Angel Hair magazine and publishing was led by poets and writers, Anne Waldman and Lewis Warsh from the mid-1960's through the mid-1970's. Anne Waldman has published over thirty books and pamphlets of poetry, including: 'Fast Speaking Woman,' 'Helping the Dreamer: New & Selected Poems,' and 'Makeup on Empty Space.' Coincident with her work on Angel Hair, She was Director of the Poetry Project at St. Marks Church, and together with Allen Ginsberg, co-founded the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado, where she still teaches writing. Lewis Warsh has published two novels: 'Agnes & Sally' and 'A Free Man,' short stories, and numerous books of poetry. He also co-founded United Artists Books. Angel Hair was first run from their apartment on St. Marks Place in Manhattan where Waldman and Warsh mixed with many literati as well as artists and musicians of the time. Contributors to the magazine included a wide range of poets: Clark Coolidge, Alice Notley, Hannah Weiner, Tom Clark, Bernadette Mayer, Kenward Elmslie, Robert Creeley, Joanne Kyger, Ted Greenwald, Lorenzo Thomas, John Wieners, Joe Brainard, Ron Padgett among many others. Eventually Angel Hair left New York and began publishing books, and Warsh and Waldman amicably went their separate ways. In its years of operation, Angel Hair was a very long-lived and influential publisher on the small press scene. An anthology: 'Angel Hair Sleeps with a Boy in my Head: The Angel Hair Anthology' was published by Granary books (2001).
Sources:
- 'Angel Hair Sleeps with a Boy in my Head: the Angel Hair Anthology' [summary]. New York: Granary Books, 29 Sept. 2002 [http://www.granarybooks.com/books/angel_hair/angel_hair1.html].
- Waldman, Anne. 'Angel Hair feature: Introduction'. Jacket-6, 4 Dec. 2002. 7 Jan. 2003 [http://jacketmagazine.com/16/ah1-wald.html].
From the guide to the Angel Hair Archive, 1965-1973, (© 2012 Fales Library and Special Collections)
