Call Number:

MSS 1030

Repository:

University of Delaware Library Special Collections

Extent:

• 8 linear foot (8 boxes)
• 2 oversize box

Language:

English

Preferred Citation:

MSS 1030, Brian C. Felder small press poetry archive, Special Collections, University of Delaware Library, Newark, Delaware.

Date:

1969-2021 (inclusive)

Creator:

Felder, Brian C., 1945-2021

Form:

correspondence

Abstract:

Brian C. Felder (1945-2021) was an American poet who had over 400 poems published in small press literary journals, magazines, and anthologies between 1969 and 2021. From 1969 to 1971, he was co-editor of The Bummer, a Milwaukee-based literary magazine. The Brian C. Felder small press poetry archive contains issues of periodicals in which Felder's poems were published between 1969 and 2021, correspondence concerning his accepted submissions, logs and indices of his submission history, and material related to small press publishers in the early 1970s.

Brian C. Felder (1945-2021) was an American poet who had over 400 poems published in small press periodicals and anthologies between 1969 and 2021.

Felder was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps in 1965 and served a 13-month tour of duty in Vietnam from 1967 to 1968, before returning to Milwaukee. He began writing poetry in 1968.

From 1969-1971, Felder was co-editor with Cynthia d'Este Dahlke of

The Bummer, a Milwaukee-based journal that ran for four issues, with cover art by underground comic artist Denis Kitchen.

Felder received his Bachelor of Arts and Master's of Library Science from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM), and worked in the UWM bookstore for many years. He moved to Delaware in 1993.

In 2021, his first poetry collection,

Plain Big Words, was published by Wild Shores Press.

Biographical information derived from the collection and conversations with Brian C. Felder.

The Brian C. Felder small press poetry archive contains periodicals and anthologies in which Felder's poems were published, his correspondence with editors, logs and indices of his publication and submission history, directories and publications about small press publishers from the early 1970s, and material related to the Committee of Small Magazine Editors and Publishers (COSMEP).

The collection contains issues of 146 literary journals and magazines published between 1969 and 2021. The majority of the periodicals were published after 2000, and include

Art:Mag (edited by Peter Magliocco), Shemom, The Pegasus Review, and WestWard Quarterly. Publications from the 1970s and 1980s include many Milwaukee-based alternative and countercultural publications, such as Ambrosia, edited by Eddie Silentwalker Hymes, Milwaukee Review, edited by Ralph Larsen, Milwaukee Road Review, founded by Todd McMahon, and Shore Review, edited by Kenn Kwint. The collection includes all four issues of The Bummer (1969-1971), as well as paste-ups of its interior layouts. Three poetry anthologies, and Felder's own book of collection poems, Plain Big Words, are also included.

Felder maintained files of correspondence for most of his published poetry. These files contain submission letters, copies of the submitted poems, acceptance letters, and, in some cases, more extensive discussions about poetry and publishing with the magazines' editors.

Records of Felder's poetry submissions -- both acceptances and rejections -- can be found in the indices and logs he maintained. A file labeled "Miscellaneous poetry correspondence worth preserving" contains a small number of rejection letters from 2006 to 2019.

COSMEP materials date from 1971 to 1975 and consist of newsletters, membership lists,

The Whole COSMEP Catalog (1973), and letters from Richard Morris, a director of COSMEP and publisher of Camels Coming Press. Morris's letters mostly concern COSMEP business and touch on the challenges of running the organization. An August 16, 1971, letter includes his thoughts on publishing unknown poets and poems that might offend readers.

The collection also contains issues of the

Directory of Small Magazine/Press Editors and Publishers, the Directory of Little Magazines, Small Presses & Underground Newspapers, and Margins: A Review of Little Magazines and Small Press Books, edited by Tom Montag and Dave Buege.

The collection is arranged in three categories: Publications (copies of publications and associated correspondence files); Records of poetry submissions; and Small press information.