Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

In 1950, at 14 years, Jim Burns “was wearing bop glasses, and a beret even! Ah, the magic of those days. I guess we thought we were something special, and everyone else thought we were just crazy.” (1)  He “first came across Jack Kerouac’s writing in 1957,” (2) in a local library magazine piece credited to Jean Louis. “... prior to the Beats there were only a handful of novels, stories, and articles that even mentioned Charlie Parker, let alone gave any indication that the hipsters were the vanguard of a whole new culture.”
 
    Jim Burns is now well known as an historian of fifties American Beat culture (though he regards such typecasting as limiting) and an authority on the subsequent sixties British Poetry Renaissance (if a critical one). He was, more importantly, a creative innovator and influential editor throughout the sixties artistic ferment.

    “After a few uneasy attempts to imitate Jack Kerouac and Philip Whalen I realised I had to write (a) about what I knew best, and (b) in a style I found natural.” He forged a strong individual poetry voice by keeping it direct and simple, and remaining true to his provincial roots. The Beats “shoved me where was a tradition of writing outside the big publishers, provincial libraries and local bookshops.” (3)  In the early sixties, Jim was living in a Preston council house with his wife & sons. During that period I was seeing him at poetry readings, sharing radio interviews, posing for a Sunday Times photo session (for a planned feature that suicided on some cutting room floor), ... over bottles of wine. Jim was writing in most of the emergent small press, and publishing his own mimeo little magazine (1964 8). In 1966, Dave Widgery highlighted Move as one of five trailblazing UK journals in the living tradition ... which survive or fall on a mixture of starvation and philanthropy. (4)  I remember  duplicating the last three issues of  Move, with Tina Morris (my ex wife).

     Jim was never a mindless follower or cultist, and recognised many negative, as well as positive, aspects to that strong Beat influence which propelled many young UK writers, including himself. . “Looking back to the fourth issue of Poetmeat, I find myself  writing prose that was a mixture of ‘Beat’ hysteria and girlie-magazine slickness. Still, I was having fun.”  (5) Whilst many of us went ecstatically over the literary psychic top, Jim kept both feet and head on Planet Earth. “... I think that too Beat, like two Beat, is a bit corny.” (6)

     Jim Burns was central then, to the alternative British poetry scene. In 1965 he provided an introduction to the New British Poetry anthology which I joint-edited with Tina Morris. In 1966 he appeared in a Belgian Anthology, —alongside Gary Snyder, Ed Sanders, Peter Orlovsky,  Michael McClure, Leroi Jones, Tuli Kupferberg, Bob   Kaufman, Lenore Kandel, Diane di Prima, Charles Bukowski, etc, etc. (7) Surfacing in a 1968 revolutionary New York manifestation (8) and Michael Horovitz’s underground poetry anthology. (9) In 1965 he was one of nine poets, selected by Anselm Hollo, for “New Sounds in British Poetry”. (10) 

     He’d also developed a simple, uncluttered, direct creative prose style. Informative and entertaining. Shorn of all trappings and adornment. An artistic journalism that uncovered and revealed (by acute observation) with finely controlled economy. “The poet was a fat man and liked young girls.” (11) A seemingly throwaway sentence that actually capsules a scouse poet superstar, when paedophilia wasn’t yet media-trendy. Jim’s scalpel wit and wry insight had always cut deep to bone: “She was once fucked / by a famous poet, and / forever after was / accepted as an authority / on the arts.” (12)

     Ever splendidly idealistic, determined, even stubborn, Jim Burns refused to write a piece for The Guardian on Chris Torrance and Michael Dyke’s (Origins/Diversions) celebrated tour of UK poets and writers, because a new features editor demanded sensationalist bearded Beat pics. Personally, I wouldn’t have minded being part of the entertainments history and could have used the exposure, but Jim had more dignity. “I have my own dance, / I do it in my way …” (13)

     Jim Burns provided an anchor of common-sense, while all around him were in danger of self-lobotomising on an excess of hedonism and self-parody. It’s perhaps only in retrospect that many of us can appreciate how valuable his influence was on our stability and development. His own dance indeed.

NOTES:
1.  Jim Burns, “Blow Mr. Dexter”. Poetmeat 9 & 10. Blackburn, Summer 1965
2.  Jim Burns, “Jack Kerouac”. Second Aeon 11. Cardiff, 1970.
3.  Jim Burns, “Introduction”. The Store of Things. Phoenix, Manchester, 1969.
4.  David Widgery, “The Arts Council —A Counter  Plan”. Autumn 1966.
5  Jim Burns, “Poetmeat”. Poetry Information 12/13. London, Spring 1975.
6.  Jim Burns. Poetmeat 7. Blackburn, 1964.
7.  Labris. Belgium, July 1966.
8.  Z. Dan Georgakas (ed). Smyrna Press, New York, 1968.
9.  Children of Albion. Penguin, 1969.
10.  Evergreen Review 38. New York, November 1965.
11.  Jim Burns. Cells. Grosseteste Press, Lincoln, 1967.
12.  Jim Burns. Types. Second Aeon, Cardiff, 1970.
13.  Jim Burns. Some More Poems. R Books, Bristol, 1966.