Bern Porter

Ubuweb (the most plugged site on this blog, I suspect) just uploaded five rare books by artist, physicist and poet Bern Porter.

Porter was born in Maine in 1911 and died there 93 years later. He is best known for his books of Found Poetry, including The Wastemaker, The Book of Do's, Sweet End and Found Poems. The latter was published by Dick Higgins' artist book imprint The Something Else Press in 1972, who also published Porter's I've Left a year prior.

Porter himself was the publisher of a literary magazine called Circle and books by Henry Miller and the fabulous Kenneth Patchen. As a scientist he contributed to the invention of the television and worked on the Saturn V rocket and the Manhattan Project (which he promptly resigned from after the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki).

He spent three weeks in mental institution in 1967 and ran for governor two years later, authored more than 80 books, was the subject of a massive FBI file, and knew Gertrude Stein, Anaïs Nin, Allen Ginsberg and Albert Einstein. Highly revered in experimental poetry and mail-art communities, he is the subject of a fascinating biography titled Where to Go, What to Do, When You Are Bern Porter: A Personal Biography. Written by James Schevill and published in 1992, it's long out-of-print, but used copies can be found fairly easily.

Porter died penniless in Belfast, Maine in 2004, having survived the his last few years eating at soup kitchens and art openings.

http://mercerunionhall.blogspot.com/2008/02/bern-porter.html

Do you know THIS Bern Porter?

Hi
is a pleasure to do your knowledge

(http://itsonlymailart.blogspot.com/)
Maurizio

Odd, in life we we not friends, now in your death we are. Mark,
Let's get out the trampoline!!!!
R&om

Bern Porter who I saw speak in Montreal!

LIVE THE MAIL ART!

NEW CALL FOR MAIL ART / MAIL ART

Area, region, stall, area, place of belonging, residence, may be given endless definitions of where one chooses to be, by place of birth, which spends much of life, gestate emotions, situations, feelings, making we like being there.
It is possible that we move for various reasons, which makes us to stop taking it in another physical space and its place in the World.
Or that our place in the world a small space like a room, house or a landscape.
One and only one set and choose where to belong. Where he expresses his wishes, his family or weapon projects.
So we always have "our place in the World, by choice or fate or whoever that knows things, we were up there. Wherever we say "this is my place in the world"
How, why and what's yours? Compartámoslo.




Theme: "MY PLACE IN THE WORLD"
Technique: Free
Format: Mail Art - Maximum A4

Deadline: October 31, 2010.

Send to:
Claudia Ligorria / Mail Art
Constitution 1742 PB "A"
(CP 1644) San Fernando
Province of Buenos Aires
ARGENTINA

Are discussed in this Blog.
Sharing my place in the world with all participants, will be an exhibition of all work in my beloved San Fernando in "plural" - San Fernando.

There will be a 2 nd exhibition of works in a room located in the City of Buenos Aires on a date to be determined.
And which are invited.
Documentation will be sent to all participants.
From already thank you very much for participating, I hope your shipments.
A hug from my place in the world, San Fernando, Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA.

Claudia Ligorria
www.artecorreo-claudialigorria.blogspot.com

Is this Bern Porters Birthday....! A day to remember. In April 2010 I saw a part of the Bern Porter Collection at the MoMa in New York....

This is Bern Porter's birthday! He gave up work as a scientist on the Manhattan Project (nuclear weapons) to become an artist mostly working with found materials and of course active in mail-art for many decades. Here's a Bern Porter link to (Charles Bernstein's) Penn Sound Project:

http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Porter.php