Ibid.
141
Friedman, “Being there as hard as I could,” 230.
142
Johnson, “Mapping Women Writers of the Beat Generation,” 4.
143
Johnson and Grace, Girls who Wore Black, 16.
144
Ibid.
145
Ibid.
146
Johnson and Grace, Girls who Wore Black, 12.
139
27
Joyce Johnson (1935-) and Brenda Frazier (Bonnie Bremser) (1939-). Johnson and Grace
view this group as real women Beat writers because they “shared community and the
cultural zeitgeist most directly with the established male Beat writers.” 147 In this
generation, five other women are considered whom are farther away from the Beat
aesthetic, but are still associated with the movement: Brigid Murnaghan (1930-), Margaret
Randall (1936-), Rochelle Owens (1936-), Diane Wakowski (1937-), and Barbara Moraff
(1940-). Lastly, the third generation of women Beats consists of Janine Pommy Vega
(1942-) and Anne Waldman (1945-). They were influenced by the sixties countercultural
movement.148 Other women who were close to the Beats, as wives, girlfriends, and muses
were Carolyn Cassady, Joan Vollmer Adams Burroughs, Edie Parker Kerouac, Joan
Haverty Kerouac, and Eileen Kaufman.149
Brenda Knight finally argues, “Ironically, because the women in the movement have, to a
certain degree, been ignored and marginalized, they represent the precious little of that
which remains truly Beat.”150 Johnson and Grace similarly argue that the women Beats
eventually broke their silence which was a significant achievement in those times:
“ultimately, perhaps more daring and consequential than making the mythic Beat road
trip.”151
3. The Little Magazines of the Beat Generation
In part one of this theoretical framework, the concept of the little magazine was explained.
Then, the Beats were dealt with. And, it appeared that there was more to the story than just
Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Burroughs. Now, we look at how these two subjects are connected
with each other. First, I will look at the relationship that the Beats had with the media, one
that sometimes hindered their publications. Then, I will discuss some Beat little magazines
that will set the context for the analysis of Yugen. Finally, I will look at the subject of
women editors, which is at the center of this dissertation. The history of women in editing
147
Ibid., 13.
Ibid., 13-14.
149
Knight, Women Writers of the Beat Generation, 47-103.
150
Ibid., 5.
151
Johnson and Grace, Girls who Wore Black, 17.
148
28
and publishing will be discussed briefly. Then, I look at some Beat little magazines that
were edited or co-edited by women.
3.1 Beats and the Media
The Beats had a complicated relationship with the media. On the one hand, journalists had
become fascinated with this new group of rebels. Especially after the obscenity trial
following Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s publication of Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl,” and the
success of Kerouac’s novel On the Road in 1957, a genuine “media hysteria” broke loose.
Major magazines like Life and Time and the tabloid press began publicizing the Beats’
lifestyle. They also appeared on television, which enhanced the visual image that people
had of the Beats. Ultimately, this media coverage popularized the Beats. However, “beat”
became primarily a useful label in advertisements for selling “everything from jazz records
to black berets to bongos.”152
On the other hand, the media were very critical toward the Beat Generation. Their literary
works were attacked in multiple articles and their lifestyle was ridiculed. Norman
Podhoretz criticized Kerouac’s and Ginsberg’s style and described them as “antiintellectuals” in his 1958 article for Partisan Review “The Know-Nothing Bohemians.”153
The mass media had no interest in their literature at all. Literary interest would only come
in the following decades. Actually, journalists wanted to know what and who “beat” was
and what the Beat Generation was about. Overall, they were not interested in the
“spontaneous prose based on bop and jazz” or the “tradition of Walt Whitman and the
inventiveness of William Carlos Williams.” Being Beat symbolized a sense of dissidence,
overtly sexual escapades, and taking drugs and consuming too much alcohol. The media
mocked how they looked and their style of dress – the berets, the beards, and the bongos.
Ultimately, they were more interested in the hip, drug-taking, and rebellious Beatnik.
“Beatnik” was originally a derogatory term, coined by columnist Herbert Caen in 1958. He
152
Charters, Beat Down to Your Soul, xxi.
Norman Podhoretz, “The Know-Nothing Bohemians,” in The Beat Generation: A Gale Critical
Companion ed. Lynn M. Zott (Farmington Hills, MI: Gale, 2003), 13-19.
153
29
derived it from the word Sputnik, which was the Soviet satellite. With this term, he created
a “caricature of the Beats as lazy, indulgent, and probably communist weirdos.”154
Essentially, this distorted view of the Beats influenced the way the literary establishment
saw them. Consequently, they were unimpressed with this new movement “betraying
literary language with [words like] “like,” “cool,” and “hip.””155
3.2 Beat Little Magazines
The provocative subjects in their poetry, their new style of writing, and their lifestyle “that
flew in the face of convention,” limited the Beats’ publishing possibilities. Indeed, the
“conservative publishing establishment” did not take Beat literature seriously.156 The Beats
also faced threats of censorship. The two most notable examples are the censorship trials
about Ginsberg’s Howl and other Poems 1957 and Burroughs’ Naked Lunch in 1959.157
Since the main objective of a little magazine was to create a space for artists who were
rejected by the established literary periodicals, it is no surprise that these magazines proved
an excellent outlet for the writers of the Beat generation.158 Not only did many Beats
appear in little magazines, they also produced their own little magazines – as is the case
with the little magazine analyzed in this dissertation. William Lawlor further emphasizes
that little magazines offered a “forum” to the beats “during periods of editorial rejection,
and in counterbalance to caricatures, censorship, and sensationalism.” 159According to
Warren French, the beats were even responsible for a revival of little magazine
publishing.160
Officially, there are 245 little magazines “that reflect the Beat spirit.” The 1950s witnessed
a real surge, but already in the 1940s little magazines had started to publish beat poetry.
The trend continued through the 1960s and the 1970s under the influence of the emerging
counterculture. Furthermore, examples are found in the 1980s and 1990s. Lawlor situates
154
Lawlor, Beat Culture, 13.
Ibid.
156
Lynn Zott, ed., The Beat Generation: A Gale Critical Companion (Detroit: Gale, 2003), 261.
157
William Lawlor and Diane De Rooy, “Censorship,” in Beat Culture: Icons, Lifestyles and Impact, 52-53.
158
Zott, The Beat Generation, 261.
159
Lawlor, Beat Culture, 209-210.
160
Warren French, “Little Magazines in the Fifties,” College English 22.8 (1961): 547.
155
30
most of these magazines geographically in New York, Chicago, and San Francisco.
However, such little magazines could be found in Mexico, Canada, and even Europe.161
Interestingly, some scholars like James Campbell claim that there is no such thing as a
Beat little magazine.162 R.J. Ellis argues that this is true to a certain extent. However, he
does notice some little magazines that come close. The main little magazines that
published Beat literature – whether consistently or merely in a couple of issues – at the
height of the movement in the United States were Neurotica (1948-52), The Ark (1947),
Ark II Moby I (1956), Ark II (1957), Black Mountain Review (1954-57), Yugen (1958-62),
Big Table (1959-60), Kulchur (1960-65), Beatitude (1959-), The Floating Bear (1962-69),
and Angel Hair (1966-69). 163 Two magazines that have close ties to little magazine
publishing and the Beat Generation, but are not little magazines by definition, are
Evergreen Review (1957-59) and Chicago Review (1958).164
Jay Landesman and Gershon Legman’s Neurotica can be considered Beat, because of its
influence on the Beats and because it was subtitled as The Authentic Voice of the Beat
Generation in a 1981 reprint. However, the only Beat author that was published was Allen
Ginsberg. The Ark under Sander Russell was “an outlet for radical anarcho-pacific
sentiments” at a time when the societal pressures to conform after World War II
emerged.165 Here, Ellis sees a link with the Beats who were similarly dissatisfied with the
“power and oppression” of the government. In the magazine, authors such as E.E.
Cummings, Philip Lamantia, and Kenneth Rexroth were among the contributors. Ark II
Moby I with editors Michael McClure and James Harmon and Ark III were less focused on
anarchism and primarily published poetry. These magazines had more of a Beat spirit with
contributions from Denise Levertov, Charles Olson, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Jack Kerouac
and Ginsberg. Next is Robert Creeley’s Black Mountain Review that published Burroughs,
Kerouac, and Ginsberg in its seventh issue (1957). Though, the editor’s goal was “to bring
together geographically separate exponents of open speech-oriented forms.”166 Therefore,
161
Lawlor, Beat Culture, 210.
James Campbell, This is the Beat Generation (London: Secker and Warburg, 1999), 93.
163
R.J. Ellis, “ ‘Little…Only with Some Qualifications’: The Beats and Beat ‘Little Magazines,’” in The
Oxford Critical and Cultural History of Modernist Magazines. Volume II, North America 1894-1960, edited
by Peter Brooker and Andrew Thacker (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 1001- 1024.
164
Ibid.
165
Ibid., 1009.
166
Ibid.
162
31
West Coast poets such as Philip Whalen and Michael McClure also appeared. Evergreen
Review, then, is also notable for publishing Beat writers next to New York and Black
Mountain poets. One of its editors, Donald Allen would later republish most of these
authors in his anthology The New American Poetry (1960). Evergreen Review was not a
typical little magazine, because of its larger circulation, paid contributors, and because its
editors wanted to make it profitable. The only element that supports its littleness was its
avant-garde content.167
Chicago Review is linked to the Beat Generation because of its three 1958 issues that were
pulled from sales because of censorship issues (see 1.3). Big Table, then, offered a forum
for the censored pieces.168 Kulchur was also closely related to the Beats. Its main editors
were Marc D. Schleifer and Lita Hornick (she became the sole editor after 1962, but was
first only the financial backer). Kulchur published Kerouac, Ginsberg, Burroughs, and di
Prima. The Floating Bear (1961-1969) was actually more a newsletter than a little
magazine. Its editors Diane di Prima and LeRoi Jones published McClure, Whalen,
Ginsberg, and Burroughs. But it would be very diverse in its later years. According to
Lawlor its “mimeo production and direct-mail delivery created an immediacy rivaling
today’s e-mail.”169 Yugen (1958-1962), the magazine analyzed in this dissertation, was the
only little magazine that “ended up looking anything like an American little magazine,”
according to Ellis.170 In the analysis in part two of this dissertation, I will further examine
this assertion. Next, Beatitude was a project by Allen Ginsberg, Bob Kaufman and his wife
Eileen Kaufman. They published primarily West Coast Beat poets. Finally, Angel Hair
(1966-69) was edited and published by Anne Waldman and Lewis Warsh. It focused on the
New York poets of the 1960s. Though, already past the Beat movement, the magazine was
influenced by its Beat precursors. Moreover, Anne Waldman is considered a third
generation Beat poet.171
167
Ibid.
Ibid.
169
Lawlor, Beat Culture, 210
170
Ellis, “Little…Only with Some Qualifications,” 1024.
171
Lawlor, Beat Culture, 210.
168
32
3.3 Women editors
Because of the Beats’ unwillingness to revise and their devotion to spontaneity, discussing
the work of editors in relation to Beat poetry seems almost pointless, if not irrelevant.
Indeed, “the beats were no editors.”172 Essentially, says Ellis, the Beats were involved in
the publishing and editing of little magazines. However, they lacked the “stability,” in the
form of permanent addresses where copies would be sent from and the attention, patience,
and care to revise other work. Moreover, the Beat movement was essentially one that
desired to “move poetry of the page.” The Beats’ preference for oral communications,
public poetry readings, and performances ultimately contradicted the need for Beat
editors.173
Nevertheless, editors were required. Fortunately, there was a group of Beats that did
provide the stability necessary for the production and editing of little magazines. Namely,
the “silent beat chicks.” The women of the Beat Generation actually played an important
role in the creation and production of these beat little magazines. Ronna C. Johnson and
Nancy M. Grace identify in Brenda Knight’s Women of the Beat Generation: The Writers,
Artists and Muses at the Heart of a Revolution (1997) a “three-point theoretical construct
(writer, artist, muse) to establish a canon of women Beats.”174 Indeed, Knight presents an
overview of the women of the Beat Generation, recognizing their accomplishments in and
contributions to this countercultural movement.175 However, one category of women is
absent from Knight’s model, that is, those women who contributed to the Beat Generation
as editors and publishers.
Historically, women had a difficult time to gain recognition as editors or publishers. It
remained a male-dominated industry until well into the 1970s and 1980s. Women were
either paid less for the same editorial work or were given menial secretarial jobs like
handling the printer or managing the subscription lists. However, they were there. Gayle
Feldman asserts that women in the 1950s and 1960s women started entering the industry
172
Ellis, “ ‘Little…Only with Some Qualifications’: The Beats and Beat ‘Little Magazines,’” 1006.
Ibid., 1008.
174
Johnson and Grace, Girls who wore Black, 11.
175
Knight also offers a fourth category of Beat women, namely ‘the precursors’
173
33
after access to higher education for women became more common.176 She argues that
women ended up having more experience than the men who worked in the industry, simply
because “women had to learn the job from the bottom up.”177 Indeed, women were hired as
editorial secretaries or editorial trainees, whereas men were relatively quickly hired as fullon editors. Consequently, generally, women had a better understanding of what it took to
run a publishing office. Feldman also notices some general differences between men and
women in the industry. For example, overall women would pay more attention to
organization, relationships with people –from authors to colleagues – and detail. Feldman
calls this a typical “feminine trait” claiming women aimed for “everything [to be] just
right.”178 Finally, the running of a magazine or book publishing company really implied
trafficking and scheduling a managing editor’s office. Ironically, Feldman says, women
were so good at this because, basically, it was similar to housekeeping.179
Similarly, Trysh Travis looks at women in book history. Interestingly, it appears that, since
Early Modern Times, women have always had an important role in the process of bringing
literature to the market, whether as publishers, editors, or generally in “workings of the
communications circuit that transforms manuscripts into books and brings them to
market.” 180 Historically, this has been a way for them to get access to the “public
sphere.”181 Ultimately, this was about challenging “gender roles and expectations that help
constitute a fundamentally male-centered world”182
Many women also appeared to have had a decisive role as editors, specifically in the world
of little magazines. Jayne Marek offers an analysis in Women Editing Modernism, and
discovers a wide range of women who were actively involved in the publishing of
modernist little magazines.183 Example include Harriet Monroe (founder) and Alice Corbin
Henderson who were the editors of Poetry, A Magazine of Verse in its early days,184 or
Margaret Anderson and Jane Heap who influenced the little magazine The Little Review
176
Gayle Feldman, “Breaking through the Glass Ceiling: Women have had a long hard struggle to reach their
current status in the industry,” Publishers Weekly 233, no. 31 (1997), 82-90.
177
Ibid., 84.
178
Ibid., 90.
179
Ibid., 83.
180
Trysh Travis, “The Women in Print Movement: History and Implications,” Book History 11 (2008), 276.
181
Ibid.
182
Ibid.
183
Jayne Marek, Women Editing Modernism (Kentucky: The University Press of Kentucky, 1995), 1-22.
184
Ibid., 23-59.
34
(1914-1929).185 Also notable are H.D and Bryer’s work in the press Egoist in the 1910s,186
and Marianne Moore’s editorship of the literary magazine The Dial between 1925 and
1929.187 Marek argues that these women have been largely ignored in literary history. They
were seen as anonymous, or on the margins, and having no real “function as powerful and
influential arbiters of modern aesthetic views.” 188 When they are discussed, it is in the
context of women fighting a “heroic struggle against an oppressive masculine world,” but
seldom in their own right as active contributors to certain literary movements.189 Marek
states that this early work of women as editors and publishers, whether independently or as
part of cooperative work with other women or men, deeply influenced them and provided
“new opportunities for their voices.”190
In this context, thus, it is not surprising that the women of the Beat Generation – who were
already marginalized in Beat literary history – receive little recognition for their work as
editors and publishers. Granted, many critics do mention this, specifically, studies that
focus on the women of the Beat Generation such as Grace and Johnson, and Knight.191
However, they mention it only in passing, definitely assuring their importance, but not
elaborating on this issue. Among the women Beats who worked as publishers and editors
are Joyce Johnson, Eileen Kaufman, Diane di Prima, and Anne Waldman. Moreover,
Daisy Alden, who is not a Beat herself but showed ties to the Beats in her 1959 anthology
A New Folder, which featured Corso and Ginsberg.192 She explains: “I knew most of them
and published them in A New Folder. I was considered one of them although I was never a
Beat.”193
This anthology was a reprisal of her little magazine Folder (1953-56) that she produced,
edited, and distributed herself. The magazine was focused on the New York Poets, such as
185
Ibid., 60-100.
Ibid., 101-137.
187
Ibid., 137-166.
188
Ibid., 19.
189
Ibid., 194.
190
Ibid., 191.
191
See Grace and Johnson, Breaking the Rule of Cool, 1-30; Grace and Johnson, Women who Wore Black, 124; and Knight, Women Writers of the Beat Generation, 1-9.
192
Ellis, “Little…Only with Some Qualifications, 1010.
193
Dennis Barone, “Daisy Aldan, An Interview on Folder,” in The Little Magazine in America: A Modern
Documentary History edited by Eliot Anderson and Mary Kinzie (New York: The Pushcart Press, 1978),
277.
186
35
James Merril, James Schuyler, Kenneth Koch, Frank O’Hara, and Charles Olson. Daisy
Alden was passionate about avant-garde literature and wrote poetry herself. She recounts:
At Hunter College I had been an editor of the literary magazine, and that imbued in
me a lasting desire to publish a magazine. I did not publish Folder because avantgarde poets were not being published. It was an impulse of my own nature and I
happened to publish it when it was needed.194 (264)
She does note that women had trouble in the publishing business. For example, she would
do almost everything by hand with a hand press at home. However, when she would go to
a print shop to work on the titles, she had to be careful: “When someone entered the shop, I
had to stop work because women were not allowed on the union then and the printer would
have been suspended or fined.”195 Alden also actively published female poets, knowing
that they had trouble to get published.196 Furthermore, she found the most important aspect
of editing was the inspiration she got from it: “reading the work of other poets […]
inspired to new creativity.” She also believed that little magazines were essential in the
creation of literary communities “Community is created in this sharing […] what made
poetry magazines? A Community of poets! Those responsible for the renewal of the
word.”197
Joyce Johnson was not linked to a little magazine. However, before she wrote her first
book Come Join the Dance (1962), she had a career in a publishing house.198 Anne
Waldman found the little magazine Angel Hair (1966-69), together with Lewis Warsh.199
Two more important female figures in beat little magazines are Eileen Kaufman and Diane
di Prima. On the West Coast, the little magazine that published the Beats was Beatitude
(1959-). It was created by Allen Ginsberg, Bob Kaufman, and Eileen Kaufman. Eileen
Kaufman was a journalist from San Francisco before she met Bob. Not only did she
substantially aid in the production of Beatitude in its first year, she also did the
transcriptions of Bob’s oral poetry. Moreover, she edited his first poetry collection. Later,
194
Barone, “Daisy Aldan, An Interview on Folder,” 264.
Ibid., 268.
196
Ibid., 269.
197
Ibid., 276.
198
Hettie Jones, How I Became Hettie Jones, 81.
199
Terrence Diggory, Encyclopedia of the New York School of Poets (New York: Facts on File, 2013), 19.
195
36
she continued working as a journalist for Los Angeles Free Press, Oracle, Billboard
magazine, and Music World Countdown.200
Diane di Prima is probably one of the most important figures in the beat little magazines
and publishing in general. Together with LeRoi Jones she founded the newsletter The
Floating Bear (1961-1969) and she created her own small press Poets Press.201 Issue 9 of
the newsletter was so controversial Jones was arrested. One of their subscribers was in jail
while he received his copy. Subsequently, prison guards confiscated the issue and Jones
faced charges of obscenity. Principally, passages of Jones’ The System of Dante’s Hell had
caused the controversy. In the end, the Floating Bear was cleared after Jones convinced
the judges in court of the literary quality of the works in the magazine.202 Though, the
Floating Bear was a collaboration, in the end it was mainly di Prima who did all the work.
She did not always feel recognized for this though:
[T]hough Roi and I coedited the Bear, […] often it was he who got the credit for
the whole thing. Most of the actual physical work devolved upon me and those
friends I could dig up to help me. Most of the time, I am sure this was also true for
Hettie, for the Totem Press books, in fact […] I often helped her and witnessed how
it was she who typed the camera copy, proofed (most of the time) and pasted up
(always), but it was Roi’s press, and in this he was not any different from any other
male artist of his day. It was just the natural division of labor / and credit.203
Indeed, di Prima expressed a feeling that many women who worked in publishing were
feeling at that time. They were seen as helpers, facilitators, and financiers. Even though,
they had vital roles in the creation of magazines (and presses), the historical narrative
either sees this as an obvious – “What else were they going to do?” – or ignore this fact
and focus on the accomplishments of male editors and publishers.
Although all these women should be considered in further research regarding the editing
and publishing of (beat) little magazines, Hettie Jones stands out. Therefore, this
dissertation focuses on her accomplishments as an editor and the effect that this had on her
own life as a woman and a Beat. As will become clear, the lack of credit that Hettie Jones
received will ultimately characterize her as a true little magazine editor.
200
Knight, Women of the Beat Generation, 105-107; Charters, Beat Down To Your Soul, 272.
Knight, Women of the Beat Generation, 123-140.
202
Lawlor, Beat Culture, 53.
203
Diane di Prima, Recollections of My Life as a Woman. (New York: Penguin Books, 2001), 253.
201
37
III. Analysis
1. Methodology
The purpose of this dissertation is twofold. First, I will analyze the little magazine Yugen
and, accordingly determine its importance for the Beat Generation. Secondly, I will discuss
the role of Hettie Jones as co-editor and assess her contribution to this magazine.
The analysis of the Magazine will be based on the theoretical framework of little
magazines presented in the first part of this dissertation. Accordingly, its editorial policy
content, financial obstacles, production and audience will be discussed. Then I consider its
ultimate importance to the literary community of the Beat Generation. Finally, I will argue
that Yugen was truly a beat little magazine even though its editors do not specifically
define it as such. In this part, I will already refer to a few of Hettie Jones’ responsibilities.
To determine Hettie Jones’ role as co-editor, I will use three memoirs that discuss the
creation and production of the magazine. Primarily, Hettie Jones’ memoir will be analyzed.
However, the memoirs of LeRoi Jones and Diane Di Prima’s, who played an important,
though complicated role in the lives of both the Joneses, will also be used. Lastly, an
interview conducted with Hettie Jones about her role in this magazine will be
considered. 204 With this information, I present a reconstruction of the creation and
production of Yugen.
First, however, I will introduce both the editors and explain the context in which Yugen
emerged.
2. Setting the Scene: the Editors, the Story, the Magazine
LeRoi Jones (1934-2014) was an African-American poet, playwright, and editor. He also
wrote literary and music criticism and was actively involved in the Black Arts Movement.
Originally from New Jersey, he moved to the Lower East Side, New York, in 1957, where
he immersed himself in the Beat Bohemia milieu. He was known as a second-generation
204
See appendix for full interview.
38
Beat writer. Primarily his first collection of poems Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide
Note (1961) links him to the Beat poetics. 205 However, his main link to the Beat
Generation was the work he did as an editor for the little magazine Yugen and the
mimeographed poetry newsletter The Floating Bear, which he co-edited with Diane di
Prima. Furthermore, he contributed as an editor to Big Table, Evergreen Review, and
Kulchur.206 In 1957, he started working at Record Changer, a music magazine, where he
would meet his future wife Hettie Jones. Before Hettie became Hettie Jones (1934-), she
was Hettie Cohen, a Jewish girl from Long Island. Like many girls of her generation, she
felt the restraints of conformity.207 However, she knew she wanted a different life than the
stereotypical 1950s ideal domestic housewife:
By 1951, the year we were labeled the Silent Generation, I’d been recommended to
silence often. Men had little use for an outspoken woman, I’d been warned. What I
wanted, I was told, was security and upward mobility, which might be mine if I
learned to shut my mouth. Myself I simply expected, by force or will, to assume a
new shape in the future. Unlike any woman in my family or anyone I’d ever
actually known, I was going to become – something, anything, whatever that
meant.208
Hettie Jones went to Mary Washington, which was the women’s college of the university
of Virginia. In 1955, she moved to New York to attend graduate school at Columbia, she
started working in a small film library “the Center for Mass Communications.” Her job
was to write “promotional literature.” 209 Later, she moved to Greenwich Village and
started working at Record Changer as a subscription manager. Hettie had a passion for
language and wanted to be a writer of her own. However, she struggled to find her own
voice: “[…] my poems were awful, I thought,” she said.210 Nevertheless, at the Record
Changer, she “basked in the genial, nonconformist air […] and shared the assurance that
something would become of us all … eventually.”211 Hettie and LeRoi then became friends
while working on the magazine, and by 1957 they were living together. When the Record
Changer moved to California, Hettie wanted to be in a similar environment and was hired
as a subscription manager for the leftist magazine Partisan Review. She developed a good
205
Lawlor, Beat Culture, 11.
Sollors, Werner. Amiri Baraka/LeRoi Jones: The Quest for a “Populist Modernism” (New York:
Colombia University Press, 1978), 3-4.
207
Brenda Knight, Women of the Beat Generation, 183-184.
208
Hettie Jones, How I Became Hettie Jones, 10.
209
Ibid., 15.
210
Ibid., 23.
211
Ibid.
206
39
relationship with the editors William Philips and Philip Rahv and occasionally she edited
texts herself.212
Meanwhile, the Beats – a name, according to Hettie, “ambiguous enough to include
anyone” – were starting to become notorious.213 LeRoi and Hettie frequently attended
poetry readings in Greenwich Village, in cafes like Jazz on the Wagon, the Gaslight, the
Limelight, Figaro and the Cedar Tavern. From then on, they also started hanging out with
poets like Gregory Corso, Diane di Prima, and Frank O’Hara.214
In 1958, LeRoi came to Hettie with an idea for a new magazine that would give a platform
to all of the poets who were writing and performing in new ways. According to Hettie
Jones, the New York-scene was waiting for such a magazine. Thus, they created Yugen: A
New Consciousness in Arts and Letters.215 A year later, they would start a low-budget,
small publishing company Totem Press together with a befriended couple, George Stade
and his wife Dolly. They planned on publishing small paperback books, mainly poetry. It
would eventually publish various important authors, including Beats. For example,
Scriptures of the Golden Eternity (1960) by Jack Kerouac and Empty Mirror (1961) by
Allen Ginsberg.216
Being in an interracial relationship in the 1950s, the LeRoi and Hettie were confronted
with intolerance. Though Greenwich Village was a more open community, “in 1950, thirty
states still had miscegenation laws.”217 When Hettie became pregnant and married LeRoi
in a Buddhist temple in 1958, her family did not speak to her for years. They had two
children anyway, Lisa in 1959 and Kellie in 1961. While Hettie speaks fondly of her early
relationship with LeRoi, it was far from ideal. For example, LeRoi’s infidelity put a strain
on their relationship. A particularly painful affair with Diane di Prima even resulted in a
daughter, Dominique, who LeRoi refused to acknowledge. Hettie recounts: “[I] wasn’t
surprised to learn that he and Diane di Prima were lovers – but the first affair cuts the cake,
212
Ibid., 43-45.
Ibid., 47.
214
Ibid. 47-48.
215
Ibid., 53.
216
Lawlor, Beat Culture, 258.
217
Jones, How I became Hettie Jones, 36.
213
40
nothing is ever as sharp.”218 Di Prima and LeRoi co-edited the mimeographed newsletter
The Floating Bear at that time, and di Prima often assisted Hettie in the production of
Yugen. Moreover, Hettie and di Prima were friends. Di Prima did feel guilty “I [felt] I was
betraying friend and principles.”219
However, it was not the infidelity that would end their marriage. It was the complexity of
the racial tensions of the decade would have an irreversible impact on LeRoi. In the 1960s,
he would change his focus toward black cultural nationalism. The bohemian world, which
was primarily filled with white people, no longer satisfied him. And, he challenged the
notion of assimilation in “the Black Bourgeoisie” or “the Black middle class,” because this
prevented African Americans to find their true identity. His successful play Dutchman
(1964) is an example of his “protest drama.”220 It condemned racial discrimination and
questioned race-related issues.221 Hettie Jones narrates how “by the fall of 1964, black
Americans were being asked to make choices. Nearly a decade of nonviolent protest had
failed […] some people were beginning to say that hypocritical Roi talked black but
married white. Others, more directly, said he was laying with the Devil.”222 After the
assassination of Malcolm X in 1965, at the height of the Civil Rights Movement, he “cut
ties with his former companions in Greenwich Village.” He could no longer picture
himself with a white wife, and subsequently left her. He moved to Harlem, changed his
name to Amiri Baraka, originated the Black Arts Movement, and established himself as
black cultural nationalist and a “militant political organizer and leader.”223 LeRoi’s parents,
however, kept on supporting Hettie. Hettie managed by being a teacher and editor. In the
end, she accounted how without LeRoi, she finally had the time and space to be a writer
herself. LeRoi had never discouraged her, on the contrary.224 Nevertheless, the voice she
was looking for in her early days at Record Changer would only appear later.225
218
Ibid.,98
Diane di Prima, Recollections of My Life as a Woman (New York: Penguin Books, 2001), 219.
220
Sollors, Amiri Baraka/LeRoi Jones, 4.
221
Ibid., 1-9, 12-15.
222
Jones, How I Became Hettie Jones, 217-218.
223
Diggory, Encyclopedia of the New York Poets, 42.
224
Johnson and Grace, Breaking the Rule of Cool, 168.
225
Knight, Women of the Beat Generation, 187.
219
41
3. Analysis of Yugen and the role of Hettie Jones as co-editor
3.1 Editorial policy
With Yugen, LeRoi and Hettie Jones wanted to give new authors a platform, authors that
conveyed a new consciousness, because “everyone downtown agreed that was just what
the world needed.226 LeRoi came up with the name because he was attracted to the Zen
association the word had:
It was a Zen word, a special quality of being, a texture of perception reflected by
the term “mystery.” It had to do with attaining a high state of grace and relationship
to divinity in whatever you did, especially in the arts.227
“Yugen” was actually a Japanese aesthetic form. It was a kind of sensibility “deeply rooted
in the mind and emotion of Japanese people.” It could mean various things, but was most
commonly known as “the beauty of gentle gracefulness.”228 However, it could also relate
to mysteriousness, as this was its original Chinese meaning. Before it was used in art and
poetry, Buddhists used it in this context. Andrew Tsubaki argues that there is no real
English translation for this concept in the arts, but words like “intimation”, “elegance,
“grace”, “composure”, “equilibrium”, “serenity”, and “quietism” come close.229 The most
important aspect of Yugen in relation to the little magazine discussed here is that
academics and interpreters do not easily see it when it appears, but that the artist always
feels it when he is using it.230
The title page for Yugen said that the word in this context meant “elegance, beauty, grace,
transcendence of these things, and also nothing at all.”231 Thus, the association with the
original Japanese aesthetic was clear. However, “nothing at all” probably referred to this
sense that the artist had while using “yugen.” For some interpreters – critics and readers-,
their art could mean “nothing at all.” However, in a sense, that did not matter. Essentially,
226
Jones, How I Became Hettie Jones, 53.
Amiri Baraka, The Autobiography of LeRoi Jones (Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, 1997), 249.
228
Andrew T. Tsubaki, “Zeami and the Transition of the Concept of Yugen: A Note on Japanese aesthetic,”
The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 30, no. 1 (1971), 55.
229
Ibid., 57.
230
Ibid., 55.
231
Yugen 1, 1.
227
42
the artist was put first in this magazine. This definitely situates Yugen in the category of
little magazines, because it functioned primarily for writers.
Indeed, the purpose of Yugen was to offer “a new consciousness in arts and letters.” As
will become clear from the content and contributors, Yugen succeeded in that commitment.
They published avant-garde work that was not to everyone’s taste. Moreover, Yugen
opposed itself against the serious academic taste. To illustrate, in Yugen 5, a quote by
Edward Dahlberg is used to mockingly insult the seriousness of academics: “For the
academe: It is redundant to be temperate if one is already impotent.”232 This implies that
the moderation and the maintenance of the literary status quo used in academia were not
supported in Yugen. Hettie Jones further elaborates on this by noting that the difference
between academic magazines and their magazine “was not only in style but in a looser
subject matter.” She also contends that this writing “reflected a more open lifestyle.”233
3.2 Content and contributors
Yugen has been described as a “beat little magazine.”234 However, both LeRoi Jones and
Hettie Jones did not necessarily see the magazine as a beat venture. To illustrate, LeRoi
Jones clarified that the magazine published writers that are “not all “Beat” or “San
Francisco” or “New York”.” He refused to categorize the contributors because “they
[were] various people who could also fit into other groups – for instance, the people who
went to Black Mountain College – and others not affiliated with any real group […].”235
Hettie Jones similarly accounts that “Yugen wasn’t a particularly “beat” venture as there
were other contributions from writers who didn’t consider themselves “beat.””
Furthermore, she summarizes the contributors as people who “were trying to write about
new subjects in a new, more direct way.” 236
232
Yugen, 5, 1.
Hettie Jones, Interview by Julie Stokx, 22 March 2016.
234
Ellis, “ ‘Little…Only with Some Qualifications’: The Beats and Beat ‘Little Magazines,’” 1019, 1024.
235
David Ossman, “LeRoi Jones: An Interview on Yugen,” in The Little Magazine in America edited by Eliot
Anderson and Mary Kinzie (New York: The Pushcart Press, 1978), 319.
236
Hettie Jones, interview by Julie Stokx, 22 March 2016.
233
43
Overall, Yugen published poetry. Especially the first six issues are focused on poetry, with
the occasional short prose pieces such as “My Old Buddy” by Fielding Dawson237, and an
excerpt from “Landsend,” which is the coda of Hubert Selby, Jr.’s novel Last Exit to
Brooklyn.238 The seventh and eighth issues of Yugen are more diverse. Critical reviews,
book reviews, plays, and, even on one occasion, song lyrics, appear next to poems and
short stories. For example, in Yugen 7, Gilbert Sorrentino gives a rather negative review of
two poetry collections: Robert Lowell’s Life Studies and W.D. Snodgrass’ Heart’s Needle.
Sorrentino argues that:
[B]oth of these men indicate no attempt to get hold of the validities of American
poetry, as defined by Pound, Williams, Olson, and the others […] even Eliot was
more American than they are. They stand in the middle class, they are concerned
with the car in the driveway, they are wild over the fact that their parents were not
“accepted,” or slightly futile. Out of it they make what is at best a footnote to Scott
Fitzgerald and the early O’Hara.239
Another notable non-poetry contribution is William Burroughs’ “The Cut Up Method of
Brion Gysin” in Yugen 8. In this piece, Burroughs describes this literary technique as a
way to add spontaneity to writing poetry: “the best writing seems to be done almost by
accident but writers until the cut up method was made explicit […] had no way to produce
the accident of spontaneity.” Burroughs explains that you just need a pair of scissors and a
poem that you like: “Take any poet or writer you fancy. […] Now take the poem and type
out selected passages. Fill a page with excerpts. Now cut the page. You have a new
poem.”240
The schools of poetry in Yugen were various. Consequently, the contributors are not solely
beat. Writers who were associated with the Black Mountain Poets, the New York Poets,
and the San Francisco Renaissance were also published. Beats that appeared regularly in
Yugen were Diane di Prima (Yugen 1, 2, 3, 5, 7), Allen Ginsberg (Yugen 1, 3, 4, 5, 7),
Gregory Corso (Yugen 2, 4, 5, 7), Barbara Moraff (Yugen 2, 3, 5), Gary Snyder (Yugen 2,
3, 4, 6) William Burroughs (Yugen 3, 7), Jack Kerouac (Yugen 4, 5, 6), Ray Bremser
(Yugen 3, 4, 6), Edward Marshall (Yugen 4, 6, 7, 8), Jack Micheline (Yugen 1), Tuli
237
Fielding Dawson, “My Old Buddy,”. Yugen, 4 (1959), 8.
Hubert Selby, Jr. “Episode from Landsend,” Yugen, 6 (1960), 18-20.
239
Gilbert Sorrentino, “2 Books,” Yugen, 7 (1961), 5-7.
240
William Burroughs, “The Cut Up Method of Brion Gysin,” Yugen, 8 (1962), 31-32.
238
44
Kupferberg (Yugen 2), Peter Orlovsky (Yugen 3, 4), John Wieners (Yugen 4, 5), David
Meltzer (Yugen 5, 6), Philip Lamantia (Yugen 6). Two contributing Beats that were closely
associated with the San Francisco Renaissance were Philip Whalen (Yugen 1, 3, 5, 7), and
Michael McClure (Yugen 4, 5, 6).
The contributors from the Black Mountain group were Charles Olson (Yugen 4, 6, 7, 8),
Gilbert Sorrentino (3, 7, 8), Max Finstein (4, 5, 7), Fielding Dawson (4, 5), Robert Creeley
(4, 6, 7, 8), Larry Eigner (5, 6, 7), Joel Oppenheimer (5, 7), Paul Blackburn (6), and Ed
Dorn (6, 8). Next, there were a few poets from the San Francisco Renaissance: Ron
Loewinsohn (2, 4, 6), Robin Blaser (3, 6), and George Stanley (7, 8). And finally some
contributors that were associated with the New York Poets, like Oliver Pitcher (2), Frank
O’Hara (4, 6, 7), Barbara Guest (5), Rochelle Ownens (6), Kenneth Koch (6, 7), and John
Ashbery (7).
The first two issues of Yugen feature African American Beats such as Bobb Hamilton and
A.B. Spellman, and African American New York poets like Tom Postell and Allen Polite.
However, afterward, they disappeared from the magazine. This is surprising and
inconsistent with LeRoi Jones’ later activism. Jones later reflected in his autobiography
that he too was surprised about this fact, but also that at that time he felt an apprehension to
publish them because: “I did think that white people would be opposed to a black dude
even being a writer, even saying it.”241 Later, that changed of course.
Overall, the first four issues of Yugen were focused on Beat literature. That is linked to the
evolution and development of the Beat Generation. It can be stated that the Beats were at
the height of their popularity in the late 1950s. While the controversy surrounding their
censorship trials first withheld publishers from taking on the Beats, by the end of the
decade, they had become so popular finding a publisher was not really an issue
anymore.242 In a sense, the purpose of the little magazine Yugen in relation to the Beat
Generation had been fulfilled. Consequently, the increase of appearance of other schools of
poetry in the final four issues is sensible. Then again, Beat poets still appeared in the last
issues. This illustrates how different schools of poetry often were in contact with each
other and do not necessarily have to be considered separately.
241
242
Amiri Baraka, The Autobiography of LeRoi Jones, (Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, 1997), 252.
Ellis, “Little…Only with Some Qualifications,” 1019-1024.
45
The contributors offered their material in various ways. A notice in Yugen 1 reveals one of
the possibilities: “Manuscripts will not be returned unless accompanied by a stamped, selfaddressed envelope.” 243 This suggests that writers were free to send their material.
However, Hettie Jones saw this process in a less controlled way. She recounts that LeRoi
“would run into people that we knew in the local bookstore, or in the Cedar Tavern […] or
we’d find ourselves out listening to music and someone would offer pages right then.”
Thus, according to her “things were completely informal.”244
3.3 Financial Issues
The second typicality of little magazines was their lack of economic resources. Since the
magazine was not meant to be profitable, the editors were obliged to finance it themselves.
Moreover, the contributors were not paid and little to no advertisements appeared in the
magazine. In that aspect, Yugen is a perfect match. Firstly, the proceeds of each of the
issues went to the funding of the next one.245 The first five issues were 50 cents, the sixth
one 60 and the last two 75 cents. Granted, the later issues of Yugen were much longer. To
illustrate, Yugen 1 counted only 24 pages, but Yugen 8 was no less than 63 pages. The selffinancing aspect of little magazines is also apparent in Yugen. Interestingly, it was mainly
Hettie Jones who provided the funds for the production. Since LeRoi was working on his
own writing, Hettie had agreed to support him by working at Partisan.246 Even outsiders
were aware of this fact. Joyce Johnson, women Beat and Hettie’s friend, for example,
recounts how:
In the LeRoi Jones household, it was Hettie who paid much of the rent. Her small
salary from her job at Partisan Review not only helped to support her husband, but
fed numerous other young writers […] With what was left over Hettie and LeRoi
published the literary magazine Yugen.247
Moreover, she managed the expenses of the magazine:
243
Yugen, 1 (1958).
Hettie Jones, interview by Julie Stokx, 22 March 2016.
245
Jones, How I Became Hettie Jones,
246
Jones, How I Became Hettie Jones, 122-123.
247
Joyce Johnson, “Beat Queens: Women in Flux,” in The Rolling Stone Book of the Beats: The Beat
Generation and American Culture, edited by Holly George-Warren (New York: Hyperion, 1999), 47.
244
46
We set up everything right for our new enterprise, solicited ads, kept careful
accounts in a cash book I bought (1.29$, February 26). On March 3 we paid the
printer, in a couple of weeks I recorded the first sales – 10$!248
Furthermore, both LeRoi and Hettie suffered poverty in the years they were publishing
Yugen. Hettie recounts that they had no money to travel “or even money to telephone
longdistance”249
The advertisements that did appear in Yugen were all either for small presses, other little
magazines, books of writers that were close to the Joneses, or events in Greenwich Village.
For example, advertisements for Troubadour Press, New Directions, and Totem Press
frequently return. Also, little magazines like Big Table and Kulchur are advertised.
Moreover, a subscription form for Evergreen Review can be found in Yugen 5. Ads
promoting books of poetry like Diane di Prima’s This Kind of Bird Flies Backward and
Jack Micheline’s River of Red Wine and Other Poems. Furthermore, the multiple bars
where Hettie and LeRoi would frequently visit are promoted, such as the Five Spot Cafe
and Jazz On The Wagon. What these advertisements show is a sense of community that
was supported by little magazines like Yugen. Rather than selling out and advertising for
products, the magazine promoted the world where they were produced. Yugen itself was
also advertised to a certain extent. According to Hettie Jones, Yugen’s popularity mainly
grew by mouth-to-mouth advertising, but they also advertised in other little magazines.250
She remembered an example of this: “on page 3 of the April 2, 1958, Voice [the Village
Voice, a popular local newspaper], in a box so you’d notice, Yugen was announced as a
“New Quarterly on the Stands.”251
The financial issues that Hettie and LeRoi faced would ultimately end the magazine. Yugen
7 foreshadows the approaching collapse of the magazine. A notice reads:
If Yugen is to appear again we must have some financial assistance. We don’t want
to come on like The March of Dimes but we are in desperate need. 500 $ wd
promote 2 possibly 3 more issues.
248
Jones, How I Became Hettie Jones, 54.
Hettie Jones, Interview by Julie Stokx, 22 March 2016.
250
Ibid.
251
Jones, How I Became Hettie Jones, 55.
249
47
Yugen 8 had a hopeful message in the notes at the back “there is a good chance Yugen
might be appearing regularly beginning with this issue.” However, the recurring statement
“Yugen is published quarterly” is followed by a question mark this time, suggesting the
editors’ uncertainty.
3.4 Production
However poor they were, Hettie and LeRoi were able to produce eight issues of their little
magazine. The production of Yugen was not expensive. For the first issue of Yugen they
rented a “rickety IBM [typewriter] with erratic adjustable spacing, and rigged up a light
box for paste ups.” Overall, the magazine was made by hand. Hettie Jones recounts how
she “retyped all the work, then laid it out on a grid over a light box, and after it was as
perfect as possible LeRoi took the pages to a printer who did a process then known as
“photo offset” Then copies were made from the stencil this produced.”252 The way Yugen
was produced – low budget, by hand – influenced the way it looked. However, according
to Hettie the magazine did look “semiprofessional.” The people at Partisan Review would
even compliment her how “neat and well done” it was.253
The magazine itself was put together, by hand, on their kitchen table, first in their
apartment in Greenwich Village, 7 Morton Street # 20, and later in their Chelsea apartment
on Twentieth Street: “Piece by piece I put it all together, on my old kitchen table, with a
triangle and T-Square borrowed from the Changer.” To learn the trade, they would be
advised by Dick Hadlock – the editor at the Record Changer.254 Sometimes, the Joneses
would be assisted by a number of people. For example, before Hettie found out about
LeRoi and Diane di Prima’s affair, di Prima would help them:
[…] We would work together on Yugen. […] We would type and proof and paste
till almost midnight. I learned some of the production skills I later used at Poets
Press while working with Roi and Hettie.255
252
Hettie Jones, Interview by Julie Stokx, 22 March 2016.
Ibid.
254
Jones, How I Became Hettie Jones, 54.
255
Diane di Prima, Recollections of my Life as a Woman, 218.
253
48
However, Hettie does note that, ultimately, she was the one who did all the physical work:
“I was the one who literally put the magazine together, by hand”256
3.6 Audience
The amount of subscribers for Yugen did not exceed 1000, which was the normal amount
for a little magazine. Yet, compared to Big Table and Folder who only reached 500 copies
per issue, they were more successful.257 Hettie Jones has to be credited with this success.
Because of her connection with Partisan Review, Yugen was distributed nationally, and not
just in New York. Indeed, Hettie became friends with the distributor for Partisan Bernhard
DeBoer and his wife, and he subsequently offered to send a few copies to university
libraries in “Michigan and other Midwestern states” and to “places all over the US where
we had no contacts.” She emphasizes that this aided in the reputation of Yugen. People like
Frank O’Hara, for example, were excited about their magazine and subsequently wanted to
be featured in it. Finally, Hettie emphasizes the value of Yugen in that aspect. She asserts
that “we were able to reach new young readers who were excited about the Beats and
wanted to know about other people writing what came to be known as the New American
Poetry.”258
3.7 Editorial Strategy
An interesting aspect of the subject of editing beat little magazines is the fact that the Beats
were so averse toward editing and revising. The spontaneity of the prose or the poetry was
an essential element in Beat poetics. Thus, it seems counterintuitive to discuss any editorial
strategy when it comes to Beat literature. However, that is what Hettie Jones did. She had
never really “learned” to edit. However, her education did prepare her for this kind of
work. For example, she edited the yearbook at her college. In general, she knew her
grammar and understood how texts had to be made.259 During her time at Partisan Review,
she was in charge of the subscriptions and did general secretarial work. However, the
256
Hettie Jones, Interview by Julie Stokx, 22 March 2016.
Thacker, “General Introduction,” 17.
258
Hettie Jones, interview by Julie Stokx, 22 March 2016.
259
Hettie Jones, Interview by Julie Stokx, 22 March 2016.
257
49
editors William Philips and Philip Rahv started to teach her a few editing skills. After a
while, Philips would occasionally ask her to edit something.
“Copyedit this,” he said to me [Philips to Hettie Jones] one day, putting a
manuscript into my hand. “But I’ve never … How do you do it?” I said. He
hesitated, frowning, then patted my shoulder. “Just make it right,” he said
reassuringly. “And change it from English to American.260
Subsequently, that was what she did and she would keep on using this advice. She
explains: “editing for me consisted in making sure that the writer’s spelling and grammar
were correct and that the point was made.” For Yugen, however, she emphasizes that she
only revised the typing mistakes because “Yugen […] was largely poetry and one doesn’t
mess with poetry!” This is again in line with the typical attitude of a little magazine editor,
who allows the poets or writers to express themselves how they want.
3.8 Yugen’s Impact on the Beat Generation and on Hettie Jones
Yugen had definitely an impact on the Beat Generation, in that it published such a variety
of authors. Moreover, it also supported other groups like the San Francisco poets, the
Black Mountain poets and the New York poets. Specifically, in the case of the Beat
Generation, Yugen stood out. Not only the central Beats, Kerouac, Ginsberg, and
Burroughs, were in the magazine, for example. Also, foundational Beats such as Tuli
Kupferberg and the late-generation Beat David Meltzer were published. One of the Beat
poets who had his first publishing opportunity in Yugen was Ray Bremser.261 Moreover,
Hettie Jones is convinced that they “made a great deal of difference” since Yugen was one
of the few little magazines that published the Beats.262 Furthermore, Hettie Jones did notice
some reluctance of the more serious periodicals, such as Partisan Review, to take on the
authors she and LeRoi put forward. She states that:
William Philips later regretted not publishing more of the Beats, but neither he nor
Philip Rahv would consider any of the work I urged on [them] nor would most of
260
Jones, How I Became Hettie Jones, 45.
Charters, Beat Down to Your Soul, 35.
262
Hettie Jones, Interview by Julie Stokx, 22 March 2016.
261
50
the younger editors, the rising neoconservatives, who simply assumed that they
were American lit and I wasn’t.263
Then again, she felt that they did inspire some people with the poetry that appeared in their
magazine. For example, Donald Allen’s anthology The New American Poetry (1960)
published various names that “had appeared first in Yugen.264 Therefore, it can be stated
that Yugen had a definite impact in supporting new literary movements. Furthermore, the
magazine is also a great resource for twentieth-century writing. Rather than a controlled
anthology, it offers immediacy. Indeed, each issue published new, recent poetry.
Additionally, Yugen brought a diverse group of people together, which definitely aided in
the development of the literary community in New York. For example, the Joneses
apartment(s) was not only the headquarters of the production of Yugen; it would also serve
as a “Beat salon.”265 It was a place where like-minded people could come together and talk
about literature and poetry. The talking would often be followed by parties. Hettie Jones
remembers one particular party after a reading by Kerouac in the Seven Arts Coffee
Gallery. After the reading, “A crowd of thirty, thus inspired [after the reading] needs a big
enough place to party […] and we had nothing but party space to offer.”266 Jones recalls
that from that time on people kept going in and out, crashing at their place, and partying.
However, she was excited by all this, insisting it was “a young time, a wild, wide-open, hot
time.”267
Others had also noticed how LeRoi and Hettie had started organizing a creative community
from within their living room. Brenda (Bonnie Bremser) Frazier, for example, recalls that
she would visit them sometimes with her husband Ray when they were in New York:
They were some of the first people that I met when we were in New York together.
Ray and I went over there one time, maybe after I’d known him for a month. One
of the issues of Yugen had just come out with one of Ray’s poems in it. They had a
kind of party – I think they were always having parties then – and there were all
poets there, like Barbara Moraff was there, the sort of subgroup of the Beat
generation. They [Hettie and LeRoi] were the mother and father of the literary
scene at that time. They were making things happen in an organized way that
263
Jones, How I Became Hettie Jones, 100.
Ibid., 116.
265
Johnson, “Beat Queens: Women in Flux,” 47.
266
Jones, How I Became Hettie Jones, 70.
267
Ibid., 71.
264
51
wasn’t happening otherwise. Maybe not on a Don Allen level, or maybe not on an
academic level, but on the little magazine scene, they were putting it together like
nobody else was. And they were married, they had kids, they were living a normal
life. They were very hip, and yet they were paying the bills, which was
incomprehensible to me. How could you do both at once.268
That sense of community is also noticeable in Yugen itself. In each issue, the contributors
are adequately described and promoted. For example in Yugen 2, it reads, “You should
read Gregory Corso’s book Gasoline!” But not only writers were promoted. Yugen was
always decorated with various drawings and it had also beautiful cover art. In Yugen 7 a
note tells the reader that “the cover was done especially for this issue by Mr. Bluhm
[American abstract expressionism painter Norman Bluhm]. He is hung most frequently in
the Leo Castelli Gallery, NY.”
Essentially, Yugen did exactly what a little magazine was supposed to do, promote new
avant-garde movements and bring like-minded people together.
3.9 “So, were you just the typist?”
Clearly, Hettie Jones had a vital role in the production of the little magazine Yugen. Thus,
it is unfair to minimize her contribution. In 1994, at a New York University conference on
the Beats, someone asked her to comment on a statement that her role was insignificant
because she had “just been the typist.” She strongly disagreed:
The very idea assumed that Yugen, the magazine I published with LeRoi Jones, had
appeared in bookstores and on library shelves on the wings of song. Whereas, to the
contrary, without the typist there there’d have been no magazine at all. Since the
early issues of Yugen, as well as some of our Totem Press books were, well, hand
jobs. Put together on the kitchen table. And indeed, I did the typing.269
Certainly, unlike LeRoi who published his own poetry in almost every issue of Yugen,
Hettie never did this. At the time, however, she was still struggling to write. Nevertheless,
Hettie’s contribution is important, not only in the larger context of the women of the Beat
Generation but also on a personal level. To illustrate, Hettie would be in great debt to her
268
269
Johnson and Grace, Breaking the Rule of Cool, 125-126.
Hettie Jones, “Babes in Boyland,” 51.
52
early career as an editor for her own writing skills, later in life. For her, editing was an
essential part of the writing process. She was convinced that being a writer meant being an
editor, following the mantra “writing is rewriting.” Chelsea D. Schlievert even argues that
Hettie found “agency through the process of editing.”270 In other words, her early years as
an editor were vital for her identity. The love for editing came early in her career when she
was working at Partisan Review. She narrates about watching William Philips edit:
I liked watching him edit, the care for the precise word, the very generosity of
honing another person’s argument. When I began to take charge of business with
the printer, and there were times when a line here or there had to be saved, we
would spread out the proofs and go over them. The content dissolved in the
pleasure of sweet manipulation.271
Looking back on Yugen, she adds that reading and editing the work of such talented people
ultimately made her a better writer: “Word choices, habits of thought – these things, when
you learn them early, can last your whole life long.” 272
Hettie Jones’ work as an editor is also telling in the context of the women Beats. Rather
than being a “silent beat chick,” she actively participated in the Beat movement by
supporting and promoting the literature of its members. She fondly looked back on it and
was proud of this achievement: “If I hadn’t yet managed to speak for myself, here at least
were these others.”273 Moreover, she felt that she was playing an essential role for women
in future generations. Even though there are some examples of women working as editors
in or in association with the Beat Generation, she still felt that this was an exception:
“Those of us women […] were unusual and were mostly in rebellion against the traditional
role women were expected to play.”274 Lastly, it appears that Hettie could offer that sense
of stability that was necessary to produce a magazine. Moreover, her organizational talents
that she picked up in her previous publishing jobs would become useful. She did, indeed,
learn the job “from the bottom up.”
270
Chelsea D. Schlievert, “Self-Narratives and Editorial Marks,” Women Inventing the 1950s. Spec. Issue of
Women’s Studies 40, no. 8 (2011): 1101.
271
Jones, How I Became Hettie Jones, 44.
272
Hettie Jones, Interview by Julie Stokx, 22 March 2016.
273
Jones, How I Became Hettie Jones, 55.
274
Hettie Jones, Interview by Julie Stokx, 22 March 2016.
53
Even though most little magazine studies do credit Hettie’s role in the production of
Yugen, some do not.275 This is likely linked to the general omission of women Beats from
cultural and literary history. It also relates to the general view that women in the 1950s
were living according to the domestic ideal, as discussed in the previous part of this
dissertation. Furthermore, it may be due to the fact that her memoir – where she started
telling her stories, including the ones from her time at Yugen – was only published in 1990.
Subsequently, recognition for her work came only later. Finally, it could be related to the
importance of LeRoi Jones, who became a prominent poet, playwright, and activist from
the 1960s on. Therefore, he was more subject to research and criticism, and more in the
foreground concerning Yugen.276
Nonetheless, Hettie Jones does not feel as if she was not given credit. In fact, she details
how “everyone knew that I literally “made” the magazine by hand because people who
came to visit could see my work table.” Moreover, she felt respected for the work she did
at that time. Additionally, it has to be noted that Hettie considered Yugen as teamwork
effort between two partners. She says, “Yugen was LeRoi’s idea, but I threw myself at it.”
She affirms that they “simply divided up the work [and] did what had to be done, because
we both were very excited about creating a space for new writing”. Ultimately, this is what
truly made them both little magazine editors. They were selfless in creating Yugen because
it was a project for other artists who were struggling to be published, it was also a platform
for new and adventurous writing, and it became a central power in the literary community
of New York, in the 1950s.
275
For example, the work of Anderson and Kinzie The Little Magazine in America, where only LeRoi Jones
is interviewed about Yugen; LeRoi Jones does not mention Hettie in the interview. However, in his
autobiography (Baraka, The Autobiography of LeRoi Jones) he tells the full story, including the work that
Hettie did as an editor. Yet, he uses pseudonyms for her (“Nellie Kohn”) and Yugen (“Zazen”). This may
have further complicated Hettie’s recognition. Furthermore, in Brooker and Thacker’s study The Oxford
Critical and Cultural History of Modernist Magazines, Hettie is mentioned, but hardly recognized as a real
co-editor; on one occasion they even refer to her as “Nellie,” (her pseudonym in LeRoi’s book) which clearly
indicates that they have not researched her role adequately.
276
David Abrahamson ed., The American Magazine: Research Perspectives and Prospects (Ames: Iowa
State University Press), 55.
54
IV. Conclusion
In this dissertation, I have presented an analysis of the Beat little magazine Yugen and the
role of its co-editor Hettie Jones. In the first chapter some generalizations about little
magazines, the women of the beat generation, and Beat little magazines were made. From
the first section, it was clear that all little magazines have little funds, a small audience, and
an avant-garde nature in common. The second section placed the Beats in the historical
context of the 1950s, and from there on discussed the women of the Beat Generation who
rebelled against the domestic constraints of the decade. Finally, some notes on women
editors were made. Historically, women had been actively involved in the print business
(books, periodicals, etc.) since Early Modern Times. Thus, it is by no means surprising that
the Beat women were involved in similar work. This was then linked to the Beat
Generation by discussing some women editors of Beat (or Beat-related) little magazines.
One of the unexpected conclusions from this first chapter was that the Beats were
ultimately no editors. Thus, it would seem irrelevant to discuss them in relation to the
editing of little magazines. However, it became clear that the women Beats did possess all
the necessities to produce a little magazine such as stability and organization.
In the analysis chapter both the questions that were presented in the introduction were
addressed. Subsequently, the second chapter questioned the “beat” nature of Yugen and the
exact role of Hettie Jones as an editor. Although Yugen would publish poetry from the
New York School poets, the Black Mountain poets, and the San Francisco poets, the Beats
were more prominent in its four first issues. This is linked to the popularity of the Beats
after 1960. Essentially, the purpose of the little magazine was achieved and the Beats were
no longer hindered in their publishing opportunities. Yugen can also be linked to the Beats’
fascination with Zen Buddhism. Of course, Yugen’s editors are also considered Beats. The
production, financial issues and audience are what truly made Yugen a little magazine.
The second aspect that was researched in this dissertation was the role of Hettie Jones as
the co-editor of Yugen. Jones insists that the magazine was ultimately a joint collaboration
between her and LeRoi Jones. However, it still has to be noted that Hettie Jones had far
more responsibilities than just “being the typing.” She also edited and, essentially, ran the
magazine. As unimportant as the people in the background sometimes appear, eventually it
55
becomes clear that without them, nothing would even happen. Finally, that is what Hettie
Jones’ role was in the little magazine Yugen. She operated in the background, providing
that stability that was required from editors and publishers. She had the organizational
talent to manage the magazine, was a careful reviser, and she did what was required of
editors of little magazines: selflessly publishing avant-garde material for no commercial
gain. The fact that she was often not entirely credited in accounts and studies about Yugen
actually adds further strength to that argument. Like many women had done before her,
Hettie played a vital role in the publishing and editing of little magazines. Her contribution
was so obvious that there should be another category “editors and publishers” added to
Brenda Knights’ categories of women of the Beat Generation (muses, writers, and artists).
Ultimately, this thesis revealed a budding rebellion, both in the world of magazine
publishing and in American women of the 1950s. The importance of a magazine like
Yugen today is still clear because it offers glimpses or snapshots of a certain literary and
cultural time period. More than an anthology does, a little magazine depicts a sense of
immediacy. Various authors appear side by side, which reveals a formation of a literary
community. Also, the editors of Yugen would not conform to the 1950s standards of
American society and went against the wave of consumerism and conformity. For Hettie
Jones, this was hard. Women were supposed to act a certain way in the 1950s. However,
this dissertation shows that rebellion was possible in the 1950s for women and that editing
and publishing little magazines had a significant role in this rebellion.
56
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Appendix
Interview with Hettie Jones, email, 22 March 2016
How did you learn to edit? And, how specific was the editing process for Yugen?
I don’t think I ever “learned” to edit! I always had very good writing and grammar skills,
and in college I was an editor of the yearbook, and wrote some personal essays for a
college publication. Editing for me consisted in making sure that the writer’s spelling and
grammar were correct and that the point was made. Re Yugen—that was largely poetry
and one doesn’t mess with poetry!
You mention in your memoir that Yugen was Leroi Jones’s idea, but that you “threw
yourself at it”. How would you describe your role and responsibilities in the production of
Yugen? And, did you discuss with each other how the work would be divided?
I was the one who literally put the magazine together, by hand. Without computers, life
was a lot more complicated. I retyped all the work, then laid it out on a grid over a light
box, and after it was as perfect as possible LeRoi took the pages to a printer who did a
process then known as “photo offset.” Then copies were made from the stencil this
produced. Re any discussion, we simply divided up the work—I did all the mechanical
stuff because I was good at it and he went out and found people who sent us poems—he
either wrote to people or got recommendations from people we knew. We never discussed
any roles, but simply did what had to be done, because we both were very excited about
creating a space for new writing since the only other extant magazine at the time was on
the West Coast.
In each issue of the magazine, there is information about the contributors to the issue,
about the magazine (its price, address…) and also a few advertisements for other presses,
magazines or events. Who was responsible for this?
I think this part was simply a collaboration. If there was anyone to telephone to ask for an
ad, one or the other of us did. It was largely just information that we got word of mouth.
61
Did you frequently take part in selecting the literature and poetry that would appear in
Yugen? And, how were the pieces selected? Did you invite contributors?
Because I had a full-time job at the time, I think LeRoi did most of the inviting of
contributors; he would run into people that we knew in the local bookstore, or in the Cedar
Tavern (a hangout for painters and poets) or we’d find ourselves out listening to music and
someone would offer pages right then. Things were completely informal.
To what extent did you make a difference in the literary landscape with Yugen?
Well, from this point in time I can say that we made a great deal of difference, because
there wasn’t another little magazine that came out of New York featuring Allen Ginsberg
and Jack Kerouac, and others who later became very well known as American writers of
that particular group. Because the bohemia back then was quite small (at least in New
York), we knew not only writers but painters and musicians and dancers by name, and all
of us attended all of their events. Because the distributor for Partisan Review (where I
worked) liked us and appreciated our quirky little magazine because it was neat and well
done, he agreed to send Yugen around to libraries and places all over the U.S. where we
had no contacts. From that advantage we were able to reach new young readers who were
excited about the Beats and wanted to know about other people writing what came to be
known as the New American Poetry.
Would you say there were a lot of women doing this kind of work for magazines in the late
Fifties and early Sixties? Or was it more of an exception? And why? Was it a particularly
‘beat’ venture?
Not a lot of women at all. Maybe none! The new writing was mostly a boys’ game and in
general views about women had not changed for generations. Those of us women who
were around in Greenwich Village then and on the San Francisco scene were unusual and
were mostly in rebellion against the traditional role women were expected to play. Yugen
wasn’t a particularly “beat” venture as there were other contributions from writers who
didn’t consider themselves “beat” but were trying to write about new subjects in a new,
62
more direct way. The difference between largely academic writing and what we published
was not only in style but in a looser subject matter and reflected a more open lifestyle.
Do you feel you were (and are) given enough credit for all the work you did?
Well, now that I have been recognized for all this, I am quite satisfied! But I was always
given credit back then. Everyone knew that I literally “made” the magazine by hand
because people who came to visit could see my work table. I also had a very good job—I
actually ran the office of the Partisan Review which was a very well-known leftist
magazine run by people a generation older than we were. So I was respected for the work
and the responsibilities I carried out in that job, as well as doing Yugen.
Was Yugen advertised in any way? Or did its popularity grow by itself?
I think we advertised in a couple of other little magazines that sprang up but most of all it
was talked about and then people began to buy it.
Do you have an idea what the readership of Yugen was like? Were the readers mainly
friends and other writers, or also literary students and people in general?
I think, given that we got into university libraries because of the Partisan Review
distributor, we were read not only by artists in New York but students in places like
Michigan and other Midwestern states, and this enhanced our reputation beyond what we
might have done all by ourselves, since we had no money to travel, or even money to
telephone long-distance!
Do you have a favorite anecdote from your time working at Yugen?
Not an anecdote, no, but I do believe that working with all this wonderful writing helped
me to understand how I wanted my own writing to go.
It helped me to become
sophisticated about writing in general. As a woman, of course, I would eventually write
about different subjects from men—thankfully! But I will always cherish my memories of
typing good writing over and over—and reading good writing over and over. Word
63
choices, habits of thought—these things, when you learn them early, can last your whole
life long.
64