ACCESS: A Journal of Post-Literature

8/12/2019 ACCESS: A Journal of Post-Literature

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A C C E S S A Journal of Post-Literature

KARL KEMPTON (RE-)ISSUE


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A C C E S S A Journal of Post-Literature

Karl KemptonHarry PolkinhornRuth SchowalterDe Villo Sloan

Paperbird 1987/MinXus-Lynxus 2014


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Copyright 2014by MinXus-Lynxus


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ACCESS: Preface to the 2014 Edition

Of the various and sundry publications issued by Paperbird Press during its briefexistence in the 1980s, my favorite is ACCESS: A Journal of Postliterature featuringKarl Kemptons deep square wave structure. This re-issue is essentially a digitalfacsimile of the 1987 edition that was limited to approximately 50 copies and is nearlyimpossible to find today.

The original intent for ACCESS, conceived by me and publishing partner RuthSchowalter, was a journal that would showcase work by one visual poet in each issue

with contextual materials including essays and interviews. We believed generating abody of critical work about and documentation of visual poetry was as important as

providing a venue for the poetry. In retrospect, our plans for the journal were over-ambitious given the tumult and challenges of our lives. Yet this one edition did cometo fruition.

The term post -literature came from my writing at that time that sought to articulatethe persistence of literary tradition (poetry and fiction especially) in new forms that

were emerging as the Age of Print receded, canons collapsed, popular culturedominated and accepted notions of both writer and reader faded. The surmise wasthat the digital, the primacy of the visual image and movement toward the global andaway from the regional would be defining factors in the new order. Ruth and Iconcurred that visual poetry was a genre that would very likely receive increasedinterest in the years ahead and even had the potential to replace or redefine lyricpoetry.

We agreed Karl Kempton was the ideal figure to launch the series. Like so manyothers (including Kempton himself), we revered the work of the concrete poets foundin Emmett Williams An Anthology of Concrete Poetry, already at that time a

monument in the post-avant. We were also witnessing/living the emergence of newforms of visual poetry that departed from the past in radical and controversial ways.Kempton with his expansive vision, consistent innovation, discipline and clarityencompassed, for us, positive elements of both the old and new; and Ruth and I sawthe development of visual poetry as a continuum rather than a series of disjunctions,although the times felt more like a revolution than a seminar.


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ACCESS Preface to the 2014 edition

Having to overcome not a little trepidation, we found Karl Kempton welcoming,supportive and exceedingly generous with his time. The issue was assembled viatelephone, snail mail and emerging technology available. The university publicationsoffice where Ruth worked by day (also contending with a masters thesis on ThomasHardy) became Paperbird headquarters at night. Above all else, we were driven by

what seemed the holy task of publishing deep square wave structure, an essentialpart of the Kempton canon; and it is the historical importance of this work in thedevelopment of visual poetry that is the underlying motivation for this new edition.

Fortuitous indeed was Harry Polkinhorn s willingness to write an accompanying

essay. I had already been impressed by his sensibilities as editor of Atticus Review then to discover that he too was a longtime Kempton devotee and associate . Untyingthe knot: Karl Kemptons visua l writing, while clearly a product of the Age ofTheory (in cultural and literary studies), transcends the limited purview of mostcritical theory and achieves a synthesis of ideas and disciplines that matches the scaleof Kemptons work.

Revisiting ACCESS in 2014, I find Kemptons and Polkinhorn s contributions bothprophetic and visionary; I hope readers can share this experience. Providing anotherlayer of discourse upon the original seems a redundancy. These are texts that speakfor themselves across time and space; they were built to last.

De Villo Sloan June 21, 2014 Auburn, New York, USA


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ACCESS 1987 edition cover (Paperbird 1987/MinXus-Lynxus 2014)


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ACCESS 6 (Paperbird 1987/MinXus-Lynxus 2014)


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ACCESS: A Journal of Post-Literature

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Transcript of ACCESS: A Journal of Post-Literature