Chronology of Kathy Acker’s works and life between 1968 and 1979 (work in progress).
Main sources:
Chris Kraus, After Kathy Acker, MIT Press (Semiotext), 2017.
The Guide to the Kathy Acker Notebooks 1968-1974, The Fales Library & Special Collections.
Guide to the Kathy Acker Papers, 1972-1997 and undated, Duke University: David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
The datation of the Fales Library’s manuscripts correspond to the dates of all the documents present in each folder, it may not date exactly the text which gives it’s title to the folder.
Objects dated only by the year are always gathered at the end of each part of this chronology, in a random order.
Legend: (Ms)=Manuscripts/unpublished works; (?)=work that hasn’t been found, doubtful assumption or announced but unpublished work; (F)= cinematographic works; (Gr)=graphic works; (Ph)=photographs; (Aud)=audio records.
1968
• May: Kathy Acker finishes her English B.A. at UC San Diego (where she had moved in 1966, immediately after the wedding, with her husband Bob Acker), and begins earning credits for an M.A. in English (Kraus, p.34, 45).
– (Ms) “Works Done”; 1 bound typescript collection, cream-colored spring binder with gilt rule on board; editing notation; 1968 Spring – 1972 May. Features: Over twenty long & short form diary-like, dream description essays & poetic works; “Abstract Essay Collaged With Dreams,” “A Ghost Story,” “Communist Aesthetics,” “Information Sexual Ecstasy Revolution III,” “Last Poem,” “Narration Of The New World,” “Narrative (for Ed Klima),” “Personal Life,” “Poems for Tamar 6, 7, & 8,” “Political Desire: Something Beautiful For Margie,” “Pornographic Poems,” “Silk For Lenny,” “The Betrayal Of Friends,” “The Destruction Of The U.S., The Burning Bombing Of America,” “The New Life,” “The Parts of the Mind and How They Work,” “The Worship Of Beauty Of Angels,” “Velvet Awareness,” “Violet Women” (Fales Library and Special Collections, New-York).
– (Ms) “Revolutionary Diary Of An Anarchist”; 1 unbound Typescript, poem with editing notation; undated, circa 1968-1971 (Fales Library and Special Collections, New-York).
– (Ms) “suicidal depression [by] sharon”; 1 holograph manuscript, unsent correspondence fragment from “Sharon”; undated, circa 1968-1974 (Fales Library and Special Collections, New-York).
– (Ms) “The Golden Woman: Ode to Beautiful Women #1, #2, #3”; 1 unbound typescript with editing notation; features: short form poetic works; undated, circa 1968-1972 (Fales Library and Special Collections, New-York).
1969
• Fall: Kathy Acker meets Lenny Newfield at a David Antin’s poetry class (Kraus, p.50).
1970
• Late May: Kathy Acker and Lenny Newfield (28 years old) move from San Diego to New York City, in the five-room apartment he had once shared with his soon-to-be-former wife (Martha Rosler); West 163rd street, at the 6th floor of a building in Washington Heights, upper Manhattan, “straddling the corner of Broadway and 163rd Street” (Kraus, p.25-27, 32).
Within weeks of arriving, Kathy Acker feels acute pain and is diagnosed at the hospital with pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) (Kraus, p.53).
• December: Kathy Acker and Lenny Newfield start to perform in the “live sex show” at Fun City, 42d Street NY, where they receive 120$ a night for performing six shows, twenty or thirty minutes each time (Kraus, p.27).
1971
– (Ms) “Section from Diary, 1-2 1971″, typed 46 pages, sent to Alan Sondheim in 1974 during their correspondence (Duke University Rubinstein Library).
• March: The vice squad raids Fun City, Kathy Acker and Lenny Newfield spend one night in jail before being bailed out by Bob Wolfe (Kraus, p.59). End of the job at Fun City.
– (Ms) “Ex Libris: Morda / Diary Poems Dreams, right after: what I can remember”; 1 holograph manuscript, national note board spiral notebook. Features: long & short dream description, diary-like “poems”; relationship with Lenny Newfield. 1971 March 9 (Fales Library and Special Collections, New-York).
– (Ms) “Poems 5/71—6/71”; 1 unbound typescript [originals & photocopies]; 1971 May-June. Features: references to Leonard Neufeld; short form diary-like works about personal and professional experiences mirroring “Lesbian Portraits” works (Fales Library and Special Collections, New-York).
• May 7: Kathy Acker reads at the St. Mark’s Poetry Project open-mike evening the “Poems 5/71—6/71” (Kraus, p.61).
– (Ms) “Lesbian Portrait / Harriet”; 1 holograph manuscript, pen-tab Spiral note book with editing notation; 1971 July. Features: “II. Family Portrait,” “2nd for Lynn Lonidier,” “He photographs her sitting alone in a café,” “I’m lying in bed with her,” “Part Of The New World,” “She tried her best to kill me,” short form diary-like works that did & did not develop into Politics (1972) (Fales Library and Special Collections, New-York).
– (Ms) “Lesbian Portrait(s)”; 1 holograph manuscript, delah spiral note book with editing notation; 1971 July. Features: “Lesbian,” Concrete Poetry on Front & Back Covers; “Flower(s),” “For Lynn Lonidier,” “Jerry’s Leaving,” “Poems 7/71,” “Portrait,” “Portraits of Sexual Lives,” short form diary-like poetic works (Fales Library and Special Collections, New-York).
– (Ms) [Lesbian] “Portraits”; 1 unbound typescript with editing notation [originals & photocopies]; 1971 July & other Ms dated from the Summer (Fales Library and Special Collections, New-York).
– (Ms) “The Destruction Of The US: The Burning Bombing Of America”; 1 bound typescript collection, black spring binder with editing notation; 1971 Summer – 1972. Features: “The Destruction Of The US: The Burning Bombing Of America,” Flyer for Acker poetry reading, artwork by Harriet Golden; Over twenty long & short form diary-like, dream description essays & poetic works, “Diary Dreams In Night: For the Painters of Decadence for Harriet Golden,” “For Lynn Lonidier,” “Poems: 5/71 – 7/71,” “Portraits,” “Portraits: Visions,”“Sequence,” “Silk For Lenny” (Fales Library and Special Collections, New-York).
– (Ms) “Diary of the World, Diaries”, Kathy Acker’s diary of December 1971; dated Dec. 8; 1 holograph manuscript, university spiral note book. Features: 14 pages of handwritten “diary” entries; 90 pages of handwritten notes & translations of Greek text; description of visit from David & Eleanor Antin (Fales Library and Special Collections, New-York).
“For the first time, she divides the text into sections with a series of intertitles, a technique Acker would use throughout her career in all her published writing.” (Kraus, p.61).
– (Ms) “Poems / Diary”; 1 holograph manuscript, pen-tab wire bound theme book with editing notation; undated, circa 1971; features: Ink sketches, short form diary-like and dream description works about personal and professional experiences that were developed to form Politics (1972) (Fales Library and Special Collections, New-York).
– (Ms) “[Diaries]: “Very Tired””; 1 unbound typescript collection [photocopies]; undated, circa 1971 (Fales Library and Special Collections, New-York).
– (Ms) “[Diary]: “days and days of anxiety””; 1 holograph manuscript, green pen-tab wire bound theme book; undated, circa 1971 (Fales Library and Special Collections, New-York).
– (Ms) “Arthur Miller, Williams-Glass Menagerie”, 1 holograph manuscript, Yellow Paper King Memo Book; features: “Diary II, Poems III, Appendix,” “Only Dreams & Unaccountable Dreams”; undated, circa 1971 – 1972 (Fales Library and Special Collections, New-York).
– (Ms) “[Assorted Motown Lyrics]”, 1 unbound typescript, undated, circa 1971-1972 (Fales Library and Special Collections, New-York).
– (Ms) “Concrete Poems”; 1 holograph manuscript, Brown & Red Art Sketch Spiral Book; features: “Mantras 1 – 4,” “Midnight, Lesbian, Angelic, Holy,” “Myself, Lesbian, Holy, Angelic”; undated, circa 1971-1972 (Fales Library and Special Collections, New-York).
– (Ms) “Gold Songs For Jimi Hendrix”; 1 unbound typescript with ink drawings. Features: long form poem; this also appears in holograph manuscript form in “The Creation (diaries),” [Box 4, Folder 13]. Circa 1971-1972 (Fales Library and Special Collections, New-York).
– (Ms) “I was with another woman”; 1 holograph manuscript, yellow national canary paper spiral notebook; features: short form diary-like and dream description works; undated, circa 1971-1972 (Fales Library and Special Collections, New-York).
1972
– (?) No diaries, notebooks or written letters remain of the period extending between January 1972 and the last months of 1973 (when she started writing The Childlike Life of the Black Tarantula). “Over the years, in New York and London, as her reputation became more established, she sold notebooks and letters to bookshops and dealers to raise extra cash: perhaps these papers exist in private collections” (Kraus, p.62).
This statement is contradicted by the documents owned by the Fales Library and Special Collections.
– (Ms) “Diary: Warmcatfur”; 1 unbound typescript collection with editing notation; features: “Key Word Lesbian” & other diary-like, short works; January 1972 (Fales Library and Special Collections, New-York).
– (Ms) “Diary: Warm Cat Fur / Lesbian II”; 1 holograph manuscript, nu-bound concealed wire notebook; features: “Political Poems,” “The Cat Family,” & diary-like short works; 1972 January 19 (Fales Library and Special Collections, New-York).
• February: “There’s no doubt” Acker attends Bernadette Mayer’s Memory exhibition, installed at Holly Solomon’s 98 Green Street loft (Kraus, p.62).
– (Ms) “Heidegger, K. Acker, Antigone”; 1 holograph manuscript, national eye-ease spiral notebook. Features: ink sketches, long and short form diary-like works, discussions of dreams, entomology, poetry; “Journal for Lenny” ; “I tell him my desire…” & “I come into the room” from Politics (1972). 1972 March 10 – December 29 (Fales Library and Special Collections, New-York).
– (Ms) “Rip-Off Red: Girl Detective: I”; 1 holograph manuscript, University of California at San Diego, national spiral notebook with editing notation; 1972 April 10 – 1973 May 26. Features: “Chapters I – X,” “Part II: The Diary Of A Murderer, Chapter VII On Fantasy,” edits, deletions & drafts for manuscript published by Grove Press in 2002 (Fales Library and Special Collections, New-York).
– The Burning Bombing of America, Kathy Acker, finished on the summer 1972 (?). Published for the first time posthumously (cf. supra, 1971, for the Ms. ref.)
– (Ms) “Journal Black Cat Black Jewels”, Kathy Acker, typescript, prose poem dated Summer 1972 (Duke University Rubinstein Library).
Published posthumously in 2015 as part of Homage to Leroi Jones and Other Early Works (ed. Gabrielle Kappes), Lost & Found: The Cuny Poetics Documents Initiative.
– “The Revolution and After”, Kathy Acker, prose poem written around the Summer 1972.
• July-August: Kathy Acker goes to San Diego and visits Mel Freilicher, David and Eleanor Antin and more old friends (Kraus, p.64).
She gives “a few readings” in San Diego (ibid.).
– Politics, Kathy Acker; self published, Papyrus Press, San Diego, 1972. Composition of fragments of the notebooks she has kept in New York.
• August: Kathy Acker leaves San Diego for New York, going by car with Peter Gordon and a friend of his (Kraus, p.69). Acker and Gordon stay together with Lenny Newfield at the apartment on West 163rd Street; 10 days later Gordon leaves (Kraus, p.70).
Kathy Acker tells Lenny Newfield she has to separate from him (Kraus, p.62).
Kathy Acker arrives at the end of August in San Diego to live with Peter Gordon, they would stay together for the next six years (Kraus, p.71).
– (Ms) “Homage to LeRoi Jones”, Kathy Acker, typescript, Fall 1972; bears at the bottom first page the mention: “Abort Gold Press”; divided in 4 exercises, numbered until n°5, 3rd is missing (?); poem which samples from and responds to Jones/Baraka’s short novel The System of Dante’s Hell (1965) (Duke University Rubinstein Library).
Published posthumously in 2015 as part of Homage to Leroi Jones and Other Early Works (ed. Gabrielle Kappes), Lost & Found: The Cuny Poetics Documents Initiative.
– (Ms) “Entrance into Dwelling in Paradise”, typescript, Fall 1972 (Duke University Rubinstein Library).
Poem; “a mash-up of, presumably, John Milton’s Paradise Lost and her own notes” (Kraus, p.72).
Published posthumously in 2015 as part of Homage to Leroi Jones and Other Early Works (ed. Gabrielle Kappes), Lost & Found: The Cuny Poetics Documents Initiative.
– (Ms) “Images And Dreams”; 1 holograph manuscript, orange dri-point theme spiral book. Features: “Destruction of Own Writing,” “Records of Daily Life #1: Homage to Leroi Jones,” “Refining the Sensuality of Language,” “Writing Asystematically,” Poetic Exercises on Repetition. 1972 Autumn (Fales Library and Special Collections, New-York).
– (Ms) “The Creation (diaries)”; 1 holograph manuscript, pink dri-point theme spiral book with editing notation; 1972 Autumn. Features: “Gold: Songs For Jimi Hendrix,” [this work also appears in unbound, typescript form in Box 1, Folder 13], “Household Objects: Breaking Up, Falling In Love, Description Of Life In NY,” “Jerry, Paul, Elly, Bruce,” “Sun Is Round,” “The Emotions Of Everyone In America Journal, Black Jewel Cats,” “What I Do And Why I Do It: The Process of Creation,” short form diary-like, meditation, and poetic works (Fales Library and Special Collections, New-York).
– (Ms) [The Creation (diaries)]: “Breaking Up”; 1 unbound typescript; undated, circa 1972 Autumn. Features: Long form poetic work; This also appears in holograph manuscript form in “The Creation (diaries),” [Box 4, Folder 13] (Fales Library and Special Collections, New-York).
– (Ms) “Death Portraits 1.Visions, Diaries In Protection Of Self Death”; 1 holograph manuscript, national spiral notebook; features: “a black angel comes…” & “jewels, old horses trampling thru windows” from Politics (1972); undated, circa 1972 (Fales Library and Special Collections, New-York).
– (Ms) “Dreams In Night, for the Painters of Decadence & for Harriet Golden”; 1 holograph manuscript, pink barnes & noble bookstores spiral notebook; features: ink sketches, diary-like short works about her relationship with poet Larry Fagan; undated, circa 1972 (Fales Library and Special Collections, New-York).
– (Ms) Correspondence between Kathy Acker and John Martin/Black Sparrow Press, 1972-1973 (Duke University Rubinstein Library).
1973
– (Ms) “Stripper Disintegration: Drugs and War”; 1 unbound typescript with editing notation [originals & photocopies]; 1973 February-March. Features: “A Short Narration Of War And Drugs,” “Dream: Private,” “End Of Chaos,” “Queens Of The Darkest Night: My Childhood,” “Stripper Pornography,” “Strippers’s Chaos Dirge,” “The Beginning Of The Drug Dream,” “The Continuing Saga Of War And Drugs, Part I: Stripper Disintegration,” “The Death Of Nixon, The Ghosts Begin To Speak,” “The Death of the Rich People” (Fales Library and Special Collections, New-York).
– Some Lives of Murderesses, Kathy Acker, composed in May 1973 (Kraus, p.80); would become the first part of the Childlike Life of the Black Tarantula.
– (Ms) “[Rip-Off Red: Girl Detective]”; 1 holograph manuscript, blue spiral composition book with editing notation; undated, circa 1973. Features: “The Adult Adventures of Rip-Off Red: A Story That Makes No Sense At All,” edits, deletions & drafts for manuscript published by Grove Press in 2002; unsent correspondence to Michael Davidson (Fales Library and Special Collections, New-York).
– (Ms) “Rip-Off Red: Girl Detective: II”; 1 holograph manuscript, University of California at San Diego, national spiral notebook with editing notation; 1973 June. Features: “Continued, Chapters X – XIV,” “Dream & Fantasy,” “Part III: The Search for the Truth,” edits, deletions & drafts for manuscript published by Grove Press in 2002 (Fales Library and Special Collections, New-York).
– (Ms) “Rip-Off Red: Girl Detective: IV”; 1 holograph manuscript, University of California at San Diego, national spiral notebook with editing notation; 1973. Features: “Chapter XX, The Intrusion of Truth into Fantasy,” edits, deletions & drafts for manuscript published by Grove Press in 2002 (Fales Library and Special Collections, New-York).
– (Ms) [Rip-Off Red: Girl Detective]: “I Become A Revolutionary”; 1 unbound typescript with editing notation; features: “Hot,” “Wanting Women and Desperate Men”; undated, circa 1973 (Fales Library and Special Collections, New-York).
– The Childlike Life of the Black Tarantula, Kathy Acker; serial of 6 installments sent by the mail to the “six hundred friends and acquaintances” figuring on Eleanor Antin’s mailing list for her photographic series 100 Boots (Kraus, p.82-83). The collection starts with the following epigraph: “Intention: I become a murderess by repeating in words the lives of other murderesses”.
1) Some lives of murderesses, composed in May 1973, printed in June on the press of the Solana Beach newspaper (San Diego) (ibid.).
2) A point-to-point comparison between my life and the life of moll cutpurse, the queen-regent of misrule, the roaring girl, the benevolent tyrant of city thieves and city murderers, the bear lady, dated June 1973.
3) I move to San Francisco. I begin to copy my favorite pornography books and become the main person in each of them, written in San Francisco, dated July 1973.
4) I become Helen Seferis, and then Alexander Trocchi, dated July 1973, with the following epigraph: “I’ve always feared most that someone will destroy my mind”.
5) I explore my miserable childhood. I become William Butler Yeats, written in San Francisco, dated September 1973.
6) The story of my life, last installment dated September 1973.
The 6 installments would be then “gathered and presented together in Acker’s first non-self published book” (Kraus, p.83).
→ The Childlike Life would be then republished by the New York independent press TVRT (The Vanishing Rotating Triangle Press), in 1975, with Acker’s third serial work The Adult Life of Toulouse Lautrec (Kraus, p.114); as well as a limited edition by Viper’s Tongue Books (New York) in 1975; then in 1978 with TVRT press and Print Matter Books.
→ Translations: La vie enfantine de la Tarentule noire, par la Tarentule noire, Kathy Acker ; traduit de l’anglais par Gérard-Georges Lemaire, éd. Désordres (2005).
• July: Kathy Acker and Peter Gordon move to San Francisco (94117), at 46 Belvedere Street, Haight-Ashbury district (Kraus, p.85).
→ (Ms) Typed postcard signed by Dawson F{ielding} (“49 E 19 1003”) NYNY to Kathy Acker praising The Childlike Life… and Acker’s style, July 7, 1973 (Duke University Rubinstein Library).
• July-September: “Around the same time, she begins drawing dense, intricate maps of her dreams in fountain-pen ink on large sheets of paper” (Kraus, p.86).
• September: Peter Gordon starts classes at Mills, working mostly with Robert Ashley who would become “a powerful influence and a friend to both Gordon and Acker” (Kraus, p.87).
– (Ms) “Jane Eyre I”; 1 holograph manuscript, citadel wiremaster spiral note book with editing notation. Features: “I. Childhood, II. School: I Remake My Training,” “Anarchists Take Over World,” “Disintegration Of U.S., Diary of Ideas” “Drag: The Dance,” “Poems / TCLOTBT.Series II” [The Childlike Life Of The Black Tarantula] & “The Criminal Career Of Kathy Alexander,” “The Translator I: Basic Ideas”. 1973 October 23 – November (Fales Library and Special Collections, New-York).
– (Ms) “Jane Eyre II”; 1 holograph manuscript, citadel wiremaster spiral note book; 3 typescripts with editing notation. Features: “A.M. Fine: Dedicated to the destruction of all memories and societies by including the memories of everyone in me,” “Memory I,” “Ode to NY,” “On Desire,” “Rip-Off Red In NY,” “The Color of Raw Velvet,” “Various Memory Experiments, 1 – 3”. 1973 October; 1974 January 17 – June 1 (Fales Library and Special Collections, New-York).
• November: “Depressed by what she perceived as a lack of response to the later parts of the series, she collapsed with exhaustion in November” (Kraus, p.91).
• November 25 : Jackson Mac Low creates The 8-Voice Stereo-Canon Realization (11/25/73) Of The Black Tarantula Crossword Gathas (Editions S Press, 1975). Hear online.
– (Ms) [Jane Eyre]: “Kathy Alexander: I Become Jane Eyre Who Rebelled Against Every One, By The Black Tarantula”; 1 typescript with editing notation and photocopies; 1973 november (Fales Library and Special Collections, New-York).
– “Diary II”, Kathy Acker, unpublished; she renounced to turn it into the seventh installment of the Black Tarantula (Kraus, p.91).
– (Ms) First Part of “Breaking Through Memories Into Desire” typescript, 1973, likely intended to be another serial publication, but never finished or distributed (Duke University Rubinstein Library).
– (Ms) “The Thesmophoriazusae”, annotated typescript, 1973 (Duke University Rubinstein Library).
Translation of Aristophanes’ play mixed with other texts and informations: “Events in this translation so far taken from: The Thesmophoriazusae by Aristophanes, Symposium by Plato, Paideia by W. Jaeger, The Emergence of Greek Democracy by W. G. Forrest, Explorations by W. B. Yeats, and myself”. The play is signed by “the Black Tarantula 1973” (cf. “The beginning of The Thesmophoriazusae“, p.3).
– (Ms) “The beginning of The Thesmophoriazusae” Original 3pp. typescript written by Kathy Acker in 1973 as an introduction to The Thesmophoriazusae.
Together with a retained 3 pages xerox copy of a typed letter to Charles Doria explaining why she wrote it; the Kathy Acker’s letterhead is: “Red’s Detective Agency, Inc./ 46 Belvedere St./ San Francisco, CA 94117/ Two weeks late.” (Duke University Rubinstein Library).
In the letter she states that she had started by working on Lysistrata but “couldn’t get my interest up”.
1974
– (Ms) “Jane Eyre II”; 1 holograph manuscript, citadel wiremaster spiral note book; 3 typescripts with editing notation. Features: “A.M. Fine: Dedicated to the destruction of all memories and societies by including the memories of everyone in me,” “Memory I,” “Ode to NY,” “On Desire,” “Rip-Off Red In NY,” “The Color of Raw Velvet,” “Various Memory Experiments, 1 – 3”. 1973 October; 1974 January 17 – June 1 (Fales Library and Special Collections, New-York).
→ (Ms) Autograph letter signed of Kenneth Rexroth to Kathy Acker, from Santa Barbara (CA), January 1974. He expresses his regret that the Tarantula is in her last installment, informs her that there is no money in UCSB for readings anymore, and invites her to pay him a visit anytime (Duke University Rubinstein Library).
• Early February: Kathy Acker flies to New York (Kraus, p.92).
February 18: Kathy Acker and Melvyn Freilicher read at the St. Mark’s Poetry Project with Ed Bowes and two other friends in the “younger poet” Monday-night reading slot (Kraus, p.93).
• February: Kathy Acker meets Alan Sondheim “during those early weeks early in 1974” (Kraus, p.94).
– (Ms) “Memory [Experiments] II: (extra notes)”; 1 holograph manuscript, national spiral notebook with editing notation; 1974 February 1 – 21. Features: “Breaking Through Memories Into Desire,” References to Alan Sondheim, Bernadette Mayer, St. Mark’s Church, short form diary-like and dream description works; personal and professional experiences; translation exercises & schemas (Fales Library and Special Collections, New-York).
– (Ms) “Memory Experiments I”; 1 unbound typescript with editing notation; features: “Various Memory Experiments I” with “1. Intention: change,” “2. Breaking Through Memories To Desires”; 1974 February – April (Fales Library and Special Collections, New-York).
“BREAKING THROUGH MEMORIES INTO DESIRE”, Kathy Acker, dated March 1. Captioned “Part III of long work”; “Parts I and II are almost certainly the same text as the unpublished seventh installment of The Black Tarantula that she had described in her January letter to Jackson Mac Low {cf. supra, “Diary II”}” (Kraus, p.99).
• Two first weeks of March: Kathy Acker arrives at Sondheim’s New York apartment (Kraus, p.100).
– (F) Blue Tape, Kathy Acker and Alan Sondheim, 54min movie, filmed on a EIAJ black-and-white Sony deck.
• March 18: Projection of the Blue Tape at the St. Marks Poetry Project (Kraus, p.108). Kathy Acker then returns to San Francisco.
– (Ms) “Memory Experiment[s]: II”; 1 holograph manuscript, collegewire spiral composition book with editing notation; 1974 March 5 – May. Features: “Fuck art: go back to writing porno. Fuck Originality: COPY PORNO,” References to Poetry Project artists & others – Andrei Codrescu, Alan Sondheim, Bernadette Meyer, Bill McKay (St. Mark’s Newsletter), David Antin, Diane Wakoski, Gerald Malanga, Ken Friedman (Fluxus, Something Else Press), Tom Veitch; “Time As Modes of Consciousness,” short form diary-like and dream description works; personal and professional experiences that conceptually mirror previous work Politics (1972) (Fales Library and Special Collections, New-York).
– (Ms) “Memory [Experiments] III”; 1 holograph manuscript, collegewire spiral composition book with editing notation; 1974 March 5 – 20. Features: “Breaking Through Memories Into Desire,” “[Overtly] Structuring Memory By Desire,” References to Alan Sondheim, WBAI Radio Performance, Village Voice critic Tom Johnson; short form diary-like and dream description works about personal and professional experiences (Fales Library and Special Collections, New-York).
– (Ms) “[I Dreamt I Was A Nymphomaniac Imagining: I]”; 1 holograph manuscript, collegewire composition spiral book with editing notation. Features: “Amuse Myself, Elegance / I Become A Nymphomaniac! Memory,” short form diary-like works that develop into [I]: “Desire Begins” ; “The CIA Papers: Diary”. 1974 May (Fales Library and Special Collections, New-York).
– (Ms) “[I Dreamt I Was A Nymphomaniac Imagining: I]”; 1 Unbound Typescript; features: “The CIA Papers: Diary, The Case of the Disappearing Teahouse”; 1974 May (Fales Library and Special Collections, New-York).
• June: Kathy Acker begins a new six-part serial novella, I Dreamt I Was a Nymphomaniac: Imagining (Kraus, p.109).
According to the dates furnished by the Fales Library and Special Collections, Kathy Acker would have started writing the text in May.
– (Ms) “[I Dreamt I Was A Nymphomaniac Imagining: II] “; 1 holograph manuscript, collegewire composition spiral book with editing notation. Features: “3 by Scorpion-Spider” ; “A Tale Of Revolution Ecstasy And Love by Peter Gordon” ; short form diary-like works that develop into [II]: “I Find An Object For My Desire”. 1974 June (Fales Library and Special Collections, New-York).
→ (Ms) Typed letter signed with lengthy holograph postscript from Codrescu Andrei, June 21, 1974, about a reading trip that turned out to be a “sad fiasco” (Duke University Rubinstein Library).
→ (Ms) Typed letters signed from Barbara Baracks (editor of the Big Deal; letterhead: “Big Deal/ Barbara Baracks, ed./ 299 Riverside Drive 2A/ New York, New York 10025”) to Kathy Acker, July 10, 1974 (Duke University Rubinstein Library).
She received the first installment of I Dreamt I Was a Nymphomaniac; as well as the second installment (the letter is written at two different moments, with a few (?) days gap in the middle).
→ (Ms) Autograph note from Bernadette Mayer (“c/o Waldman/ 33 St. Marks Pl./ NYC 1000”) to Kathy Acker (46 Belvedere, SF), New York, July 15 (post stamp), 1974.
“New book great but make em longer!”.
→ (Ms) Typed letter signed from Laura Chester to Kathy Acker, July 16, 1974, saying that Vito Acconci first mentioned Kathy to her and that she enjoyed a great deal the two last installments of I Dreamt (Duke University Rubinstein Library).
→ (Ms) Autograph note signed by Ed. Dorn to Kathy Acker, July 21, 1974, referring to Acker’s “novelette”: “The most memorable first line since call me Ishmael!” (Duke University Rubinstein Library).
→ (Ms) Autograph postcard from Alan Sondheim (Otego, NY) to Kathy Acker (46 Belvedere, SF), July 24 (post stamp), 1974.
– (Ms) “[I Dreamt I Was A Nymphomaniac Imagining: III]”; 1 holograph manuscript, collegewire composition spiral book with editing notation; features: short form diary-like work that develops into [III]: “Peter’s Story”; undated, circa 1974 (Fales Library and Special Collections, New-York).
– (Ms) “[I Dreamt I Was A Nymphomaniac Imagining: IV & VI]”; 1 holograph manuscript, citadel wiremaster spiral note book with editing notation. Features: “Dykes 1” / “Part II, Tales of San Francisco, 1. Coke,” short form diary-like works that develop into [IV]: “San Francisco And…” & [VI]: “Dykes”. Undated, circa 1974 (Fales Library and Special Collections, New-York).
– (Ms) “[I Dreamt I Was A Nymphomaniac Imagining: IV & V]”; 1 holograph manuscript, citadel wiremaster spiral note book with editing notation. Features: “Tales Of SF, Distrust,” short form diary-like works that develop into [IV]: “San Francisco And…” & [V]: “Distrust”. Undated, circa 1974 (Fales Library and Special Collections, New-York).
– (Ms) “[I Dreamt I Was A Nymphomaniac Imagining: VI]”; 1 holograph manuscript, citadel wiremaster spiral note book with editing notation; features: “Dykes #1 & #2,” short form diary-like works that develop into [VI]: “Dykes”; undated, circa 1974 (Fales Library and Special Collections, New-York).
– I Dreamt I Was a Nymphomaniac: Imagining, Kathy Acker, six-part serial novella; printed in Noe Valley (San Francisco) at the Empty Elevator Shaft (Kraus, p.111). The collection starts with the following epigraph: ““This is very nonpolitical, therefore reactionary,” he said. “But what would the world have to be like for these events to exist?” I replied.”
1) Desire begins.
2) I found an object for my desire.
3) Peter’s story.
4) San Francisco and…
5) Distrust.
6) Dykes (this installment wasn’t numbered?)
→ Republished by Traveler’s Digest Editions (New York) in late March 1980.
→ (Ms) Typed signed letter from Eleanor Antin to Kathy Acker, probably Fall 1974, inviting Kathy to write a piece for the 4th issue of the Journal published by the Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art (the deadline is December 15); expresses her discontent against Bernadette Mayer and all the Soho New York artists.
→ (Ms) Typed letters signed from Barbara Baracks (“225 East 5th St. Apt. 5D/ New York, NY 10003”) to Kathy Acker, September 18, 1974; she liked a lot I Dreamt I Was… (Duke University Rubinstein Library).
→ (Ms) Autograph letter signed from Opal Nations (letterhead: “Opal & Ellen Nations/ Strange Faeces Press/ P.O. Box 3622/ 349 W. Georgia St./ Vancouver, B. C., Canada/ V6B 3Y6”) to Kathy Acker, October 5th, 1974, thanking for “the latest episode in the flesh war” (?), with drawing of a penis, and magazine photo depicting men crammed into a phone booth (Duke University Rubinstein Library).
→ (Ms) Autograph letter signed from Ed. Sanders (“Box 24/ Lake Hell,/ N. Y. 12448”), October 12, 1974, soliciting work from Kathy Acker for a publication called “Ha Ha Ha” (Duke University Rubinstein Library).
• November 5, 1974: Kathy Acker was supposed to give a reading with Jim Carroll in San Francisco, at the 756 Union, 8:30 pm, as part of the “Intersection Tuesday Night Poetry Series” (did she attend it?).
• December 5, 1974: Ted Castle and Leandro, artists and editors through The Vanishing Rotating Triangle Press, write to Kathy Acker: “we would like to publish some of your work”.
→ (Ms) Typed letter signed by Leandro and Ted Castle (“TVRT – 25 East Fourth Street – New York 10003./ 212-260-4254”) to Kathy Acker (46 Belvedere, SF), December 5th, 1974 (Duke University Rubinstein Library).
They claim having been reading each installment of Kathy’s writing since she started publish The Childlike Life…; they have read four installments of I Dreamt I Was…; they suggest to republish The Childlike Life… in one book, or another work; they want to meet her.
→ (Ms) Autograph postcard from Bernadette Mayer (New York) to TBT (Kathy Acker, 46 Belvedere, SF), December 14, 1974 (Duke University Rubinstein Library).
She informs Kathy that “old Tarn” (?) “cancelled out”, so she will be reading with “Hannah” (Wiener), and invites her to stay at her place while in New York. This refers to the reading that took place some weeks later at St. Mark, on February 19, 1975; Kathy effectively stayed at Bernadette’s (cf. infra).
– (Ms) “Conversations”, annotated typescript, 1974 (Duke University Rubinstein Library).
→ (Ms) Autograph letter signed in blue ink on postcard from Jack Hirschman to Kathy Acker (Duke University Rubinstein Library).
→ (Ms) Autograph letter signed from Peter Gordon to Kathy Acker, circa 1974, loving letter detailing the trials of an artist-musician on tour (Duke University Rubinstein Library).
1975
• January: Kathy Acker and Peter Gordon leave San Francisco. She arrives in New York during the same month, where she first stays at Bernadette Mayer’s apartment at 65 Second Avenue (Kraus, p.114; and supra, postcard of Bernadette Mayer to Kathy Acker, Dec. 14, 1974).
• February 19: Reading of Kathy Acker and Hannah Weiner at St. Mark’s Poetry Project (Kraus, p.115).
February 26: Kathy Acker is kicked out of Bernadette Mayer’s apartment.
• Summer: Writer Constance Dejong sublets her apartment to Peter Gordon, Kathy Acker moves in (Kraus, p.130).
Kathy Acker applies for a CAPS grant (Creative Artists Public Service), proposing to travel to Haiti for extended research (ibid.).
• June: Kathy Acker starts to write her third and last serial work The Adult Life of Toulouse Lautrec (Kraus, p.117).
• Late July: Kathy Acker and Peter Gordon make a reading at the St. Mark’s Poetry Project (Kraus, p.131).
• Early September: Constance Dejong returns; Peter Gordon and Kathy Acker move to 341 East Fifth Street (Kraus, p.133).
• Late October: Readings/performances scheduled for two successive weekends by Constance Dejong, first, and then Kathy Acker, at the Kitchen. After Dejong’s reading Acker cancels her performances of the next week. Kathy Acker meets Rudolph Wurlitzer at the opening night, and gets involved with him. She would write The Adult Life of Toulouse Lautrec #6 during this involvement (Kraus, p.136-137)
• November: Kathy Acker arrives finalist for the CAPS grant (cf. supra), and accepts Lil Picard’s (the other finalist) invitation to appear in a duo performance at Stefan Eins’s 3 Mercer Street Gallery at the end of November (Kraus, p.139).
– The Adult Life of Toulouse Lautrec, Kathy Acker, written in 1975, and first distributed through the mail during the Fall 1975; six installments published in pamphlet form (each in stapled wrappers) by Acker and TVRT (The Vanishing Rotating Triangle Press) in 1975-1976. The entire manuscript wouldn’t be published as one book before 1978 (Kraus, p.134). Parts 1 and 6 list Acker as the copyright holder; the middle parts use the name “The Black Tarantula. The collection starts with the following epigraph: ““Make sense,” Fielding said. “Tell the real story of your life. You alone can tell the truth!” “I don’t want to make any sense,” I replied.”
Images of the six installments: image 1, image 2, image 3.
1) The case of the murdered twerp, starts with the following epigraph: “I’m too ugly to go out into the world. I’m a hideous monster”.
2) Longing for better things.
3) “‘Stop it, Ted,’ I screamed when he finally released me, but he didn’t hear, he was like a madman: overcome with lust, I was totally in his power, completely helpless”
4) How love can lead youngsters to murder.
5) The future.
6) The life of Johnny Rocco.
→ In the 1978 TVRT (New York) reedition, the third installment turned into two distinguished parts: 3) The desperation of the poor 4) The creation of the world; making a total of seven parts.
1976
• January: Kathy Acker receives a CAPS grant of 7,000$ that would allow her to travel to Haiti and live for a year (Kraus, p.141).
– Kathy Acker’s interview with Barry Alpert for Toronto’s Only Paper Today, March 1976.
• June: Kathy Acker leaves for Haiti, where she stays for most of the summer, and would begin to work on the novel Kathy Goes to Haiti when she returns.
– (Ms) “Kathy Goes to Haiti”, bound typescript, 1976 (Duke University Rubinstein Library).
– (Ms) “The Bum”, typescrit plus one holograph page (Duke University Rubinstein Library).
– (Ms) “Florida”, annotated typescript, 1976 (Duke University Rubinstein Library).
– (Ms) Correspondence between Kathy Acker and Harry Lehman, Jr., 1976 (Duke University Rubinstein Library).
– (Ms) Correspondence between Kathy Acker and R. Wurlitzer, 1976 and undated (Duke University Rubinstein Library).
1977
• January: Kathy Acker’s stepfather, Albert Alexander, dies of a heart attack.
• February 2: Kathy Acker reads Fairy Tale Adult Life of Toulouse Lautrec, Raw Heat and Kathy Goes to Haiti, at Western Front, Vancouver (Canada). See video.
– (Ms) “Lullabye”, typescript, 1977 (Duke University Rubinstein Library).
– (Ms) “Raw Heat”, annotated typescript, 1977 (Duke University Rubinstein Library).
– (Gr) “Dream Map 2″, Kathy Acker, 1977 (Duke University Rubinstein Library).
1978
• January: Kathy Acker finishes Kathy goes to Haiti (cf. infra, letter from Kathy Acker to Lafayette Young).
• February: Kathy Acker and Peter Gordon marry “on a freezing February afternoon at City Hall” (Kraus, p.147).
• Early Summer (?): Kathys Ackers starts to write Blood ans Guts in High School (cf. infra, letter to Lafayette Young).
– (Ms) Typed signed letter from Kathy Acker to Lafayette Young, no date but probably from the early Summer 1978; stating: that she is being a “fanatic” of Graham Greene “these days”, that she is starting a “new novel” Blood and Guts in High School that she isn’t showing to anyone, that she is enclosing the “novel” she finished in January (Kathy Goes to Haiti) about which she says: “I don’t know what the hell to do with it, I’m sure it’ll never get out into the world and it’s probably not any good anyways but I enjoyed writing it and I love Haiti, so I’ve decided my work is totally uncommercial all i’m going to do is send it to friends whenever i can get someone to make me a free xerox copy”; she states as well that Robin Winters is “doing pictures” for the book (Duke University Rubinstein Library).
– The Adult Life of Toulouse Lautrec, Kathy Acker (complete version), TVRT press and Print Matter books, summer 1978.
• Around August: Peter Gordon and Kathy Acker separate permanently, after being together since 1972 (Kraus, p.147).
– (Ms) Typed and autograph signed letter from Kathy Acker (“341 East 5th St./ New York, NY 10003”) to Lafayette Young, August 3, 1978 (Duke University Rubinstein Library).
She tells him about the trials she is going through for the publication of Kathy goes to Haiti; about “the new novel which” she has “to finish (rewrite of first 60 pages)” (Blood and guts); she is working on a play with Lawrence Weiner; doing performances to get some money; she is sick “again” with PID; this “last year” had “so much pressure”, “I’ve cut out a private life; she is going to Mexico on the 17th of August; has been reading Stevenson and Walter Scott, and rereading Charles Olson.
– Kathy Goes to Haiti, Kathy Acker, block-print illustrations by Robert Kushner, Rumour Publications (Fred Gaysek and Judith Doyle press, Toronto), end of 1978. Launching of the book in February 1979 in Toronto (Kraus, p.143).
Republished by Grove Press in the 1987 Literal Madness anthology.
– “The Persian Poems”, Kathy Acker, in Semiotexte, vol. III, n°2, Schizo-Culture, 1978 (read online); inserted later into Blood and Guts in High School.
Republished as an artist book illustrated by Robert Kushner.
• Fall: Kathy Acker finishes the manuscript of Blood and Guts in High School (Kraus, p.151).
• Christmas’ Eve: Kathy Acker’s mother’s suicides (Kraus, p.165).
– (Ms) “By Cesar Vallejo”, typescript, 1978 (Duke University Rubinstein Library).
1979
• Summer: Kathy Acker writes New York City in 1979 (Kraus, p.170).
• October, 26: Kathy Acker’s grandmother dies (Kraus, p.180); she leaves an estate of just under $1 million to be shared between her two granddaughters Kathy Acker and Wendy.
• October: Kathy Acker goes to Amsterdam for the One World Poetry Festival (Kraus, p.172).
• October-November: Kathy Acker stays in Paris.
• Early December: Kathy Acker returns from Paris to New York (Kraus, p.183).
December: Kathy Acker begins to write Great Expectations (Kraus, p.153).
– (Ms) “Girl Gangs Take Over the World”, annotated typescript, 1979 (Duke University Rubinstein Library).
– (Ms) “New York City in 1979″, annotated typescripts, 1979 (Duke University Rubinstein Library).
Images: img 1, img 2, img 3, img 4, img 5.
– (Ms) “Notes on Writing from the Life of Baudelaire”, typescript and publication copy, 1979 (Duke University Rubinstein Library).
—
See as well our page:
– Kathy Acker’publications in periodicals between 1981-1997.
– Kathy Acker’s related materials.