After Words: An Opening Conversation

M.C. Kinniburgh will facilitate a conversation between Johanna Drucker and Steve Clay, to celebrate the opening of Granary Books’ Grolier Club exhibition, After Words: Visual and Experimental Poetry in Little Magazines and Small Presses, 1960–2025. This conversation will explore specific magazines, poets, and themes on display in the exhibition, the history of concrete and visual poetry, and especially Drucker and Clay’s own roles as producers and publishers of verbal/visual works.
Drucker is a poet, writer, editor, book artist, and Distinguished Professor and Breslauer Professor Emerita at UCLA whose work in visual poetry and book arts has been internationally recognized. Her monograph, The Century of Artists’ Books (Granary Books, 2004) remains the defining work on artists’ books in the twentieth-century. Clay is the director and publisher of Granary Books, and co-curator of After Words, the materials for which are drawn from his personal collection of visual and concrete poetry. Kinniburgh is co-director of Granary Books, and co-curator of the exhibition.

This is an in-person lecture.

About the Exhibition

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. After Words: Visual and Experimental Poetry in Little Magazines and Small Presses, Post-1960, curated by Steve Clay and Grolier Club member M.C. Kinniburgh, 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. An accompanying catalog will be published by Granary Books.

Registration

If you are a Grolier Club member, please register yourself and your guests via the Club website. Do not register via Eventbrite.

Support

We appreciate your interest in the Grolier Club’s programming on the art and history of the book. For over 130 years we have offered our exhibitions and lectures to the public, free of charge. If you have enjoyed these offerings, and would like to support that tradition, and help ensure that it continues, please consider making a tax-deductible donation to the Grolier Club.

Accessibility

An ADA-compliant lift from street level to the lobby is available to anyone with mobility issues. All desk staff should be ready and able to assist you in operating the lift, with or without advance notice.

A “T-Coil” assisted listening system is available to anyone attending a lecture in the Exhibition Hall. Visitors with hearing aids should turn their devices to the “T” setting in order to access the system; visitors without hearing aids may request a “loop receiver” with earphones.

Host or Publisher The Grolier Club