The White Dove Review, 1959, Vol. 1, No. 1
The White Dove Review
Tulsa, avant-garde literary journal, 1959-1960
In the late 1950s, Ron Padgett, Joe Brainard, Dick Gallup, the members of what John Ashbery called the “Tulsa wing” of the New York School (Ted Berrigan was the fourth horseman of that group), started a magazine in Tulsa, Oklahoma while they were in high school called The White Dove Review. It is one of the greatest magazines of the period, paved the way for the mimeo explosion that followed in New York City and ushered in the Second Generation of the New York School. This document marks the beginning influence of what would eventually become the St. Mark's Poetry Project which helped give a voice to Jim Carroll and Patti Smith.
David Omer Bearden's work appeared in The White Dove Review Volume 2 Numbers 4-5 in 1960.
Contributors through numbers 1-5 included:
- Jack Kerouac
- Clarence Major
- Ron Padgett
- Paul Blackburn
- Leroi Jones
- Ted Berrigan
- Fielding Dawson
- John Kennedy
- Allen Ginsberg
- Peter Orlofsky
- O.W. Crane
- Carl Larsen
- Johnny Larsen
- Rozana Webb
- Gilbert Sorrentino
- Harold Briggs
- Paul England
- Martin Edward Cochran
- Robert Creeley
- Dan Teis
To learn more about The White Dove Review, please see contributing article by, This Land and watch YouTube, Public Secrets.
The White Dove Review, 1960, Vol. 2, No. 4
Walking At Evening
Walking at evening I see my fathers
In the park Standing sad as roominghouses.
It is before dark Just after dinner
And they have crisco in their bellies
Their loins have gone to tallow
And yellow grease is in their veins.
They watch the sky And speak to passing youths
Friendly enough
I see my fathers And kindly speak.
* * *
Poem For Martin Edward Cochran
Died August 5, 1959
A prevernal flower
Grew up in his brain;
He whimpered an hour.
And sighed and abstained.
He took for a lockett
The thigh of a bird;
It hid in his pocket;
He dressed all in surd.
He found madness hiding
In a back alley can;
He took her out riding
And gave her his hand.
At the tumulus wedding
A sciolist grieved;
Gave cerecloth bedding
And laughed in his sleeve.
* * *
The White Dove Review, 1960, Vol. 2, No. 4
The Most Ancient Law
What is the most ancient law?
I would obey. I have scanned
The faded ink by day and night.
I sat with death's dead, stared
That he had seen the statutes,
Read with dry humor the most ancient law.
Speak, my man: I would obey one law.
I have counseled with my counselors;
Men who have grown sallow with rote
Their eyes have burst. They do not know
What law they break: The first,
The Most Ancient law?
I will remove my garment.
In the morning, ahead of the Atlantic sun,
I will run into the maw of primal streets;
And stop before a gaunt signpost:
Mr. Lincoln, can you speak the first,
The most ancient law?
* * *
Another Has Come To The Silver Mirror
Another has come to the silver mirror.
In a half light, humbly returning a stare
He stands; and in the ragged mouths
Upon his body can be seen swallowed ointments-
A bottle of shampoo,
And a little bottle of white tablets.
He in the peeling mirror eats my drugs.
Do they cleanse your body?
Do they ease you there under your hair?
Do they soothe your eyes?
This self, the brother of the self
With more unsmiling mouth;
A duplicity with the same
Uncured sadness in the eyes-
The sad defiance in the sunken eyes.
Self there in the frame,
Full of medicines-
Will you pray with me?
We will make a God to hear us.
We can make a God with mirrors.
And then, in harmony
We will humbly beg to be saved-
We will pray fervently to each other.
* * *