Dave Christy: Small Press Giant

News arrived this morning of the passing of Dave Christy, co-publisher with his wife Ana, of Alpha Beat Press. Doug Holder announced it this morning on his blog. From the Alpha Beat website:

Alpha Beat Press has been publishing Beat Generation, post-Beat Independent and other modern writings since 1986. Alpha Beat Press had its beginnings in a Montreal flat with the idea of keeping the aesthetics and sensibilities of the Beat generation alive. Our first magazine, Alpha Beat Soup was unique, being the only small press magazine publishing original and current Beat writings. In our new magazine Bouillabaisse and in our other poetry publications we have continued in that tradition, publishing a wide variety of writers and styles, from Bukowski to the lesser known poets. Alpha Beat Press is certainly the best of the small press!

To call Dave an icon of the real "small press" is no exaggeration. Working in the style and spirit of the Beats and mimeo revolution of the 60's, Dave and Ana have published some of the most important New Beat and Beat poets of the last 30 years. I have been in contact with Ana and Dave almost since the inception of Lilliput Review in 1989 and we have swapped small publications for all these years.

This is truly saddening news. Ana, you are in my thoughts.

the death bell
tolls at the temple...
winter seclusion

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

Don