Caterpillar, A Magazine of the Leaf, A Gathering of the Tribes Volumes 1-16 (in 13 books)
New York: Clayton Eshleman, 1967-1971.
Paperback. Issues 1–16 in 13 volumes (as issued, with double issues 3/4, 8/9, and 15/16). About 7" x 5.5" each. Pictorial wrappers. Variously paginated, individual issues ranging from approximately 100–260 pp.Generally very good condition, with mild edgewear and page toning throughout, some light wrinkling of wraps on the spines of several volumes. Contents clean and unmarked.
One of the most significant avant-garde literary journals of the postwar era, Caterpillar — "a magazine of the leaf, a gathering of the tribes" — began publication in October 1967 under the editorship of Clayton Eshleman. The title derived from a Blake couplet ("The Caterpillar on the Leaf / Repeats to thee thy Mother's grief"). One of mid-century American poetry's most highly regarded magazines, it ran for twenty issues between 1967 and 1973. Eshleman modeled the journal on Cid Corman's Origin, intending something "bigger and more burly, taking on more fronts" — a commercially produced quarterly offering substantial space, over 100 pages per issue, that no other magazine of its moment was providing. In scope and ambition, Caterpillar positioned itself as the spiritual successor to The Black Mountain Review and Origin, bringing together a wide range of younger writers alongside the foundational figures of the New American Poetry.
Contributors across this run include Robert Duncan, Paul Blackburn, Gary Snyder, Cid Corman, Diane Wakoski, Jerome Rothenberg, Margaret Randall, Robert Kelly, Louis Zukofsky, Jackson Mac Low, David Antin, Gilbert Sorrentino, and Jack Spicer. Issue 12 devoted approximately 150 pages to the work of Jack Spicer — an extraordinary single-author feature that stands as one of the landmarks of little magazine publishing. The magazine's signature "translation tests" placed competing versions of a poem side by side for direct comparison, featuring work by Artaud, Rilke, Celan, Montale, Cavafy, Lorca, and Vallejo. Visual and performance artists were equally central: film stills by Carolee Schneemann and Stan Brakhage appear throughout, alongside drawings and collages by Nancy Spero, Jess Collins, Leon Golub, Robert LaVigne, and Wallace Berman.
This run of issues 1–16 — comprising the journal's full first four years of publication and encompassing the Spicer issue, the Schneemann controversy, and the complete double-issue numbers 3/4, 8/9, and 15/16 as issued — represents the substantial majority of Caterpillar's achievement. A foundational holding for any collection of postwar American poetry, the New American Poetry, or the history of the little magazine. Very good. Item #17648
Price: $300.00