James Boyer May — Collected Poems

1904 (Redgranite, Wisconsin)–1981 (Los Angeles County, California)

James Boyer May made Los Angeles a switching station for the international little-magazine world. A Wisconsin-born reporter who became a poet, fiction writer, translator, critic, broadcaster, and editor, he founded Trace in 1952 and turned it into a durable communications network for independent writers. His own compressed, philosophically restless poems range from atomic-age civic satire to spiritual inquiry and experimental syntax; his translations from Phivos Delphis place that work in a two-way Greek-American exchange.

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Catalogue

Independent Little Magazines

Associations

Editors and Magazines James Boyer May Circle Modernism Poetry Los Angeles Radio and Pacifica Satire and Comic Verse Teaching and Mentorship Trace Translation

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Bibliography

May, James Boyer. Eight Years. Joseph Charipar Productions, 1946.

———. For a New Era of Hate. Alan Swallow, 1947.

———. Eight American Poets. Edited and introduced by James Boyer May. Villiers Publications, 1952.

———. Ereyna gia ten Aletheia. Translated by Phivos Delphis. The Nest of the Book, 1953.

———. Modern Greek Poems. English versions of Phivos Delphis. Villiers Publications, 1954.

———. Twigs as Varied Bent. Sparrow Magazine, 1954.

———. Selected Poems: 1950–1955. Inferno Press, 1955.

———. Selected Fiction. Villiers Publications, 1957.

———. Selected Essays & Criticism. Villiers Publications, 1957.

———. Collected Later Poems. Villiers Publications, 1957.

Works About the Author

Clay, Steven, and Rodney Phillips. A Secret Location on the Lower East Side: Adventures in Writing, 1960–1980. New York Public Library and Granary Books, 1998.

Fulton, Len. “James Boyer May and Trace.” The International Directory of Little Magazines and Small Presses.

Garrett, Alexandra. Interview on Coastlines and Trace. Sipapu, vol. 8, no. 1, Jan. 1977, pp. 3–7. Complete Reveal Digital/JSTOR witness saved with the edition.

Linick, Anthony. “On Nomad.” RealityStudio.

“The Literary Explosion of the ’60s II: Trace.” Magazine Modernisms.

Stefans, Brian. “Los Angeles Poetry from the McCarthy to the Punk Eras.” A History of California Literature, edited by Blake Allmendinger, Cambridge UP, 2015, pp. 260–80.