Angel Hair Books Collection. Offered 2020.

Angel Hair Books Collection.

Offered 2020. Item #1909

“I met Lewis Warsh at the Berkeley Poetry Conference and will always forever after think we founded Angel Hair within that auspicious moment.” So writes Anne Waldman in her introduction to The Angel Hair Anthology (Granary Books, 2001). Lewis and Anne were greatly influenced by the poets and publishers attending the twelve-day conference in July 1965, including those variously identified as Beat, Black Mountain, New York School, and San Francisco Renaissance. 


By spring 1966, the poets, each age 20, published the first issue of Angel Hair from 33 St. Mark’s Place in New York City. The initial Angel Hair book was released the same year and by 1978 they had published six issues of the magazine, 63 pamphlets, books, and broadsides, and 10 catalogs. In the process, they helped identify and nurture a generation of innovative, ground-breaking poets, writers, and artists.


Poets such as Gary Snyder, Robert Duncan, Joanne Kyger, LeRoi Jones, Charles Olson, John Wieners, Jack Spicer, Robert Creeley, Allen Ginsberg, Lew Welch, Lenore Kandel, Ted Berrigan, and Ed Sanders, and small presses and magazines such as CFuck You: A Magazine of the ArtsThe Floating Bear, White Rabbit, Auerhahn Press, and Locus Solus provided inspirational models. In The Anthology, Lewis Warsh writes: “In a sense doing a magazine at this early moment was our way of giving birth—as much to the actual magazine and books as to ourselves as poets."

Granary Books is pleased to offer for sale a comprehensive collection of the Angel Hair publications, including a complete run of the magazine, all 63 pamphlets, books, and broadsides, two of the catalogs, and a small batch of related archival material. Please contact us for complete inventory of collection, including condition reports, or visit our site for an online catalog. Available only as a complete collection at this time.

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