The Close of National Poetry Month at the Magazines and Newspapers Center

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National Poetry Month 2024 

To celebrate National Poetry Month this April, and give a nod to SWANA and Earth Day, also themes of the month, the Magazines and Newspapers Center has curated a selection of Bay Area poetry magazines and newsletters. Ask for more information about these publications at the 5th floor Magazines and Newspapers Center.  

 

1. GAS: High Octane Poetry, number 1, Winter 1990. GAS was the New College of California Review and reflects the aesthetics of the poetics program at the now-defunct school. (New College operated in San Francisco from 1971-2008.) This issue was edited by Kevin Opstedal and Charlie Ross with help from Tom Clark. The work displayed here is a lecture in verse form called “Green Economics” by Ed Sanders.   

 

2. KOSMOS: A Journal of Poetry, number 4, Autumn-Winter 1978 (special translation issue). Edited by Kosrof Chantikian and published in San Francisco, “KOSMOS is reborn twice yearly and welcomes your Inventive Work.” Works displayed here are two poems by Algerian author Mohammed Dib, translated from the French by Anne Reiner: “The Powers #12,” and “The Powers #29.” 

 

3. Berkeley Poets Co-Operative, number 2, 1971. Cover design by Anne Hawkins. This magazine “represents the best work to come out of an informal workshop in which all contributors participated.” According to the publication information inside the front cover, “The Berkeley Poets Co-Operative has no editor, or, if you like, each of us is the editor.”  

 

4. Berkeley Poets Co-Operative, number 3, Fall 1971. Works displayed are an untitled poem by Susan K. Levin that begins, “the crowds crowded closer,” and a playscript by Ted Fleischman entitled “Party for Alex.” The do-it-yourself materiality of the magazine is apparent in this spread. By the 1980s, the magazine had adopted glossy covers, a full-blown editorial staff, and professionally type-set printing.  

 

5. Poetry USA, back page of vol. 4, number 16, Fall 1989 and front page of vol. 4, number 17, Winter Solstice 1989. This quarterly poetry tabloid was published by the National Poetry Association, Inc., a nonprofit corporation dedicated to reaching a wider audience for poets and poetry, which was located in Fort Mason, San Francisco. Issues regularly ran poetry written by children, incarcerated people, and people experiencing homelessness in addition to the bigger names you may recognize.