CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 4/23/2025

Grolier Club presents 'After Words: Visual and Experimental Poetry in Little Magazines and Small Presses, 1960–2025'

April 23–July 26, 2025, New York City's Grolier Club presents After Words, a thematic journey through the history of recent experimental poetics, including cut-up, collage, sound poetry scores, performance scripts, practices of “writing through,” erasure, glyph systems, calligraphy, experimental typography, non-Western alphabets, assemblages and beyond. Drawn from the collections of Steve Clay and Granary Books and curated by Clay and M.C. Kinniburgh, the exhibition catalog is published by Granary Books, Inc.

Poetry underwent a profound re-conception post-World War II, as poets experimented not only with techniques such as projective verse, but also with the verbal and visual qualities of poetic language. Known variously as visual, concrete, and sound poetry, these practices reached new heights of innovation in the 1960s and beyond sustained by the mimeograph revolution and the proliferation of small independent presses.

Mary Beach, ed. Fruit Cup, no. 0. Beach Books, Texts & Documents, Inc., 1969.

After Words explores the decentering and re-imagining of language from the perspective of visual poetics, and the varieties of ways these ideas took published form. The exhibition presents a wide range of international works with approximately 150 publications, including Assembling, Kontexts, Poor.Old.Tired.Horse., blewointment, Rhinozeros, The Marrahwanna Quarterly, Granary Books, Something Else Press, Edition Hansjörg Mayer, Ou, and Stereo Headphones. Poets presented include Cecilia Vicuña, bpNichol, Johanna Drucker, Tom Phillips, Emily McVarish, d.a. levy, Mirtha Dermisache, and Philip Gallo among many others.

Taii Ashizawa and Takehisa Kosugi, guest eds. Japanese Schmuck, no. 8. Beau Geste Press, Spring 1976.

EVENTS:

April 25, 6–7:30 PM: Opening Conversation with Steve Clay and Johanna Drucker, moderated by M.C. Kinniburgh. RSVP/DETAILS

May 1 & June 12, 1 PM: Lunchtime Tour of Exhibition. RSVP/DETAILS

May 22, 6–7:30 PM: Roundtable on Visual Poetry with Lisa Pearson (Siglio Press), Charlotte Priddle (Special Collections, New York University), Amelia Grounds (The Bancroft Library at University of Berkeley), Antonio Sergio Bessa (emeritus, The Bronx Museum of the Arts), and Alison Fraser (The Poetry Collection, University at Buffalo), moderated by M.C. Kinniburgh and Conley Lowrance. RSVP/DETAILS

d.a. levy. The Tibetan Stroboscope. Ayizan Press, 1968.

After Words: Visual and Experimental Poetry in Little Magazines and Small Presses, 1960–2025
The Grolier Club
April 23–July 26, 2025
47 East 60th Street
New York, NY 10022
(212) 838-6690