Linder, Carl; Artaud, Antonin; Casement, Douglas

Broadside: A Hurricane: A Spectacle for Antonin Artaud

Flint, MI: Fenian Head Centre Press, c. 1966. First Printing. Folded Single Sheet. An oblong, small-format broadside (measuring appx. 5 & 3/8” x 16”) featuring a poem by Carl Linder (1940-2021), an American poet & onetime professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison: the institution from which Linder obtained his PhD during the mid-1960s. Scholars of the New American Poetry might recall that UW-Madison was quite a happening place at the time: serving as a nexus for the counterculture & something of a breeding ground for the politically-inspired, underground newspapers of the Underground Press Syndicate that came later. The poet, d.a.levy (1942-1968), for example, was invited to Madison to teach shortly before his death in 1968; and while there, levy completed his impressive final sequence of artworks, known as the The Madison Collages. It's unsurprising, then that this collectible exists: or, that Linder got in contact with the printer-publisher, Douglas Casement of the Fenian Head Centre Press in Flint, MI (and later, Chicago and Bensenville, Illinois), & collaborated with him to produce this broadside. While Casement’s connections to the Mimeograph Revolution are profound, they remain largely unsung. For Casement not only affected the Mimeograph Revolutionary landscape in Michigan (through his founding and operation of the Fenian Head Centre Press in Flint), but he also impacted the Cleveland, OH-based scene surrounding d.a.levy mentioned previously. This connection to levy (and to the Cleveland chapter of the Mimeograph Revolution, generally) is isolated in the figure of T.L. Kryss, who Casement mentored and taught how to print — and it was T.L.’s Ghost Press that published the legendary benefit magazine, A Tribute to Jim Lowell, which raised money for Jim Lowell and d.a.levy’s Defense Fund, & in so doing became the most representative rarity of the Mimeograph Revolution in Cleveland. Casement, we find, is distantly connected to all of this: a fact Your Devoted VP-of-Operations here at Third Mind Books finds both intriguing and impressive. Returning, swiftly to the work here offered: as its subtitle indicates, this poem of Carl Linder’s (“A Hurricane: A Spectacle for Antonin Artaud”) is dedicated to the French Surrealist poet & dramatist, Antonin Artaud (1896-1948). Artaud was a beloved figure for the Young Men-of-Letters in the Mimeograph Revolution: and this influence is at least partially on view, here with respect to the title of Linder’s poem. In closing, this broadside from Douglas Casement’s Fenian Head Centre Press attests to the overlapping streams of connection & influence that made the literary insurgency known as the Mimeograph Revolution possible. From the collection of Robin Eichele (b. 1941), noted Mimeograph Revolutionary & co-founder (with John Sinclair) of the Detroit Artists’ Workshop. Small-format broadside on folded single sheet: the first (& presumably only) printing of this Antonin Artaud-themed work by Carl Linder. In very fine condition with only microscopic bumping & edge-wear similar variously present at recto & verso sides; folded at center (as issued); otherwise, pristine. Very Fine. [Item #8474]

Price: $50.00