The First Books of David Henderson and Mary Korte: A Research

Author: Iris Cushing

Publisher: Ugly Duckling Presse (2020)

Edition of 1,000

In 1967, the first books of two poets were published by small presses on opposite coasts of the USA: David Henderson’s Felix of the Silent Forest and Mary Norbert Korte’s Hymn to the Gentle Sun. In this essay, poet, scholar, educator, and publisher Iris Cushing looks at the context of these supposedly “minor” poets, and through research and conversation with Korte, Henderson, and Diane di Prima, reconstructs the role of small presses in the countercultural resistance of the late 1960s.

This pamphlet is part of UDP’s 2020 Pamphlet Series: twenty commissioned essays on collective work, translation, performance, pedagogy, poetics, and small press publishing. The pamphlets are available for individual purchase and as a subscription. Each offers a different approach to the pamphlet as a form of working in the present, an engagement at once sustained and ephemeral.