Trace, No. 51 (Winter 1963)

Journal Issue

Metrics Revisited by Barney Childs gives Trace no. 51 its clearest point of entry, while Prophecy and the Art of Language by Marvin Bell and Towards Print by A. Fredric Franklyn widen the issue’s field. Dated Winter 1963, this expansive number indexes 111 pieces or named sections, moving between literary argument, creative work, reviews, correspondence, and the practical business of little-magazine culture. The order matters: recurring editorial features sit beside contributions with their own formal and critical demands, so the magazine reads as an active conversation rather than a neutral container. The reader’s edition makes that sequence easy to follow; the original scan preserves the cover, page design, advertisements, visual material, and directory apparatus that locate the writing in its first publication. Together, the two editions show James Boyer May sustaining both a literary forum and a working map of the independent publishing network.

Read Edition

Publication details

Journal: Trace
Volume: Not recorded
Issue number: 51
Issue date: Winter 1963
Editor: James Boyer May
Publisher: Villiers Publications Ltd.
Place of publication: London, England; Hollywood, California (editorial office)
Language: English
Pagination: Original scan: 118 PDF pages. Reader’s edition: 117 PDF pages.
Record ID: ttj-trace-51-1963

Full contents

Metrics Revisited — Barney Childs [Essay, p. 9]
Prophecy and the Art of Language — Marvin Bell [Poem, p. 25]
Towards Print — A. Fredric Franklyn [Essay, p. 26]
(Excerpts from a Journal of the U. of British Columbia Seminar) — A. Fredric Franklyn [Contribution, p. 26]
Charles Olson in the morning session, today. And Bob, Allen Duncan, and also Philip Whalen. It’s a poser, just seeing all five of them around the desk together! [Contribution, p. 30]
Friday, August 2nd ; Morning Session (Creeley, Duncan, & Ginsberg — Whalen again in the audience) [Contribution, p. 34]
The Chronicle [Reference, p. 38]
Editors (and others) Write [Correspondence, p. 39]
The Problem of Poetic Form — Alfred Dorn [Correspondence, p. 41]
Damning . . . Without Bitterness — Alfred Dorn [Correspondence, p. 42]
The Fascist Critic [Contribution, p. 43]
Ideas ‘Sold’ for Commercial Prestige ? — Carl Linder [Correspondence, p. 43]
Identity in Relation to Community — P.O.D. [Correspondence, p. 45]
An Hour with Audiberti* — Gabriel d’Aubarède [Essay, p. 47]
The Two Worlds of Wallace Stevens — Charles R. Burns [Essay, p. 54]
A Quiet — Norbert Blei [Fiction, p. 57]
Norbert Blei [Contribution, p. 60]
Norbert Blei [Contribution, p. 62]
The Decoy — David Lee Pagari [Fiction, p. 75]
Plates [Contribution, p. 82]
Dylan Thomas’ under Milk Wood: the American Element — David Clay Jenkins [Contribution, p. 83]
Meaning/s & the Word : 20th Century Assay [Contribution, p. 102]
Gissing: Preview of Modern Individualism [Review, p. 106]
A Solid American Critic: Davidson [Contribution, p. 108]
Firbank: Growing in Prestige [Contribution, p. 111]
A Stubbornly-random Iconoclast [Contribution, p. 113]
Indexed Contents — Trace 1963 [Reference, p. 117]
Rainy Bus-boy [Contribution, p. 120]
Arrangement from Paterson from Working — ‘constructs,’ 1963 [Contribution, p. 120]
Waiting for You [Contribution, p. 121]
Ye Childe Wilyam Barbe [Contribution, p. 122]
(Table of Contents art) [Contribution, p. 122]
American Poetries in Foreign Tongues [Contribution, p. 123]
Odysseus Unrepentant — Bertrand Mathieu [Poem, p. 124]
From the Notes [Contribution, p. 125]
Ivy Compton-burnett [Contribution, p. 125]
Last Words of Whom? [Contribution, p. 125]
Meaning/s the Word [Contribution, p. 125]
NOT in Passing [Contribution, p. 125]
Now the Pudding [Contribution, p. 125]
Right Turn: Left [Contribution, p. 125]
When Summer Had Ended [Contribution, p. 126]
The Author Seeks Clarification [Contribution, p. 127]
AND/OR [Contribution, p. 127]
IN THE SKY, PI [Contribution, p. 127]
Portions of an Unpublished Essay [Essay, p. 128]
Esther [Contribution, p. 129]
A Case? — for ‘semi-fiction’ [Contribution, p. 130]
Art of the Sonnet: 167 [Poem, p. 131]
The Cavorting Crevices — Gil Orlovitz [Poem, p. 131]
Index (2nd Series): 8 [Contribution, p. 131]
Lines [Contribution, p. 131]
Median 8 [Contribution, p. 131]
Median 16 [Contribution, p. 131]
Southern Poetry and the Magnolia Curtain [Contribution, p. 132]
The Decoy — David Lee Pagari [Fiction, p. 133]
A Student [Contribution, p. 134]
(Ceramic Art) [Contribution, p. 134]
A Gadangus Full of Dirt [Contribution, p. 135]
Bulwarks — Clarence Alva Powell [Poem, p. 136]
An Epic with Meaning for Now Breakfast Excerpts from a Working [Contribution, p. 136]
Editor’s Letters [Contribution, p. 137]
From October Letters — [Contribution, p. 137]
In the Wunderhorn World [Contribution, p. 138]
Poem for Mid-winter — Charles Shaw [Poem, p. 139]
Parodies of Spring [Contribution, p. 140]
(Woodcut) [Contribution, p. 140]
Falstaff Poems [Poem, p. 141]
Celia, Who Is She? — John Tagliabue [Poem, p. 142]
Bottlebroke on Books [Contribution, p. 143]
(Black and White) — Ben Tibbs [Poem, p. 143]
(Black and White) — Ben Tibbs [Poem, p. 143]
Village Street at Noon [Contribution, p. 144]
East Meets West [Contribution, p. 145]
Icon [Contribution, p. 146]
Theokritos Unbound [Contribution, p. 147]
My Father — David Wade [Poem, p. 148]
Ideogram [Contribution, p. 149]
(transl. d’Aubarède) [Contribution, p. 149]
An Open Letter to the Modern Writer [Contribution, p. 150]
Daybreak [Contribution, p. 151]
From Dreams to Image-Words [Contribution, p. 151]
(Sculpture) [Artwork, p. 151]
Are Such the Voices — Wai-lim Yip [Poem, p. 152]
Fragment I [Contribution, p. 153]
(Painting) [Artwork, p. 153]
Witness, the Story of a Search [Contribution, p. 154]
The Other Side of Love [Contribution, p. 155]
In Fact [Contribution, p. 156]
Samuel Beckett, the Comic Gamut [Contribution, p. 157]
Long Live Man [Contribution, p. 158]
Poem for a Ten Pound Sailfish & Other Sonnets [Poem, p. 159]
The Spyglass, Views & Reviews, 1924-1930 [Review, p. 160]
The New Rythum and Other Pieces [Contribution, p. 161]
Goethe, a Critical Introduction [Contribution, p. 162]
Light in the West [Contribution, p. 163]
OUR EXAGMINATION Round His Factification for Incamination of Work in Progress [Contribution, p. 163]
Flaubert, Joyce & Beckett: the Stoic Comedians [Contribution, p. 164]
George Gissing, a Critical Biography [Contribution, p. 165]
Gogol’s Wife & Other Stories [Contribution, p. 166]
The Gutenberg Galaxy: the Making of Typographic Man [Contribution, p. 167]
The Idylls of Theokritos [Contribution, p. 168]
The Purse & Three Other Stories of Chinese Life [Contribution, p. 169]
Than Any Star [Contribution, p. 170]
An Age of Enormity [Contribution, p. 171]
Sun Stone, by Octavio Paz — Octavio Paz [Contribution, p. 172]
To Mix with Time [Contribution, p. 173]
Ask at the Unicorn [Contribution, p. 174]
Coins and Coffins [Contribution, p. 175]
American Contemporary [Contribution, p. 176]
Complete Current Address List [Reference, p. 177]

Rights and citation

Rights in the individual contributions and the periodical compilation have not been fully resolved.

Trace, no. 51 (Winter 1963). Text/Tech Journals reader’s edition, 2026.

THE TEXT/TECH PAPERS

Contributors