Burning Deck Press

Burning Deck is an influential small press specializing in the publication of experimental poetry and prose. Burning Deck was founded by the writers Keith Waldrop and Rosmarie Waldrop in 1961.

Although the Waldrops initially promoted "Burning Deck" magazine as a "quinterly", after only four issues the periodical was transformed into a series of pamphlets. The transformation continued later until the press became a publisher of books of poetry and short fiction. [http://www.brown.edu/Facilities/University_Library/exhibits/burningdeck/index.html] Web page titled "Forty Years of Burning Deck Press 1961 - 2001" at Brown University Library Web site in conjunction with an exhibit on the press, accessed January 28, 2007]

The magazine published poets from different styles and schools. The main split in poets of that time was said to be the one between the "academics" and the "beats", but Burning Deck ignored that split to the point where authors sometimes complained of being published in the company of others so different from themselves.

By 1985, the economics of publishing had changed and it became "financially more feasible" to print regular books on offset presses and use letterpress work for smaller chapbooks, the Waldrops wrote in a history of the enterprise (Keith and Rosmarie Waldrop, "Burning Deck: A History"). They continued to design and print books that would last (using smyth-sewn, acid-free paper) but tried to keep the price affordable.

Notable Books

Although Burning Deck is a small, nonprofit press, it has published a great number of influential works of innovative writing, including (alphabetical by author):

*"99: The New Meaning," by Walter Abish
*"A Geometry" by Anne-Marie Albiach
*"Why Write?" by Paul Auster
*"The Heat Bird," by Mei-mei Berssenbrugge
*"Utterances," by William Bronk
*"The Grand Hotels (of Joseph Cornell)," by Robert Coover
*"Striking Resemblance" by Tina Darragh
*"Artificial Heart," by Peter Gizzi
*"The Countess from Minneapolis," by Barbara Guest
*"Innocence in extremis" by John Hawkes
*"My Life," by Lyn Hejinian
*"A Test of Solitude" by Emmanuel Hocquard
*"Some Other Kind of Mission" by Lisa Jarnot
*"i.e." by Claude Royet-Journoud
*"Numen," by Cole Swensen
*"The Windows Flew Open," by Marjorie Welish
*"Turneresque," by Elizabeth Willis

Translation

Burning Deck publishes two series of translation: "Serie d'ecriture" presents a new book of contemporary French poetry each year; "Dichten=" presents an annual volume of contemporary German writing.

Notes

External links

* [http://www.burningdeck.com/index2.html The Burning Deck homepage]
* [http://www.brown.edu/Facilities/University_Library/exhibits/burningdeck/index.html 40 Year Anniversary Exhibit] of Burning Deck materials at Brown University