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| The Floating Bear | |
|---|---|
| Title | The Floating Bear |
| First date | 1961 |
| Final date | 1971 |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Format | "Mimeographed journal" |
The Floating Bear was an avant-garde mimeographed literary journal published in New York City from 1961 to 1971 that became a focal point for experimental poetry, prose, and critical debate associated with the New York School, the Black Arts Movement, and the broader postwar American avant-garde. Edited primarily by Diane di Prima and LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka), the journal provided a forum for emerging and established poets, dramatists, musicians, painters, curators, and activists, connecting figures active in Greenwich Village, the Lower East Side, and Harlem with networks in San Francisco, Chicago, and London.
The Floating Bear emerged amid the downtown scenes around Greenwich Village, East Village, and SoHo, intersecting with institutions and events such as the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, the Poets Theatre, and readings at the 6th Street Playhouse. Its founders drew on precedents including Little Magazines, The Dial, Poetry, The New Yorker, and mimeo journals like The Fugs and Kulchur while reacting to mainstream outlets such as The New York Times Book Review and The Nation. Early issues circulated among participants in workshops at places like the St. Marks Poetry Project and readings at Caffè Cino, and the journal documented exchanges among poets who later appeared at festivals like the Berkeley Poetry Conference and in anthologies edited by Donald Allen and Paul Blackburn. The journal’s run coincided with social and political flashpoints including the Civil Rights Movement, the Vietnam War, the Black Arts Movement, and the emergence of Second-wave feminism, which shaped contributor networks spanning Harlem Writers Guild members and West Coast poets.
The Floating Bear employed a mimeograph format shared by contemporaries such as Caterpillar, Kafka Viva, and Yugen, using inexpensive production to reproduce manifestos, manifest poems, transcripts, and play texts alongside drawings and photographs by artists active in scenes around Andy Warhol, the Factory (New York City), and galleries on 10th Street. Issues juxtaposed work by figures associated with the New York School, the Beat Generation, and the Black Mountain College lineage, publishing texts by contributors who performed at venues like the Kettleʼs Yard readings and collaborated with composers from the New York Philharmonic or improvisers linked to Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, and Sun Ra. The aesthetic range included concrete experiments in the tradition of Marinetti-inspired sound poetry, theatrical fragments related to Samuel Beckett and Arthur Adamov, political polemics resonant with pamphlets from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and Black Panther Party, and visual work recalling Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns.
Contributors encompassed a broad cross-section of avant-garde and activist figures: poets and writers who also appeared in collections by City Lights Publishers, Grove Press, and New Directions, playwrights associated with La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club and Living Theatre, musicians tied to the Village Vanguard and the Five Spot Cafe, and artists who exhibited at the Moma and Whitney Museum of American Art. Regular and occasional contributors included participants from the Nuyorican movement, members of the Harlem Renaissance lineage who remained active, and younger poets connected to workshops at Poets House. Specific issues gained notoriety for publishing polemical exchanges and draft manifestos circulated during conferences like the Anti-War demonstrations and at benefit readings for groups affiliated with SNCC and SDS. The journal printed early versions and responses to pieces later anthologized by editors such as Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Ed Sanders, and Ira Cohen.
Reception ranged from dismissal by conservative cultural critics writing for outlets such as The Saturday Review and Life to enthusiastic uptake by curators and editors at City Lights Bookstore, Black Sparrow Press, and Coach House Press, who reprinted and promoted contributors’ work. The Floating Bear influenced subsequent mimeo and small press projects in San Francisco, Chicago, London, Paris, Toronto, and Tokyo, informing pedagogical experiments at institutions including The New School, Columbia University, and Barnard College literature programs. Its circulation and the readings it sponsored helped shape careers later honored with awards like the Pulitzer Prize, the MacArthur Fellowship, and the National Book Award, and it contributed source material to retrospectives at venues such as the Brooklyn Museum, the Library of Congress, and the New York Public Library.
The journal’s publication of politically charged polemics and reprinted manifestos provoked legal scrutiny and ethical debates analogous to controversies surrounding obscenity trials that embroiled publishers including Grove Press and City Lights. Editors defended anonymous and pseudonymous contributions in the wake of police surveillance practices tied to COINTELPRO and the legal risks faced by activists from organizations like the Black Panther Party and Weather Underground. Copyright disputes emerged when draft versions of poems and plays published in the mimeo overlapped with later book contracts at Random House, Harcourt, and Farrar, Straus and Giroux, prompting discussions in editorial circles at The Paris Review and The New Yorker about fair use, prior publication, and moral rights under evolving United States law.
Category:American literary magazines Category:Mimeograph magazines Category:Avant-garde publications