Notes on Karl Young

Author: Jonny Lohr

Editors: Alice Ladrick and Paul Vogel

Publisher: Lewis College Press (2019)

An attention-holding dive into the wide and deep polymath field that is the life and work of publisher Karl Young (who with Karl Gartung and Anne Kingsbury helped found Woodland Pattern), Notes on Karl Young explores Young's contributions to small-press publishing as well as his mail art and early internet innovation. Along the way, Lohr also discusses Lorine Niedecker's handmade coded notebooks, the early self-publishing of the Language poets, how the aesthetics of internet publishing speaks to the aesthetics of small-press printing post-mimeo, anarchist early web, Buffalo listserv scandals, Ron Silliman's infamous blog posts, the real reason Barrett Watten was so furious that the Duncan audio was released, Kenny Goldsmith's intentions behind ubuweb, why self-publishing rules, and more.