United Artists (New York, N.Y.)

New York City publishing company founded by poets Lewis Warsh and Bernadette Mayer in 1977.

Successor to Angel hair magazine and Angel hair books. Publishes works of contemporary poets and writers. Warsh was born in New York in 1944, Mayer in Brooklyn in 1945; they were married in 1975.

Historical Background

Established by Lewis Warsh and Bernadette Mayer in 1977, United Artists press was located in New York City until it went out of business in at the end of the 1980s. Typically, the press published four titles a year, generally with a run of 750 copies each. While they provided a venue for artists who could not publish with mainstream presses, Warsh and Mayer also published established writers such as Allen Ginsberg, Robert Creeley, and Gregory Corso, all of whom had secured contracts with trade publishers.

The forerunner of United Artists was Angel Artist (magazine) and Angel Hair Books, a press which Warsh co-founded and co-edited from 1966 to 1977. Many of the contributors to United Artists, such as Ted Berrigan and Clark Coolidge, had previously been associated with Angel Hair Books. Both presses were dependent on sales-generated income combined with the support offered by grants and awards. Warsh was a recipient of National Endowment for the Arts grants in 1966 and 1979, and he received a Coordinating Council of Literary Magazines award in 1981.