Nexus
To order back issues of Nexus magazine, send $25 payable to:
Larry Sawyer/5415 N. Sheridan #2602, Chicago, IL USA
e-mail: milkmag@rcn.com
| When I first heard of Nexus magazine, I was a college student sitting, having a cup of coffee, probably writing a poem and wondering why there was such a lull, at least in my area, in poetic activity. Of magazines and poetic enterprises, Nexus filled a void, I think. It was an academic magazine, but more often than not I would hear that someone had commented that it was the best-looking magazine that they had seen. It did feel nice in hand, 8 1/2-by-11, perfectly bound with glossy full-color cover, but I wasn't interested in producing a slick magazine. I was more interested in the content and scope of each issue. If, along the way, the final, tactile product drew comparison to the magazines that I looked to for inspiration, all the better. |
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I was more than happy to learn the ropes from Joe Ampleforth and Mark Owens, previous editors, who had done a marvelous job themselves. Before them came Bob Moore, who had taken over as editor of Nexus in the mid-Eighties and taken it for a left turn, driving it down country roads, through forests, and ultimately bringing the magazine to a meditative place that broke new, transcendent ground.
The responsibility of editing Nexus was immense, as I would soon learn. Along with Mark Knapke as assistant editor, I edited key issues that brought attention our way from writers and visual artists around the world. Charles Henri Ford, Gerard Malanga, and Ira Cohen provided inspiration and support to us from New York, and I stayed up late nights, talking, sweating, smoking, inundated with poetry, collage, fiction and essays from world travelers and artists of every stripe, including: Tuli Kupferberg, John Solt, Yamamoto Kansuke, John Brandi, Cid Corman, Frank Lima, Jack Hirschman, Jud Yalkut, Tom Walker, Judith Malina, Nina Zivancevic, Hanon Reznikov, Hakim Bey, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Allan Graubard, Paul Grillo, Paul Violi, Mohammed Mrabet, Paul Bowles, Michael Castro, Angus MacLise, Lionel Ziprin, Tetsuya Taguchi, Andy Warhol, A.D. Winans, Harold Norse, Edward Field, Timothy Baum, Daniel Abd Al-Hayy Moore, Indra Tamang, Sparrow, Ken Haponek, Matt Gould, Ron Padgett, thurston moore, Michael Haeflinger, Ron Loewinsohn; and representations of the art of Max Ernst, Valentine Hugo, Victor Brauner, Raoul Ubac, Marcel Jean, Yves Tanguy, Andre Breton, Brion Gysin, Anthony Wall, Jack Micheline, Ronnie Burk, Robert LaVigne and many others. Of all the issues of Nexus, the issue we did as a tribute to Allen Ginsberg (Volume 32, No. 3) reached the farthest corners and achieved the most critical acclaim as it was written up in The American Book Review. Volume 33, No. 3 was placed in The Henry Miller Memorial Library in Big Sur, California, and the "Moroccan issue" (Vol. 33, No. 2) was included in an exhibit of North African writing at the L'Institut du Monde Arabe, in Paris, France and then placed in the permanent collection. Nexus underwent a change with the absence of those who opened up the magazine to include influential members of the Beat, Black Mountain, and NY Schools, however, and the current version of the magazine no longer exemplifies what its title really means. Nexus, in the late 1980s through the late 1990s, was a collaborative effort and a labor of love. Eventually, all involved went their separate ways, but these issues of Nexus stand as an example of the power of the creative. Wherever a tattered copy may be found, there is the spirit of something a bit remarkable, too. Thank you to all who were involved and made editing Nexus magazine such a singular experience.
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copyright 2001. all rights reserved.
revised. 2-09-02.