It all started by stapling posters to telephone poles all over Cleveland/Akron/Kent/Ashland/etc. asking for submissions of any kind. What followed was interesting mail at my post office box (inside the Federal Building in Cleveland) for years. I compiled, typed and printed almost every single page that was generated. I collated and bound every copy –- except “Wallpaper” which was professionally padded. All silkscreen and most woodblock artwork was done by Mike Schaefer. Richard Werner created individual paintings for each copy for a number of publications. Dave Pishnery helped with the bag of poetry on the inside back cover of White Heap 01. Lending moral support and a blues harmonica was Rich Pike during the early years.

Books were sold locally at Moonshine Coffeehouse, Coventry Books, Jim Lowell’s Asphodel Book Shop and at poetry nights at Bobby McGee’s bar. All prices were artificial (50¢, 75¢, $1). I never charged for the paper or the time it took to print the book. Everything that was created was done with the bent urgency that the publication had to exist so that other people could be exposed to it. With those ground rules, I never applied for any government grant or funding, although someone by the name of Jerome Frank Slezak sent me $20 a few times (even though I never met him). This is why I had $12.67 to my name (12/31/76).

I’m not sure that the bookstores realized that human hands produced these publications. In some box I still have a postcard from Coventry Books asking for 50 more copies of Cleveland: Going Home (HOT FUCK). Yeah, like I could bend over and shit out a new batch.

The colleges that had “subscriptions” were Brown University, Simon Fraiser University (Canada), University of New York at Buffalo and Akron University. Whenever they would ask for an account number, I would give them “4Q2SLURP” or “4Q2YEAHYEAHYEAH” which would appear on the official state check.

FALLING DOWN PRESS 1975 – 1976

In February 1975, rjs gave me the mimeograph that they used to print levy’s “ukanhavyrfuckincitibak.” Most of the publications were printed in a large walk-in closet at my Lake Avenue studio apartment. I decided to call the magazine Burnt River Primer. Like, ok –- the Cuyahoga River has burned and wasn’t it so much fun. . . . but let’s go forward and see what we’ve learned.

I decided that I didn’t want to make a name for myself (you can see more in the shadows) and so I used the name: “Stuck-In-Nowhere” as the editor. This led to some strange phone calls and so I named my new siamese cat “Stuck-In-Nowhere.” From then on, I put him on the telephone whenever someone asked for “Stuck-In-Nowhere.”

Whenever an issue of the Primer was printed, I would send post cards to all the people who had stuff in the magazine. We would get together for the first time and read the magazine at a coffeehouse or on WRUW radio (Case-Western Reserve University).

Burnt River Primer died October 15, 1975. The next life of the magazine was called White Heap. It had a darker tone, a different sort of energy. White Heap 01 had a silkscreen cover of bodies hanging on meat hooks.

• The Burnt River & Jazz Primer – Compilation March 1975
• False Start – Dave Pishnery, March 1975
• Burnt River Primer #1 – Compilation May 1975
• Dead Fish P.O. Card(s) – Alan Horvath, May 1975
• Tombstone As A Lonely Charm (Pt. 1, 2 & 3) – d.a. levy (reprint), May 1975
• Burnt River Primer #2 – Compilation July 1975 (Noted for the 14” cock and Janis Joplin’s pussy or else the people fucking in blood on the inside back cover.)
• Burnt River Primer #3 – Compilation September 1975 (Original issue was unbound and rolled inside a Burger King Whopper wrapper. Special bookstore editions, with hand-made “nice little doggie” covers, were sealed in Whopper wrappers.)
• Blue Lady (in Scars) – Alan Horvath, November 1975
• Xmas in Nowhere (card) – Alan Horvath/Mike Schaefer, December 1975
• PY NEw yeAR (A Lesson for Dead Fish) – Compilation December 1975
• Another Dead Fish P.O. Card(s) – Alan Horvath, 1976
• Barking Rabbit – d.a. levy (reprinted rare poems), March 1976 (levy had thought about changing the name of his publication Buddhist Third Class Junkmail Oracle to Barking Rabbit before he died.)
• Maybe Im Both Places – Dave Pishnery, March 1976
• White Heap 01 – Compilation April 1976
• Red Cat of Reason (Barking Too) – d.a. levy (reprinted rare poems), April 1976
• Closed Doors – Alan Horvath, April 1976
• White Heap #2 – Compilation April 1976 (Original issue did not have a double-edged razor blade which was later included “Not for Display Purposes Only.”)
• Queen of Diamonds (Love You Series) – Charlotte Pressler, July 1976 (This was only part of a larger book which was planned, but fell apart.)
• Blizz-Art (card) – Alan Horvath, November 1976
• Eye to Eye (No Cantos) – Carol Furpahs, December 1976
• Monsterism DaDa. . . – Alan Horvath, December 1976
• Xmas in Exile (card) – Alan Horvath/Mike Schaefer, December 1976

MOSTLY BROKEN SCABS PRESS 1977 – 1984

For $10 I bought an old paste ink Gestetner mimeograph from a friend’s brother-in-law who owned a used office furniture store and who has subsequently gone insane. The mimeo had a major crack in one of the drums that would prevent the image over the crack from reproducing. With a bunch of duct tape, it worked ok for me. I printed most of the publications in the kitchen of my Clifton Blvd. apartment. The last magazine was called Scratch (like the sound of a tone arm going across a record). In reality, I think the Scratch magazines were about learning to appreciate subtleties and forgiveness.

• The Praps Series – d.a. levy (reprint), January 1977
• Night – Dave Pishnery, February 1977
• Non-Specific Blues – Mike Allbritain, March 1977 (Only book I printed as an obligation which is why I published it as “fucked-over press.”)
• Ground Air – Alan Horvath, March 1977
• Cleveland: Going Home (HOT FUCK) - Compilation May 1977 (The poems were based on readings at Bobby McGee’s bar. The books came in either blue or green covers. We went to Toronto to mail them so that they would have “Memorial Day” postal cancellations.)
• Scratch #1 – Compilation October 1977 (Who bothered to read the braille poem or look under the bandage on the inside back cover?)
• Scratch and Snort P.O. Card(s) – Alan Horvath, October 1977
• Peel & Stick Badges - 1977 (Is my face burning? / Let me out of your mind. / Touch me – I want to die. - One of the badges was on the revolving door at the Federal Building for over a year.)
• Cain Park Card – Alan Horvath, October 1977
• Loose Wires – Alan Horvath, November 1977
• Scratch/2/ – Compilation December 1977 (Printed on my garbage can in the snow.)
• Bad Curves – Women Compilation Spring 1980
• Assumed Identities (In Detail) – Alan Horvath, Summer 1980
• Traveldaddy in the Buddhayard – Mark Solars, 1980 – 1984
• Wallpaper – Compilation 1980 – 1984
• . . . .A Series of SHARP POINTS – Alan Horvath, 1978 – unfinished
• Scratch #3 – Compilation, 1980 – unfinished

FUCK IF I KNOW PRESS 1984 – 1998

For a couple hundred dollars, I brought a newer used Gestetner mimeograph from a Scandinavian church across the street from my apartment in San Francisco. The last printing that was performed in the spare room was my wedding invitations.

• Falling Through the Cracks – t.l. kryss, May 1984
• Hard Winter (In Cleveland) – Alan Horvath, August 1985
• Survivor’s Desk Reference to the Modern World – Mike Schaefer, 1984 – unfinished

KIRPAN PRESS 1998 – Present

After not publishing for 13 years, I was pulled out of retirement when I attended a poetry reading at a bookstore in Kent, Ohio. Besides starting to resurrect partial books that had been dormant for 20 years, Dave Pishnery motivated me to dig through the scraps of poems I had written in the 1980s. The result was the co-authored & co-produced book: Surfacing.

A major change in book style was a shift from mimeo to desktop publishing on an HP LaserJet 4 (thanks to my employer).

A “kirpan” is a Sikh ornamental dagger which represents that a person should be equal parts “soldier” as well as “saint.” I think this means attaining a balance within the soul.

• Surfacing – Dave Pishnery/Alan Horvath, December 1998
• More Withdrawed or Less – d.a. levy (reprint), April 1999 (Includes “Permit Me Voyage” prints.)
• Variations on Flip – d.a. levy (reprint), April 1999 (Includes “The Box Lunch Travel–og of Fremont Gulch”
• Fragments of a Shattered Mirror – d.a. levy (reprint), April 1999 (Includes assorted cover prints.)
• Random Sightings – d.a. levy, June 1999 (Non-collected poems)

Return to Part 1 of this feature, Alan Horvath: Keeper of the Mimeo Flame & the Flaming Mimeo
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