Margaret Randall

El Corno Emplumado 30

Margaret Randall — 2008-03-06T22:02:30Z

With its issue #30, El Corno acquired a publishing partner, Movimiento Editores of Mexico City. This issue features two poets from Peru—Sebastian Salazar Bondy and Winston Orillo—Carol Brightman (with an essay on Vietnam), Roberto Fernandez Retamar, Roque Dalton, Ernesto Cardenal, Carl Solomon, and Seneca poet Richard Johnny John (in Spanish translation by Isabel Fraire), among others. Drawings are by Antonio Segui and Roland Topor. Lucien Sebag has an essay, "Myth: Code & Message," in English translation by Elinor Randall. The colorful cover is by Joel Sloman.

El Corno Emplumado 29

Margaret Randall — 2008-03-06T21:56:57Z

Contributions to El Corno #29 include Margaret Randall's translations of poems by Leon Felipe, an essay in both Spanish and English by innovative U.S. architect Buckminster Fuller, and work by Victor Coleman, Larry Eigner, Fernanda Navarro, Rodolfo Walsh, Denise Levertov, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Octavio Paz, and Arrabal (translated by Bertha Navarro). Dan Georgakas interviewed an anonymous Italian marxist on Franz Fanon.

A portfolio of Laurence Siegel's photographs of Mexico, drawings by Margaret's son Gregory, and drawings by other artists contributed to the visual interest of the issue. The cover is by Sylvia de Swaan.

El Corno Emplumado 28

Margaret Randall — 2008-03-06T21:51:20Z

El Corno #28, in October 1968, appeared just as the Mexican Student Movement was viciously put down by the Diaz Ordaz government. Little did we know that this would be the beginning of the end of our publishing endeavor. Although the journal would have three more issues, it was already doomed.

This issue again featured an anthology of new Cuban poetry by, among others, Nicolas Guillen, Luis Rogelio Nogueras, Virgilio Pinera, and Exilia Saldana. There were also three Greek poets: Iakovas Kambanellis, Kostas Kovanis, and Yannis Ritsos. Other contributors included Clarence Major, Fernando Alegria, Clayton Eshleman, Al Young, Ernesto Cardenal, Todd Gitlin and Michele Murray. Donald Gardner translated Ernesto Cardenal and Jose Coronel Urtecho, and we published a series of letters between Sigmund Freud and Lou-Andreas Salome. Thomas Gatten translated the Spanish poet Rafael Alberti. Kilton Stewart's "Dream Culture of the Senoi" was an important study.

U.S. American photographer George Cohen's portfolio of images from the Pentagon Action, and artwork by Judith Gutierrez, Sylvia de Swaan and Rini Templeton illustrate the issue.

The cover art is by Margaret and Sergio's daughter Sarah Dhyana Mondragon, who at age five had been looking at the santeria signatures in our previous issue and felt inspired by them.

El Corno Emplumado 27

Margaret Randall — 2008-03-06T21:42:34Z

El Corno #27 includes work by Ann Quin, Robert Sward, Robert David Cohen, Dubjinski Barefoot, Margaret Randall, Thomas Merton, Susan Sherman, William Agudelo, and Eduardo Escobar, among others. Three Mexican poets are Isabel Fraire, Homero Aridjis, and Jaime Labastida. There are also two guerilla poets, Guatemalan Otto-Rene Castillo and Peruvian Javier Heraud, as well as a small section of Quechua poetry.

Photographs are by the Cuban photographer Mayito. Drawings are by Raul Martinez, Umberto Pena, Jesus de Armas, Robert David Cohen, and Jaime Carrero. There is also a selection of Santaria signatures drawn by Cuban ethnologist Argeliers Leon. Robert David Cohen did the cover.

Letters and book reviews round out the issue.

El Corno Emplumado 22

Margaret Randall — 2008-03-06T21:35:50Z

Among the poets and writers in El Corn #22, were Denise Levertov, Ernesto Cardenal, Claudio Bertonio, Sergio Mondragon, Alan Trachtenberg, Anselm Hollo, Homero Aridjis, Cecilia Vicuna, Rochelle Owens, Jose Agustin Goytisolo, Margo Glantz, Ketih Wilson, Lawrence Ferlinghetti (in Spanish translation by Fernando Alegria), Jerome Rothenberg, Ruben Dario (in English translation by Elinor Randall), and Hector Cattolica.

Cuban Umberto Pena and Argentine Guillermon provide the issue's drawings, and the cover is by Mexican Felipe Ehrenberg. Letters are from Gonzalo Arango, Cecilia Vicuna, William Agudelo, Claudio Bertoni, and Cid Corman, among others.

El Corno Emplumado 21

Margaret Randall — 2008-03-06T21:29:18Z

El Corno #21 featured an anthology of new Chilean poetry by such as Nicanor Parra, Gonzalo Rojas, Enrique Lihn, Jorge Teillier, Waldo Rojas, and Floridor Perez. Other contributors were Julio Cortazar, Susan Sherman, Agusti Bartra, Haroldo de Campos (translated into English by Edwin Morgan), Jose Agustin, and Harry Lewis. Dan Georgakas interviewed James Baldwin.

Margaret got to know Nicanor Parra in Cuba in 1968, when both of them were delegates to the Cultural Congress of Havana. His sister, the great singer/songwriter and cultural icon Violeta Parra had just taken her own life in Santiago de Chile. Nicanor and his sister were different sensibilities: she the passionate promotor of cultural activities beneath a giant tent, he the writer of what he called the "anti-poem." A characteristic of El Corno Emplumado was its refusal to showcase a single poetic school or movement; we wanted to publish many different types of writing.

El Corno Emplumado 20

Margaret Randall — 2008-03-06T21:09:53Z

El Corno #20 continued our interest in European poetry with an anthology of nine Dutch and Flemish poets, among them Remco Campert, Hans Warren, Phia Baruch, Ellen Warmond, and Fritz de Blauw.

The issue also includes work by William Agudelo, Gino Clays, Rudolf Baranik, Raquel Jodorowsky, Paul Blackburn, and Larry Eigner. Betelu, Juan Soriano, Elaine de Kooning, Raphael Soyer, Philip Guston, and Felipe Ehrenberg are among the visual artists in the issue. Letters come from Ernesto Cardenal, Dan Georgakas, and others.

The cover of El Corno #20 is a photograph of a rally to protest the convictions of James Johnson, Dennis Mora, and David Samas, three U.S. Army privates who had the courage to refuse to fight in Vietnam.

El Corno Emplumado 19

Margaret Randall — 2008-03-06T20:57:49Z

We had excellent ties with Finnish poets by now, and published three more of them in this issue: Vilho Kajava, Arvo Turtiainen, and Eeva-Liisa Manner. We also published an anthology of Canadian poetry which included, among others, George Bowering, Lionel Kearns, Fred Wah, Victor Coleman, John Newlove, David McFadden, Daphne Buckle, Frank Davey and Red Lane.

Twenty contemporary Spanish poets included Angel Gonzalez, Carlos Alvarez, Jose Agustin Goytisolo, Jaime Gil de Biedma, Jose Angel Valente, and Jose Batllo.

This issue also presented work by Allen Ginsberg, Paul Blackburn, Miguel Barnet, Eleanor Antin, and Besmilr Brigham.

All the drawings in El Corno 19 were by Felipe Ehrenberg, and the cover art was a painting by Willem de Kooning.

El Corno Emplumado 16

Margaret Randall — 2008-03-06T20:50:43Z

Time for another book. El Corno #16, the bilingual edition of 1965, was Canadian poet George Bowering's The Man in Yellow Boots / El hombre de las botas amarillas. Sergio Mondragon did the translations, aided by Margaret Randall. A section of collages were by Roy Kiyooka, also of Canada.

George Bowering had visited us in 1964, and would remain close to the journal throughout its life. He later became poet laureate of Canada.

El Corno Emplumado 14

Margaret Randall — 2008-03-06T20:46:59Z

El Corno Emplumado #14 featured poetry from the cold—but intensely poetic—lands of northern Europe: Finland and Russia. The Finnish anthology was collected by Anselm Hollo, and showcased such poets as Pentti Saarikoski, Paavo Haavikko, Pertti Nieminen, Anya Vammelvuo, and Matti Rossi. The Russians were Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Robert Rozhdestvensky, Svetlana Yevseyeva, and Bella Akhmadulina. There was also work by Clayton Eshleman, Lenore Kandel, Felix Pollak, Edmundo Aray, Jan Arb, Juan Rulfo, Jerome Rothenberg, poems from the Romany translated by Christopher Perret, and a tribute to T. S. Eliot with contributions by Agusti Bartra, Homero Aridjis, and Alejandra Pizarnik among others.

Art in this issue was by a number of Finnish artists—among them, Ahti Lavonsen, Teemu Lipasti, Alpo Jaakola, Irmeli Kukkapuro, and Helmi Rittaa—as well as by the U.S. American Connie Fox.