New Work 1971 Revisited

First self-published in 1971 on a college mimeograph machine as New Work 1971, this is a replicated publication of the 19 poems from the first edition. One poem, written contemporaneously with those in the first edition, has now been included in New Work 1971 Revisited. None of the poems have been revised or changed in any way. Not all of the poems were titled in the first edition, and the author has given one a title which it did not have. The first edition contained several original pen-and-ink drawings which have not been included in the revisited edition. The cover of the first edition appears as the frontispiece.

A mimeograph machine was an early version of a copy machine, often used by college professors to prepare class handouts. It involved preparing the document, commonly by typing the document on a special master that used a sheet of special carbon paper to transfer the impressions. There was no way to make corrections to a master that wouldn’t appear in the transferred document. The prepared master was attached to a large drum on the mimeograph and, by turning a handle, would rotate and print, in purple, its contents on a sheet of standard 8-1/2×11″ paper. It was an arduous process, one in which no mistakes could be tolerated, and production was slow. Using mimeo to lay out a book in paginated sequence and print even a 20-page chapbook was also a labor of love. Only one copy of the original New Work 1971 is known to exist and, in the hands of its author, made it possible to create this new edition.