The Actualist Poetry Movement
In 1973, several Iowa City poets started The Actualist Movement in the Arts.[3] Anselm Hollo[5] had suggested that, because of all their creative activity, they should form a poetry movement. Darrell Gray named it "Actualism." As time went on, other poets joined the movement. They held three celebrations of the arts, called Actualist Conventions.[6] The first took place on March 10, 1973.[3]
The Actualists published many literary magazines:[3] Suction (ed. Gray); Toothpaste (ed. Kornblum), Search for Tomorrow (ed. Mattingly); PF Flyer (eds. Steve and Sheila Toth); The Actual Now and Then (ed. Cinda Kornblum); The Spirit That Moves Us (ed. Morty Sklar); Gum (ed. Morice), Matchbook (ed. Joyce Holland), Candy (ed. P.J. Casteel). Kornblum and Buck learned letterpress printing, and Kornblum's Toothpaste Press became the main publisher of Actualist work.[7]
Darrell Gray wrote "The Actualist Manifesto,"[8] which appeared in Gum No. 9 as a fold-out with Apocastasis, a chapbook of short poems by Gray, stapled to the manifesto page. In 1975, Gray moved to San Francisco, and Actualism flourished there. From the late 1970s to the mid-1980s, there were six Actualist Conventions held in the Bay Area.[9]
George Mattingly published Actualist American Poetry Circuit Readings for 1973-74, a promotional booklet that presents a biography, a bibliography, a writing sample, and a photograph of thirteen of the founding Actualists: Darrell Gray, Sheila Heldenbrand (Toth), Anselm Hollo, Steve Toth, George Mattingly, Joyce Holland, John Sjoberg, Josephine Clare, Tim Hildebrand, Morty Sklar, Allan Kornblum, Chuck Miller, Dave Morice.
Morty Sklar and Darrell Gray edited and published in 1977, from Sklar's The Spirit That Moves Us Press, The Actualist Anthology, the major collection of Actualist writing, which presents works by fourteen members: Allan Kornblum, Chuck Miller, Anselm Hollo, Cinda Kornblum, Morty Sklar, John Batki, Darrell Gray, Jim Mulac, David Hilton, Sheila Heldenbrand, George Mattingly, John Sjoberg, Steve Toth, Dave Morice.
In 1979, Morice created a school of poetry called Cutism. "His Cutist Anthology includes poems by Sally Lunchkins, Tommy Triped, and others, 'Have a nice day' artwork by Roberta Periwinkleshoe, and the requisite defensive polemic by Samuel F. Romular. Morice's send-ups attest to his connection to a school of poetry that began in Iowa City… called Actualism."[10]
The Joyce Holland Literary Hoax
From 1972 to 1975, Morice perpetrated a literary hoax:[11] "He invented 'Joyce Holland',[12] a minimalist poet and performance artist who had no small effect on the poetry world."[10] She wrote concrete and minimalist poems and sent submissions to literary magazines, 29 of which published her work.[3] James Mechem, editor of Out of Sight, invited her to be a guest editor. She assembled an Actualist Poets issue.
To expand the hoax, Joyce Holland (Morice) put out thirteen issues of Matchbook, a magazine of one-word poems, costing five cents a copy. She received a grant of $50 from the National Endowment for the Arts to fund the magazine. Each issue was printed on one-inch square pages stapled inside of matchbooks donated by local businesses. The sixth issue was an "all-women's issue", the seventh was a "do-it-yourself" issue, and the eighth was an "actualist convention issue".[13]
About the extremes of poetry, critic Richard Morris writes: "Some styles go so far as to leave the traditional conception of the "poem" behind. We have found poetry, visual poetry, a poetry that is being written in prose forms…, even minimal poetry (see Joyce Holland's magazine of one-word poems, Matchbook.)"[14]
In these twelve examples, each poet's name is followed by his or her poem in parentheses. Aram Saroyan is the originator of one-word poetry.
Bill Zavatsky (armadildo) Anne Waldman (INCA)
Aram Saroyan (puppy) Allen Ginsberg (apocatastasis)
Pat Casteel (puppylust) Andrei Codrescu (GASOLINE)
Tom Disch (Manna) g.p. skratz (electrizzzzz)
Lyn Lifshin (contagious) Gerard Malanga (Monther)
Bruce Andrews & Michael Lally (grap) Peter Schjeldahl (shirty)
Holland also published Alphabet Anthology, a collection of one-letter poems by 104 contributors. The index tallied up the letters, showing that "o" was chosen most often, and "c" was chosen by no one.[15]
Morice's girlfriend, P.J. Casteel, an actress, played the physical role by giving readings and by meeting visiting writers to whom she was introduced as Joyce Holland.[3] During these visits, the Actualists, who were in on the hoax, called her by that name. In 1974, Morice and Holland (Casteel) appeared on Tom Snyder's Tomorrow[16] show. During the program, Morice wrote a poem on her dress, and Holland led the audience in a "Poetry Cheer".
Dr. Alphabet and the Poetry Marathons
He has been called the "P.T. Barnum of Poetry"[17] and a "Muse out of the world of Dr. Seuss.".[18] On March 3, 1973, he wrote his first Poetry Marathon[19] —1,000 poems in 12 hours— at the Grand Opening of Epstein's Bookstore,[3][20] the literary gathering place in Iowa City in the early seventies.[21][22] He typed the poems on three small sheets of paper at a time. The shortest was a one-word poem; the longest was a fourteen-line sonnet. The marathon, an Actualist event, took place a week before the first Actualist Convention.
In 1974, Muscatine, IA, held its second annual Great River Days Festival. Part of it was the Belle of the Bend Art Fair. Morice was invited to write a poetry marathon at the fair. Referring back to the 19th century traveling entertainers who went from town to town selling cure-alls and nostrums, he named his event "Dr. Alphabet's Medicine Show." He made a costume to wear for the occasion: a white top hat, shirt, pants, shoes, and cane covered with letters of the alphabet in different colors.[3] During the festival, he wrote a poem on adding machine tape while wrapping it around Joyce Holland. He titled the woman-plus-paper sculpture "The Muscatine Mummy." Shortly after completion, he unwound the poem from Holland, tore it into small strips, and put them into amber glass medicine bottles labeled "Poetry Tonic." He and his assistants gave the souvenir bottles away free to fair-goers.
The biggest Poetry Marathon production of all took place in Lone Tree, IA, in 1977. Sponsored by the Iowa Arts Council and coordinated by music director Lynn Grulke, Halftime Poem Across a Football Field [23] involved two high school football teams, more than 300 people in the stands, a sportscaster, a band, cheerleaders, assistants, Dr. Alphabet, and his sister Michele.
Halftime Poem Across a Football Field
The Lone Tree Lions were playing their homecoming game against the Tigers of Morning Sun, IA. During the day, Morice taught poetry to the students and compared it to football, and the students wrote poetry cheers for the game. After school, the cheerleaders practiced their favorite cheers, while Grulke's band rehearsed a jazzy version of "The Alphabet Song".
That night, during half-time, the band played their song as Morice began to spray paint a poem on a roll of paper that stretched from goal post to goal post. One of his assistants, acting as sportscaster, announced the action over a microphone: "Is that a simile? Yes, it is!" The cheerleaders shouted cheers: "Metaphor! Metaphor! Tell 'em what we're yelling for!" and "Hold that line! Make it rhyme!" and "Hey, hey, Dr. A, how many poems did you write today?"
It was a windy night, and the work-in-progress started blowing across the field. Volunteers had to rush from the stands and stand on the edges of the paper so the writing could continue. When it was finished, the football players held up the 100-yard sheet of paper for the fans to see. Morice read the poem over a microphone. Then the game continued. Lone Tree won.
From July 4 - October 31, 2010 - in collaboration with the naming of Iowa City, IA as a UNESCO "City of Literature" (one of only three in the world named by this branch of the United Nations - Edinburgh, Scotland and Melbourne, Australia are the other two), Dave Morice challenged himself to write a world breaking poetry feat. Working in the University of Iowa Main Library, Morice produced 100 pages of poetry for 100 days. This poetry marathon was dedicated to Dave's sister Michele who was his literary cheerleader for many years who died aged 52 on February 22, 2010 of a brain tumor. Working from the assistance of poetry patrons, Morice dedicated 4 months toward creating the ultimate record-breaking feat of writing. Dave's son, Danny, wrote the introduction.[24]
In 1978, a poet told Morice that "Great poems should paint pictures in the mind." He replied, "Great poems would make great cartoons."[49] "Morice wondered how 'Prufrock' and Sylvia Plath's 'Daddy' would look as comics, so he drew them, publishing 'Daddy' the next year in Poetry Comics No. 1, which he mailed to poets around the country."[49] The words of the poems were placed in cartoon balloons and panels in true comic book format.
From 1979 to 1982, he published 17 issues of Poetry Comics, a 22-page comic book.[1] After issue 16 came out, the Village Voice published a 6-page article about the comics.[10] Journalist Jeff Weinstein wrote: "Morice's inspiration is poetry itself. Poetry makes him want to draw comics."[10]
Poetry Comics: A Cartooniverse of Poems (Simon & Schuster, 1980).
"The Muse's Mailbag," a letters-to-the-editor column in Poetry Comics magazine, published comments from readers. Morice sent copies of the magazine to poets and other celebrities, and dozens of people replied. The six responses below appeared in the letters column. They were reprinted on the back cover of the 1980 anthology.