New Wilderness Letter, 1977–84 (ed. Jerome Rothenberg)

Jerome Rothenberg’s impressive twelve-issue magazine New Wilderness Letter picks up precisely where Alcheringa left off, with a decisive change: “the present work will be more open – more ‘coarse and broad’ in Whitman’s vision for poetry & consciousness – than the previous one.” Having departed from the ethnopoetics focus of Alcheringa in 1976, Rothenberg delivered an expansive notion of poesis in his new magazine. David Antin outlines this territory in the first issue: “those linguistic acts of invention & discovery through which the mind explores the transformational power of language & discourse & invents the world & itself.” Wilderness, too, receives poetic expansion in George Quasha’s formulation cited in the seventh issue: “Wilderness is the counter-space created in relation to each new technological development.” Indeed, continuing the expansive synthetic impulse that guided the anthologies Technicians of the Sacred, Shaking the Pumpkin, and America a Prophesy, Rothenberg gathers an impressive and unlikely set of writings, drawings, and images over the course of the magazine’s seven years in publication. Even the smallest sampling of themes demonstrates this breadth: the second number is devoted to “the poetry of number,” the ninth explores “the poetics of performance,” and the eleventh considers “the idea of the book.” From anonymous medieval number poems to books printed on two-by-fours for the Four Horsemen, this storehouse of wilderness demands traversal. Or rather, in the words of Larry Eigner: 

The first seven numbers of the magazine are side-stapled editions measuring 8.5” x 11”, published by the New Wilderness Foundation in New York City. Of twelve numbers there are ten editions, with double issues for three/four and five/six. In 1978, Rothenberg is joined by a group of advisory editors in San Diego, including David Antin, Eleanor Antin, Helen Mayer Harrison, Newton Harrison, Allan Kaprow, Linda Montano, Charlie Morrow, and Pauline Oliveros, with Diane Rothenberg as managing editor. Issues eight through eleven are perfect bound in varying formats, set and printed in Barrytown, New York, by Open Studio Print Shop (Station Hill Press). Issue ten is guest-edited by Barbara Einzig on the concept of the “dream-work.” The final issue is co-published as Wch Way 5, edited by Jed Rasula and Don Byrd (shortly forthcoming from Reissues).

Full issues are available for download or browsing below. The index to each issue attempts to retain the formatting of the contents as printed in the magazine, including original pagination. Each PDF is fully searchable and bookmarked for easy navigation to individual pieces within the magazine. This reissue is edited by Danny Snelson and scanned by Amelia Bentley, with support from Charlie Morrow and Tom Comitta.

Further, the launch of these materials is presented in partnership with MisterBowler Radio, in coordination with an all-day streaming broadcast from Bent-Erik Rasmussen’s ICMM studios in Svinø, Denmark, on the occasion of Rothenberg’s 82nd birthday, December 11, 2013. 

The complete set is available for download here: [ZIP, 273 MB].

New Wilderness Letter 1, January 1977 [PDF, 20 MB]

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New Wilderness Letter 2, July/August 1977 [PDF, 10 MB]

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New Wilderness Letter 3-4, December/January 1977-78 [PDF, 23 MB]

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New Wilderness Letter 5-6, September 1978 [PDF, 20 MB]

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New Wilderness Letter 7, Summer 1979 [PDF, 27 MB]

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New Wilderness Letter 8, Spring 1980 [PDF, 34 MB]

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New Wilderness Letter 9, 1980 [PDF, 34 MB]

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New Wilderness Letter 10, September 1981 [PDF, 35 MB]

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New Wilderness Letter 11, December 1982 [PDF, 46 MB]

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New Wilderness Letter 12 / Wch Way 5, 1984 [PDF, 36 MB]

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