Children of the Mimeograph Revolution

Many thanks to editorial comrade Elisha for envisioning this print issue with me <3

I was first introduced to the term “Mimeograph Revolution” while searching for information about Diane Di Prima and Amiri Baraka’s print endeavor, Floating Bear. As described by the University of Delaware:

Floating Bear was an early instance of the “mimeograph revolution”—the use of inexpensive reproduction techniques to selfpublish literary journals to be given away or sold at a low price in underground shops. 

I had seen yellowed, scanned copies of Floating Bear as it was circulated by mail— featuring hand-drawn images that were most often satirical, political. One could write in, be added to the mailing list, and receive the latest on their doorstep like a newspaper or catalog. The pace of this, the lack of pretense, the opening up of access afforded by the mimeograph had me curious and beguiled.

From Verdant Press:

Direct access to mimeograph machines, letterpress, and inexpensive offset made these publishing ventures possible, putting the means of production in the hands of the poet. In a very real sense, almost anyone could become a publisher. For the price of a few reams of paper and a handful of stencils, a poet could produce, by mimeograph, a magazine or booklet in a small edition over the course of several days. Collating, stapling, and mailing parties helped speed up production, but, more significantly, they helped galvanize a literary group … they were produced for a community of kindred spirits as a literary newsletter — a quick way to get new work out. And they were the cutting edge of new explorations in and through language. 

One of Emergent Literary’s patron saint presses is Broadside Press. I was primarily thrust into the work of editing and publishing by the thought of Dudley Randall running the press out of the spare room in his home— by the image of printed, typewritten paper strewn across the floor as he compiled anthologies. By the remarkable broadside prints of iconic poets he helped distribute into the world. This image keeps me going.

There’s a fecundity about this kind of print. A level of mystical and alchemical galvanization that occurs when we get together and say something and get it in each other’s hands.

Yemi Combahee put it brilliantly recently:

Printmaking is essential to creating propaganda. And propaganda is essential to creating a society. Propaganda is the reproduction of values, which isn’t an inherently good or bad thing.

Because it is about the transmission of messaging, and yes, print, paper, the touch of it, the archive of physical material is as essential as ever. I feel like this palpable, essential practice of reproduction can be a motor for us.

If you’d like to join me at a mailing party, don’t hesitate to hit my line. The homemade aspect, the textural, textual aspects, the smell and feel of print, charges me up. I am grateful for our online footprint, and the accessibility and flexibility that medium allows us. And/but, I have been, since the beginning, itching to get something in your hands. I am excited by the potential tangibility of the work— I want to cover all the sensory bases. 

Since a particularly formative internship many years ago, I’ve been thinking a lot about the size and shape and format of literary journals— the way they show up in space. 

So the choice of the broadsheet may seem slightly out of the ordinary, but to my mind— I want the legacy of the mimeo revolution, of the lithoed broadside to persist forever. Pulpy paper, folded by people, passed hand to hand with urgency. 

I am sure, now, that it’s my primary conviction in this life to amplify what black and brown people have to say— wherever and however possible. And this is why I want to see to it that you hold this gigantic issue. That you join us in an intricate network of transmission. That you accept the call when we ring you person-to-person. That’s all I could ever ask for.  

With all my warmth and love,

KAC