Poetry Los Angeles I – Extremes and Moderations

Edited by James Boyer May, Thomas McGrath, Peter Yates

1958Poetry Anthology Los Angeles Poetry Anthologies

The book begins in Mae Babitz’s living room and reads like a public poetry series transferred to paper: eighteen Los Angeles poets, grouped by author, with no claim to a single style. Josephine Ain’s “Aspects” and Melissa Blake’s untitled haiku sequence establish two kinds of serial form, one meditative and one radically compressed. Gene Frumkin and Stanley Kiesel bring political allegory, surreal collision, and comic aggression; Guy Daniels moves between translation, sonnet, and satire. Thomas McGrath contributes one extended section of “Letter to an Imaginary Friend,” where erotic memory, politics, and autobiography accumulate in long argumentative lines.

The later groups sharpen the anthology’s range. Bert Meyers builds spare poems from manual work, weather, and domestic inheritance; Gil Orlovitz drives “M’sieu Mishiga: 7” through typographic and verbal overload. William Pillin’s sequences contrast prophetic unease with domestic and Jewish ethics, while Lawrence P. Spingarn works in tightly rhymed stanzas. Ann Stanford’s dramatic poems, Edmund Teske’s visual spacing, Zack Walsh’s untitled fragments, Mel Weisburd’s social dreamwork, Curtis Zahn’s Southern California satire, and Peter Yates’s musical arguments make the volume a record of competing midcentury practices. Its exclusions matter too: this is one Los Angeles network, not a comprehensive city anthology.

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Contents

A historical introduction and edition note precede the 1958 editors’ statement, dedication, and sixty-four poems or sequences arranged in eighteen author sections. Original acknowledgments are followed by new biographies, publication history, rights and provenance notes, and sources.

Title	Creator	Genre / type	Reader PDF page
Introduction: A Reading in Los Angeles, 1957–58	Brian Kim Stefans	editorial introduction	reader PDF p. 7
A Note on This Edition	Brian Kim Stefans	digital edition apparatus	reader PDF p. 15
Editors’ Note	James Boyer May, Thomas McGrath, and Peter Yates	editors’ statement	reader PDF p. 21
Dedication to Mae Babitz	James Boyer May, Thomas McGrath, and Peter Yates	dedication	reader PDF p. 23
Aspects	Josephine Ain	poem sequence	reader PDF p. 25
[Untitled sequence, I–III]	Melissa Blake	poem sequence	reader PDF p. 31
The Hawk and the Lizard	Gene Frumkin	poem	reader PDF p. 37
That Girl Who Follows Me	Gene Frumkin	poem	reader PDF p. 38
‘Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska’	Gene Frumkin	poem	reader PDF p. 39
Lake Revisited	Gene Frumkin	poem	reader PDF p. 39
Poem for Childhood	Gene Frumkin	poem	reader PDF p. 40
A Prophecy	Guy Daniels	translated poem after Lermontov	reader PDF p. 43
The Sail	Guy Daniels	translated poem after Lermontov	reader PDF p. 43
Sonnet for Anne	Guy Daniels	sonnet	reader PDF p. 44
The Mooring Line	Guy Daniels	poem	reader PDF p. 44
A Federal Poet	Guy Daniels	satirical poem	reader PDF p. 45
A Biologist Looks at the Civil Service	Guy Daniels	satirical poem	reader PDF p. 46
Envoi	Guy Daniels	poem	reader PDF p. 46
Cleaning Woman	Sid Gershgoren	poem	reader PDF p. 47
The Trouble with the Times	Sid Gershgoren	poem	reader PDF p. 48
White Sands Cinerama	Sid Gershgoren	poem	reader PDF p. 48
For the Man from Mars	Stanley Kiesel	satirical poem	reader PDF p. 51
On Friday and on Monday	Stanley Kiesel	poem	reader PDF p. 52
A Sketch	Stanley Kiesel	poem	reader PDF p. 53
At a Party	Stanley Kiesel	poem	reader PDF p. 53
Gone	Stanley Kiesel	poem	reader PDF p. 54
Letter to an Imaginary Friend, IV.1	Thomas McGrath	long poem section	reader PDF p. 57
The Shout Which Precedes	James Boyer May	poem	reader PDF p. 63
Of Sage and Ruined Temple	James Boyer May	poem	reader PDF p. 64
Leitmotif	James Boyer May	poem	reader PDF p. 64
Note on the Tension of the Untense	James Boyer May	poem	reader PDF p. 64
The Dissimulating Lunatic	James Boyer May	poem	reader PDF p. 65
And Keep This Christmas All the Year	James Boyer May	poem	reader PDF p. 66
Picture Framing	Bert Meyers	poem	reader PDF p. 69
Once, in Autumn	Bert Meyers	poem	reader PDF p. 69
Rainy Day	Bert Meyers	poem	reader PDF p. 70
Because There’s So Much Speed	Bert Meyers	poem	reader PDF p. 70
M’sieu Mishiga: 7	Gil Orlovitz	long poem	reader PDF p. 73
A Counter-Theme	William Pillin	poem sequence	reader PDF p. 77
Aubade	William Pillin	poem	reader PDF p. 79
Two Jewish Poems	William Pillin	poem sequence	reader PDF p. 80
Rococo Summer	Lawrence P. Spingarn	sonnet	reader PDF p. 83
Jack of Diamonds	Lawrence P. Spingarn	sonnet	reader PDF p. 83
The Beachcombers	Lawrence P. Spingarn	sonnet	reader PDF p. 84
Diary of a Heavy Man	Lawrence P. Spingarn	sonnet sequence	reader PDF p. 85
A Classic Journey	Lawrence P. Spingarn	sonnet	reader PDF p. 85
West	Lawrence P. Spingarn	sonnet	reader PDF p. 86
The Weathercock	Ann Stanford	poem	reader PDF p. 89
The Bear	Ann Stanford	dramatic poem	reader PDF p. 90
A Summer Walk	Ann Stanford	poem	reader PDF p. 91
In the Door That Opens	Edmund Teske	poem	reader PDF p. 93
I Have Just Crossed the Mississippi	Edmund Teske	poem	reader PDF p. 93
You Are My Days’ Great Gain	Edmund Teske	poem	reader PDF p. 94
[Untitled: ‘Have you listened …’]	Zack Walsh	poem	reader PDF p. 97
[Untitled: ‘This day …’]	Zack Walsh	poem	reader PDF p. 97
[Untitled: ‘Come into this small quiet moment …’]	Zack Walsh	poem	reader PDF p. 98
[Untitled: ‘april hearted frogs …’]	Zack Walsh	poem	reader PDF p. 98
When I Go Down to That Sleep	Mel Weisburd	poem	reader PDF p. 99
The Integration of Failure	Mel Weisburd	poem sequence	reader PDF p. 100
Later Than There Is No Never No	Curtis Zahn	poem	reader PDF p. 103
Homage to a Girl Named Cupcake	Curtis Zahn	poem	reader PDF p. 103
Success Story from an Economic Engineer	Curtis Zahn	satirical poem	reader PDF p. 105
Southern California as the State of the Union	Curtis Zahn	satirical poem	reader PDF p. 106
If a Man Cannot Build a New House	Peter Yates	poem	reader PDF p. 109
The Lonely Man	Peter Yates	poem	reader PDF p. 110
For Charles Ives	Peter Yates	poem	reader PDF p. 111
A Conceit for Stravinsky	Peter Yates	poem	reader PDF p. 112
A Twelve-Tone Statement of Popular Opinion in Regard to Arnold Schoenberg and His Music	Peter Yates	poem	reader PDF p. 113
From My Window	Peter Yates	poem	reader PDF p. 113
Acknowledgements	James Boyer May, Thomas McGrath, and Peter Yates	acknowledgments	reader PDF p. 115
Biographical Notes	Brian Kim Stefans	digital edition apparatus	reader PDF p. 117
Notes on Publication	Brian Kim Stefans	digital edition apparatus	reader PDF p. 127
A Note on Rights and Provenance	Brian Kim Stefans	digital edition apparatus	reader PDF p. 131
Sources	Brian Kim Stefans	digital edition apparatus	reader PDF p. 135

Contributors

James Boyer May — Editor and poet
Thomas McGrath — Editor and poet
Peter Yates — Editor and poet
Josephine Ain — Poet
Melissa Blake — Poet
Gene Frumkin — Poet
Guy Daniels — Poet
Sid Gershgoren — Poet
Stanley Kiesel — Poet
Bert Meyers — Poet
Gil Orlovitz — Poet
William Pillin — Poet
Lawrence P. Spingarn — Poet
Ann Stanford — Poet
Edmund Teske — Poet
Zack Walsh — Poet
Mel Weisburd — Poet
Curtis Zahn — Poet
Brian Kim Stefans — Editorial introduction and digital edition apparatus

Publication details

Broad format: Anthologies
Collection: Los Angeles Poetry Anthologies
Document type: Poetry Anthology
Original title: Poetry Los Angeles I
Original publication date: 1958
Editor: James Boyer May, Thomas McGrath, and Peter Yates; Brian Kim Stefans (editorial introduction and digital edition apparatus)
Compiler: James Boyer May, Thomas McGrath, and Peter Yates
Original publisher: Villiers Publications Ltd.
Place of publication: London, England; Los Angeles editorial context
Language: English
Pagination: Original scan: 69 PDF pages. Reset edition with apparatus: 137 PDF pages.
Available editions: Reader’s Edition
Edition type: Reset Reading Edition with Historical Apparatus

Subjects and editorial notes

Subjects

Little magazines Los Angeles poetry McCarthy-era literary culture Mid-century American poetry Poetry readings

Keywords

Poetry Los Angeles James Boyer May Thomas McGrath Peter Yates Los Angeles Villiers 1958

Continuity notes

Part of the shared Anthologies and Documents collection.

Edition note

The formatted edition presents the selected source text in a stable, searchable reading format with modern navigation. Source scans remain private editorial evidence and are not part of the public upload. For the website upload, the page canvas was proportionally fitted to a 6 × 9 inch trim without cropping or changing the text.

Source note

Metadata and contents were checked against the 137-page formatted PDF and the identified source scan files where available.

Rights and citation

Copyright notice

Rights status

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Rights basis

Permissions review is in progress and is being handled separately by the project owner.

Suggested citation

May, James Boyer, Thomas McGrath, and Peter Yates, eds. Poetry Los Angeles I. Villiers Publications Ltd., 1958. Text/Tech Anthologies and Documents, reader’s edition, 2026.