Bardo Matrix: A Kathmandu Beat Poetry Press

on dreamers waken or die only the sky is open to you now UNITE or you may never know - Katie McDonald, Bardo Matrix broadside circa mid-1970s The Bardo Matrix Press was founded in Kathmandu in the early 1970s by original Velvet Underground drummer, artist, and poet Angus MacLise and poet, photographer, and publisher Ira Cohen as a publishing outgrowth of the Colorado artists' collective of the same name. MacLise and Cohen issued pamphlets, booklets, posters, books, and broadsides by not only themselves and their fellow travelers, but also by post-war notables including Paul Bowles, Gregory Corso, Diane di Prima, and Charles Henri Ford. The publications - made using fine printing techniques such as woodblocks, letterpress, special inks, and handmade paper - celebrated the opportunity to create something cheap and beautiful through collaborations between American Beat Poets and Nepalese traditional printers. Kathmandu's "Freak Street" provided a built-in audience for Bardo Matrix, where friends of the press operated a small bookshop selling woodblock printed headshop posters alongside poetry broadsides, second-hand English paperback books, and Bardo Matrix publications. After the 1979 death of Angus MacLise, activity of the press quietly faded out, and Ira Cohen returned to New York City. Bardo Matrix publications were printed in editions of anywhere from a couple of dozen to a few hundred, usually utilizing fine printing techniques such as wood blocks, letterpress, special inks, and handmade paper. However, this was not based on traditional thoughts on fine printing, but rather on the opportunity to create something cheap yet beautiful. There was a built-in audience for these publications on “Freak Street” in Kathmandu, where people in the circle of Bardo Matrix operated a small bookshop that did decent business selling wood-block printed headshop posters alongside poetry broadsides, and these publications, as well as second-hand English-language paperback books. After the 1979 death of Angus MacLise, the activity of the Bardo Matrix Press quietly faded out. Ira Cohen returned to New York City, where he was a highly visible member of the poetic demi-monde until his passing in 2011, shortly after he had helped stage an exhibition on the life and work of Angus MacLise. The Ira Cohen Archive was acquired by Yale University in 2011, and the Angus MacLise Archive was acquired by Columbia University in 2013. This exhibition is a comprehensive gathering of Bardo Matrix materials and is on public display from March 27th through May 24th on the second floor of the Grolier Club. Grolier member and exhibit curator Johan Kugelberg is giving a talk on the Bardo Matrix Press with Branden W. Joseph, Professor of Modern Contemporary Art at Columbia University, on Wednesday April 9, 5:30 pm. Angus had always been interested in innovative printing, and working with Piero Heliczer on the Dead Language Press making unique books from tree bark or fashioning long horizontal hand-made books after the Tibetan or Indian style. It was Angus who, working with local craftsmen and woodblock artists, really began the great rice paper adventure for us. -Ira Cohen (1935-2011)

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