Small Press Poetry Collection
Scope and Contents
A developing collection of small press poetry publications from over a hundred non-mainstream international presses, with a particular focus on the avant-garde.
The collection includes substantial holdings of several individual British presses including Barque Press, Crater Press, Face Press, West House Books, and Gargoyle Editions. It also includes the full output of the Canadian presses Weed/Flower and Seripress, as well as a large collection of books and ephemera from the San Francisco based Zephyrus Image. There is also a collection of poetry broadsides.
A complete list of titles within this collection, arranged alphabetically by press, can be found in the External Documents section below.
Dates
- Creation: 1960s - 2019
Conditions Governing Access
Available to researchers by appointment
Biographical / Historical
Poetry, avant-garde and experimental literature tends to develop via the imagination and exuberance of small presses and ephemeral journals, rather than by consolidation in mainstream publications. Print runs and sales are often comparable, with very few exceptions. The small press tradition that currently exists inherits a long tradition. In modernism think of the Hogarth Press, run by Virginia and Leonard Woolf, first UK publishers of T.S. Eliot’s Waste Land, or the first publication of James Joyce’s Ulysses by Shakespeare and Company. We might, however, conceive of a longer and diverse history, to incorporate samizdat publications of the Soviet Union, the early modern pamphlet (or cheap press/chap book) culture, and the informal networks of manuscript circulation in the Renaissance court. Small Press culture incorporates the publication of broadsides, chapbooks, ephemera, pamphlets, tracts, manuscripts, self-publishing and samizdat. As well as allowing control over print and distribution, small press poetry can encourage experimentation in verse-forms as well as publishing methods and materials. It often makes use of cheap techniques of printing, or even belated technology (mimeograph, letterpress). It is intimately tied to traditions of political dissent and popular movements. Since 1945 we might pay heed to the legendary Jargon Society (founded by Jonathan Williams), Matrix Press (Tom Raworth), United Artists (Bernadette Mayer and Lewis Warsh), Ferry Press (Andrew Crozier), Barque Press (Keston Sutherland and Andrea Brady), Adventures in Poetry (Larry Fagin and Christopher Mattison), O Books (Leslie Scalapino), Burning Deck (Rosmarie Waldrop, Keith Waldrop), CHAX Press (Charles Alexander), Granary (Steve Clay), West House (Geraldine Monk, Alan Halsey), Tuumba Press (Lyn Hejinian), Totem Press (Leroi Jones/Amiri Baraka, Hettie Cohen), Street Editions (Wendy Mulford). The diversity of the UK scene can be witnessed by the Lollipop list of little press publications, originally created by Bill Griffiths and currently looked after by Peter Manson.
Extent
Approx 1600 Item(s)
Language of Materials
English
Custodial History
By donation and purchase from various source
- Description rules
- International Standard for Archival Description - General
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
Repository Details
Part of the Special Collections and Archives Repository
Western Bank Library
University of Sheffield
Western Bank
Sheffield South Yorkshire S10 2TN United Kingdom
+44 (0) 114 222 7299
lib-special@sheffield.ac.uk