New York Art Book Fair

As has been the case for the last few years, I was able to get over to MoMA PS1 in Long Island City, Queens for the annual NY Art Book Fair, one of the largest art-book gatherings in the US. Running for four days, presented primarily by Printed Matter (with a host of sponsors), and featuring over 370 "booksellers, antiquarians, artists, institutions, and independent publishers from 28 countries," to quote the website, it is always a bonanza for arts-based publishing, and the ideal venue to learn about and find books you might not readily encounter elsewhere. I used to go on the first day, but realized the last day--Sunday--is the best for bargains and smaller crowds. The MTA's usual challenges as well as the Sunday travel schedule meant a slightly more involved journey over to Queens, but once there and on the bus, it was a short hop to the venue, which tends to have as many interesting look people milling around outside it as inside.

Street décollage (on the way there)

A vendor in the domed tent 

A vendor and reader

One of many booths

Last year, I made sure to head to Image Text Ithaca's (ITI) booth to sign copies of GRIND, and they were there again this year, with a number of newly published texts. I had the opportunity to chat with some of the students in their MFA program, as well as with photographer, publisher, ITI co-organizer and my collaborator on GRIND Nicholas Muellner. (I'd just missed author, artist, publisher and ITI co-organizer Catherine Taylor, who'd been there for most of the event.) New Directions, which was there in 2015, skipped this year, though I imagine they'll be back next year with some of their new offerings, including new entries in their pamphlet series. This year, I said I would try to visit every floor, and as many of the rooms and booths as I could handle, within a four-hour window, because the building tends to get a bit toasty and so many exhibits become overwhelming. (This is my strategy for BEA and AWP, etc. also.) In addition, I said that I would not load up on books, or no more than I could fit reasonably fit in one book bag, and I stuck to my vow, bringing back lots of cards, but fewer books and works of art than in the past.

The bustling courtyard

One of the vendor areas, off
MoMA PS1's main courtyard 

The geodesic domed tent

A room wallpapered with
images of uteruses

A closeup of the wallpaper 

At a booth where I found some great
photos last year

I'm always fascinated by the mix of vendors at the NY Art Book Fair. You have pretty high end university presses, like Yale, for example, and tiny publishers who clearly are a one-person operation.  Those booths and books are often some of the funnest to check out, because the work often is highly original and a labor of love, though I imagine everyone at the fair wants to at least make back the fees for exhibiting, and to develop regular readers and subscribers (for the magazines and zines). Another publisher I always look for is Song Cave, helmed by poet Alan Felsenthal and others.  As in the past, they were in the geodesic dome, with their trove of new and backlist titles. One especially intriguing book of theirs I picked up was an edited volume of Subcommandante Marcos's writings, Professionals of Hope, with an afterward by Gabriela Jauregui, which read like (some of the best overtly political) poetry and philosophy.

Free posters ("WAS WAR WON")

Art and books and viewers 

This gentleman was selling the
controversial and discredited
Black Panthers Coloring Book,
produced not by the Black Panthers
but by the FBI to discredit them
(the book is actually pretty fascinating)

Photography books for sale

The image I that from a distance
I at first thought was a window!

More photographs for sale

One of the things I've noticed over the last few years is that the vendor base is diversifying somewhat, with more (especially young) artists and publishers of color and queer creative figures. This always means that if I can go slowly enough through the booths and displays I'll find some gems I would not see elsewhere. There are also art exhibits, but I chose to skip most of the freestanding ones this time, and booksignings, which I also skipped unless the artist or writer was there at the table. There probably are readings and conversations. I think I'll try to catch some of these next year, because if I'm in town, I will make every effort to be back!

Aperture's table

Brownbook

In one of the large upstairs rooms

Nathaniel Otting, at left, and
books and zines for days!

Nathaniel and a bookseller,
from the Philadelphia area (though
I think he said he's now in NYC,
but the store is still in Philly) 

Door display

Gregory R. Miller & Co.

He signed a card I bought 

Another room bursting with books of all kinds

Delicious zines!

Kenward Elmslie's *The Orchid Stories* Book Launch

In 1973, Doubleday published Kenward Elmslie's (1929-) experimental, poetic prose collection The Orchid Stories. It is almost impossible to imagine Doubleday, or any of the large international or New York publishers, issuing such a work today. Exuberant as the hothouse orchid from which its title derives, complex, unspooling according to a logic all its own, and decidedly anti-commercial, it's no wonder that the collection, which might also be read as novel or novel-in-stories, went out of print, depriving readers of the opportunity to experience this series of provocations by Elmslie, one of most talented but also lesser known of the  New York School-affiliated writers.    

In The Orchid Stories Elmslie weaves together many strands of his long career, as a poet, fiction writer, librettist and song-writer, editor, and performance artist, creating a tapestry of compelling strangeness. It is a coming-of-age story narrated by a figure whose exact name eludes the reader the entire way through. Certain characters possess more than one name, and The exuberance, unflagging playfulness, and musical currents swirling within the prose make the text one to read and re-read--or rather, it may require rereading--aloud. And that is what several writers, I included, did on Wednesday night at the Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church, to launch the reprint, by New York publisher The Song Cave, of The Orchid Stories. (BOMB features a selection here.)

This new edition features an introduction by radio interviewer and critic Michael Silverblatt, who served as the evening's master of ceremonies, and introducing him was another member of the New York School's second generation, poet, fiction writer, essayist and critic Ron Padgett. The lineup included a number of luminaries who'd long known and even performed with Elmslie, including Ann Lauterbach, who read with breathless brio a section of prose set in Arkansas; Anne Waldman, performing another section as chant and song with Devin Waldman on saxophone and Ambrose Bye on piano, before she shared a song she'd performed more than once with Elmslie himself; and songwriter and longtime Fugs member Steven Taylor, who sang one of Elmslie's songs.

Not only had I never met Elmslie or heard him present his work live, but before I received a copy of The Orchid Stories, I'd only read several dozen of his poems. The collection has intrigued me and led me to read more of Elmslie's work. Although I did know that he had been described as the fifth--or sixth, if Barbara Guest were placed before him--I also had not realized that he was in the same cohort with John Ashbery and Frank O'Hara at Harvard, graduating in 1950, or that he'd been the partner of John LaTouche for a period of time, a fact that Silverblatt recounted in his introductory remarks. (You can read a shorter version of his introduction to The Orchid Stories at the Paris Review's site.) Lastly, as Silverblatt also shared, the great Nat King Cole recorded one of Elmslie's songs, "Love-wise," which appeared on Cole's 1959 album To Whom It May Concern. (I did learn on Wikipedia that Elmslie is the grandson of Joseph Pulitzer.) In additional to copies of the book the publishers also brought a number of Elmslie's LPs. I read a brief selection from the short section or chapter entitled "Waking Up"; it required attention to various kinds of formal and stylistic shifts but thankfully, given my inability to hold a note, no singing. Unfortunately Elmslie was unable to attend the event, but I imagine someone told him how well-attended it was and how enthusiastically the audience responded.

Here a few photos from the event, all borrowed courtesy of the Poetry Project's Facebook page. Please check out Elmslie's work, consider supporting the Poetry Project and enjoy the photos.

Steven Taylor

Devin Waldman, Anne Waldman, and Ambrose Bye

Ann Lauterbach

Michael Silverblatt

Ron Padgett

Yours truly