Nine issues, edited by Alice Notley (1972-1974)
Alice Notley’s CHICAGO is a seminal publication in the history of 20th century poetry magazines. Alongside The World, edited by Anne Waldman, and Telephone, edited by Maureen Owen, CHICAGO is a radical example of the legal size mimeograph magazines edited and published by the women poets associated with the New York School. These nine issues trace a formative time in Notley’s life during which the young poet, then in her late twenties and recently out of graduate school at Iowa, was pregnant with her sons and moving between Chicago and England as her husband, the poet Ted Berrigan, followed a series of university teaching positions. The first six issues of CHICAGO were published in Chicago while Notley was living at 911 W. Diversey and the final three issues, known as the “European Editions,” were published while she was living in Wivenhoe in Essex, England. Notley’s attentive and independent editorial stance is the hallmark of each issue.
Defined by Notley’s interest in publishing large collections of poems by individual writers—sometimes over 20 poems—and an art gallery-like approach to how pieces sit on the large legal size page, CHICAGO is both a record of the aesthetic experimentation and associations in the early ‘70s that bend outside standard narratives of the New York School and a record of Notley’s establishment of her editorial vision that would extend 20 years later into the editing of Scarlet and Gare du Nord with Douglas Oliver. Highlights from throughout these issues include poems by Lorenzo Thomas, textual-visual pieces by Philip Whalen, Joe Brainard comic collaborations with John Ashbery and Kenneth Koch, over 50 pieces by Notley herself, and a conversation between George Oppen and Berrigan in the initial European Edition. The interactive data visualization above shows the complete contributor network of all 9 issues of CHICAGO simultaneously. Click on an issue node (identified by issue number and cover image) or a contributor node (identified by name and colored red) to reveal additional data. Click and drag nodes to arrange the connections in different ways and see how the issues are linked through contributors. The larger the red contributor node, the more frequently that person contributed to the magazine. As we can see, Notley, Berrigan and Hollo were the most frequent contributors to CHICAGO.
All cover art is by George Schneeman. The Volume 5 Number 1 issue is edited by Berrigan. Downloadable, fully searchable PDFs of each issue are available via Google Drive by clicking the button below the table of contents of individual issues. These scans of CHICAGO were generously provided by Emory University’s Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library.
CHICAGO
Vol. 1 No. 1, February 1972
Table of Contents:
ANSELM HOLLO—“the works,” “the first Miss Amerika,” “the fastest man on earth,” “eating out alone,” “after Tu Fu or something,” “At This Point The Moon…,” “From Your Stoned Book Reviewer,” “Plaisir D’Amour,” (“new book”), “m e s s a g e”
TOM CLARK—8 pages from The Great Song
JAMES SCHUYLER—“Two,” “Sparks,” “Daylight,” “Self-pity is a kind of lying, too,” “To Frank,” “Mike,” “Roxy”
ALICE NOTLEY—“December,” “Birthday Eve,” “Ray Flowers,” “Blush,” “My Flower,” “April,” “Elegy,” “In The Bronx,” “Echoes Others”
RON PADGETT—“Good Evening,” “S’il Vous Plait,” “The Day I Saw The Red Wheelbarrow,” “Murder Quills,” “The Good Bird,” “(I am lying in bed),” “Plymouth,” “Read Books”
MERRILL GILFILLAN—“One,” “Rotunda,” “Starry Night,” “Halo,” “Shakespeare,” “A Head At The Window (Meditation),” “Starry Night,” “A Beauty”
TED BERRIGAN—“Shaking Lands,” “Remembered Poem,” “Wishes,” “Chinese Nightingale,” “Things To Do On Speed,” “Things To Do In Providence”
CHICAGO
Vol. 2 Nos. 2 & 3, March-April 1972
Table of Contents:
ALICE NOTLEY—24 Poems
MICHAEL BROWNSTEIN—The Collected Shorter Poems
DICK GALLUP—“Christmas Poem,” “Private Dick,” “Coffee Break,” “The Domestics,” “The Grey Horrors,” “Smudges of Hate,” “The Humanodites,” “Breakfast in the Sky,” “Castles of Blood,” “Watch the Fish,” “Beyond the Chambers of My Heart,” “Poem Written in the Winter of my Thirtieth Year”
JOSEPHINE CLARE—“Message I,” “Evening Meal Time,” “Rainy Afternoon Makes Me Long for England,” “*,” “I Live on an Island Hah Hah!,” “Message II,” “Breakfast by Myself,” “The Art of Poetry,” “Things To Do As Soon As Possible”
ANSELM HOLLO—“5 & 7 & 5,” “t u m b l e w e e d,” “t h e a n v i l,” “a n y n e w s f r o m a l p h a c e n t a u r i,” “u p,” “d e a m o r e,” “Peace,” “‘Little Asterisks Cheer Up the Page,’” “Spring Song,” “impression du matin”
BERNADETTE MAYER—from Memory
JIM CARROLL—15 Poems
PHILIP GUSTON—drawing
BILL BERKSON & FRANK O’HARA—“St. Bridget’s Hymn to Philip Guston”
CHICAGO
Vol. 3 Nos. 4 & 5, May 1972
Table of Contents:
SANDY BERRIGAN—28 Poems
RON PADGETT—Ron’s Heart
ANSELM HOLLO—“On Gopher Hill,” “Sunday Morning,” “Country & Western Time,” “in the kitchen, at night,” “the works of Chairman Mao,” “The Famous Writers’ Workshop,” “The Beauties,” “the old space cadet,” “hey, J.!”
CLARK COOLIDGE—“Bernadette”
KATIE MITCHELL—from Two Suspicious Characters
TED BERRIGAN—“Ikonostasis,” “My Beautiful Sister-in-Law, Margaret, from Needles,” “Something Amazing Just Happened,” “Conceived in Hate,” “Laments,” “from The Autobiography of God,” “Lady,” “As Time Goes By,” “This Perfect Day,” “Holy City,” “Cone in Cone: Air Marriage,” “Paul Blackburn”
ALICE NOTLEY—“Australia: The Play, A Poem”
CHICAGO
Vol. 4 No. 6, Summer 1972
Table of Contents:
HARRIS SCHIFF—“I should run for cover but I’m right here”
HENRY KANABUS—21 Poems
ANNE WALDMAN—from The Egypt Journal
RICHARD FRIEDMAN—“The American Way,” “Hesitation Pitch,” “The Day the Brand Names Disappeared,” “Twelve Hour Quicksand,” “The Umbrella of the Metaphysician,” “Chicago Sunset,” “Offering,” “Headlines,” “Contagious,” “I Hear the Kinks in the Great Universe,” “Museum-Piece,” “From the Vortex”
TED BERRIGAN—Southampton Winter
DAVID DRUM—“South, A Poem,” “The Alchemist,” “Grand Canyon Suite,” “The Fireman’s Ball”
SIMON SCHUCHAT—17 Poems
TOM CLARK—At Malibu
CHICAGO
Vol. 5 No. 1, November 1st, 1972
*This issue edited by Ted Berrigan*
Table of Contents:
JOANNE KYGER—”This is Happy Birthday to You Ted”
ROBERT CREELEY—”Change, for Ted”
CURTIS FAVILLE—Aubade
ANSELM HOLLO—Anselm’s Dreams
GEORGE MATTINGLY—8 Poems
DICK GALLUP—9 Poems
PHILIP WHALEN—“Impatient Poetry for Ted & Alice B.”
TED BERRIGAN—10 Poems
BERNADETTE MAYER—Studying Hunger
JOHN ASHBERY & JOE BRAINARD—“The Doctor’s Dilemma” (comic)
MAUREEN OWEN—12 Poems
KENNETH KOCH & JOE BRAINARD—“Down Through the Ages” (comic)
ALICE NOTLEY—“The Sky Bank,” “Who Is That Chair For,” “You,” “City,” “Getting to Sleep, Chicago,” “An Entity,” “The Old Purple,” “The Most Avant*Garde,” “Early Works”
ED DORN—”Idling With Observation & Song”
LORENZO THOMAS—“Survivors,” “Wonders,” “The Lion is the Lamb,” “Enlightenment,” “Mother Tongue,” “Spiritual,” “Fatima,” “Better Physics”
CHICAGO
Vol. 6 Double Issue, March 1973
Table of Contents:
F.T. PRINCE—“The Stolen Heart”
ANNE WALDMAN—“In Spanish”
CHARLIE VERMONT—“Kundalini Yoga and the Great Heart”
ALICE NOTLEY—“Dear Dark Continent,” “The Day,” “Vowing,” “Angel X,” “Latticed Culotte and Starry Blouse,” “Expanding Rooms”
ANDREI CODRESCU—2 translations from Le Cornet à Dés by Max Jacob & 19 Jacobines
SIMON SCHUCHAT—6 Poems
TED BERRIGAN & RON PADGETT—“Little Catholic Dots”
BOB ROSENTHAL—10 Poems
LEWIS MACADAMS—8 Poems
LORENZO THOMAS— “Science says something and then,” “Sign Language,” “Sea of Change (A Sailor Song),” “Collective Poems, for Ishmael Reed”
JIM CARROLL—8 Poems
TONY TOWLE—4 Poems
ANSELM HOLLO—10 Poems
RON PADGETT—“Letter to Bill Berkson”
DAVID DRUM— “Poems for Anselm”
CHICAGO
European Edition No. 1, October 1973
Table of Contents:
LORENZO THOMAS—“Le Zaideco Ne Pas Seul,” “How Can I Prove I Am Not Modigliani,” “Aesculapius”
ALLEN GINSBERG—”Returning To The Country For A Brief Visit,” “Thoughts Sitting Breathing”
PHILIP WHALEN—2 Notebook Pages
ALICE NOTLEY—from “Great Interiors, Wines and Spirits of The World”
TED BERRIGAN—“Chicago Morning,” “Newtown,” “The End,” “She,” “Sandy’s Sunday Best,” “Old-Fashioned Air”
GEORGE OPPEN—20 Poems
An Interview with George Oppen & Ted Berrigan by Ruth Gruber
ALLEN GINSBERG—”What Would You Do If You Lost It?”
CHICAGO
European Edition No. 2, February 1974
Table of Contents:
TOM CLARK—8 Poems
ANSELM HOLLO—“Some Notes On Reading Frank O’Hara’s Collected Poems & Going Through the Archives”
JOE CERAVOLO—6 Poems
GUILLAUME APOLLINAIRE—“Zone” translated by Ron Padgett
ALICE NOTLEY—“This Morning,” “Poem,” “Clouds,” “A Little Guinness,” “Poem,” “Great Balls of Fire”
DOUG OLIVER—“From the Suicide Cave Oracle,” “Team Leader,” “Importantly”
ANNE WALDMAN—“Balzac”
ARAM SAROYAN—“Cream’s Song”
CLARK COOLIDGE— The Long, Long Skies (of Jack Kerouac, his words)
RICHARD FRIEDMAN—8 Poems
PIERRE JORIS—“Screens,” “About Time (A Fragment)”
RON PADGETT—“Poem”
BERNADETTE MAYER—“Ferenczi”
TED BERRIGAN—9 Poems
CHICAGO
European Edition No. 3, June 1974
Table of Contents:
ALICE NOTLEY—“Your Dailiness”
BILL BERKSON—20 Poems (1968-1974)
TOM CLARK—from Chicago
ANNE WALDMAN—8 Poems
NEIL HACKMAN—”Sailboats Beating a Drum”
KENNETH KOCH—“The Circus”
BOB ROSENTHAL—“Squeeze Me,” “Altared Stars,” “Passing Notes”
ART LANGE—from a Sonnet Sequence
TOM CLARK—10 Poems
CARL RAKOSI—“The Depression Dream”
EDWIN DENBY—“City Seasons”
ROBERT CREELEY—”Up in the Air”
TED BERRIGAN—from Easter Monday
JACK KEROUAC—“After Me, The Deluge”