Evergreen Review vol 2 no 8

by Barney Rosset (Editor), Donald Allen (Editor)

Eight issue of the literary and cultural journal featuring American and international authors, poets, and artists.

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1958

About the author

Barney Rosset was born in 1922 in Chicago to a Jewish father and an Irish Catholic mother. He was briefly married to the Abstract Expressionist American painter Joan Mitchell. He bought Grove Press in 1951, and sold it to the Getty family in 1985. He died in 2012.

Reviews

[Bill Wallace · Rating 4 out of 5]

The centerpiece of this issue is "Swineherd," a lengthy piece by Anthony C. West, an Irish writer new to me, writing in the shadow of Joyce but telling a story of exile in rural America. It's an excellent tale. Other highlights include an essay on the two Chinas that still resonates today and Ginsberg's fine poem "At Apollinaire's Grave." Rounding out the issue are many poems by Corso, Cummings, Lowell, Pasternak and others, reviews, essays, and a short play. One striking note in these little journals is the certainty, naive really, of the rightness of their arbitration of culture -- the fierce opinions on jazz, art, and poetry, so perfect in the moment and so transient 60 years on, but it's also comforting to remember a time when this kind of culture mattered enough to invoke angry opinions.