Sinclair, John; Eichele, Robin et al.

Detroit Artists' Workshop Society Program No. 1 (November 21, 1965)

Detroit, MI: Detroit Artists' Workshop, 1965. First Printing. Single Sheet. “John Sinclair and Robin Eichele will read from their published and unpublished work. Both poets are well known to Detroit audiences through their readings and publications here. Sinclair read his work at the Berkeley Poetry Conference this summer at the invitation of Richard Baker, Director of the Conference, as did Eichele. Both poets read in groups of young poets from the US and Canada. Sinclair is the editor of WORK, a journal of new writings, and co-editor of CHANGE, a new/jazz magazine, both published at the Artists’ Workshop Press. Eichele is editor of Workshop Books. Both poets are active in other art forms, Eichele as a photographer and filmmakers, Sinclair as a jazz critic, composer, and vocalist” (Excerpted Qtn. from AWS Program #1). The first flyer-announcement produced by John Sinclair & Robin Eichele’s Detroit Artists’ Workshop relating to their series of “Sunday Programs.” The Sunday programs began almost immediately after the Workshop’s founding on 11/1/64 — something which is obscured by the program numbering beneath the (informal) Artists’ Workshop letterhead. One thinks, on initial inspection, that perhaps it meant to say “1964,” not “1965,” — an idea suggested by another item we recently uploaded to the Third Mind Books site [TMB Item No. 8089: the “Detroit Artists' Workshop Program No. 7 (December 13, 1964]. How could this be the “first” program in the series (and dated 11/21/65), one asks, when the “seventh” program in the series (as cataloged in TMB Item No. 8089) occurred in December of 1964? To understand how this is possible, we have to look at a tendency that later appeared more pronounced in John’s life — most famously, perhaps, in late 1968, when John and the MC5 declared “Zenta New Year” (the two-night celebration of the MC5 at the Grande Ballroom, at which the Five’s “Kick Out the Jams” was recorded) a new ‘Year Zero,’ if you will. It seems that John had already gotten into the habit of ‘starting over,’ chronologically — in tune with some theme of naissance or ‘rebirth’ — in 1965 and had ‘started the calendar over again’ at the turn of the Artists’ Workshop’s ‘one year anniversary’ in November 1965. This is the only way this “Sunday program” could conceivably be titled ‘the first’ in the series, per the evidence & accompanying material histories related, above. At any rate, other Artists’ Workshop programming here advertised includes the series of Jazz concerts pioneered by Workshop jazzman, Charles Moore (1941-2014), & also a scholastically-notable mention of the “New Blues Band.” The “New Blues Band,” of which quite literally nothing has been written, was comprised of [the aforementioned] Charles Moore; Sinclair himself [on “voice”]; Motown blues-&-jazz guitarist, Lyman Woodard (1942-2009), & several others. This is Beat-scholastically important, esp. for those of us who were able to see John read with Jazz/Blues accompaniment before he died, because it ‘proves’ that John was honing his skills at ‘reading like that’ / in that format for a very long time — far longer than most people (including Your Devoted Curators at Third Mind Books, who hosted John for an event in 2022) — were previously aware. From the collection of Robin Eichele (b. 1941), noted Mimeograph Revolutionary & co-founder (with John Sinclair) of the Detroit Artists’ Workshop. Flyer-announcement on single sheet: the first & only printing of this distinguished rarity from the Mimeograph Revolution. In strong fine condition with only minute-to-moderate shelf-wear, light bumping to fine-edges & corners of sheet on verso & recto sides; & moderate-to-significant age-toning throughout; otherwise, clean. Fine. [Item #8077]

Price: $60.00