Alpha Beat collection
This collection contains material from Alpha Beat, an independent press publishing Beat generation and Beat-inspired work. Included are manuscripts, advertisements, reviews, and production material for monographic and periodical publications.
Alpha Beat Press was a small literary press publishing post-Beat independent modernist poetry with the intention of keeping the aesthetics and sensibilities of the Beat generation alive and giving voice to poets of the Beat tradition, from the prominent to the lesser known. Founded in Montréal, Canada in 1986 by Dave Christy, the press published magazines, broadsides, and chapbooks.
After a period of artistic collaboration with the New Jersey based poet Ana Pine, editor of the magazine Cokefish, Dave Christy moved to the United States. The couple eventually resettled in New Hope, Pennsylvania, where they married and worked as co-publishers of Alpha Beat Press until Dave Christy’s death in 2010.
From the late 1980s until 2010, Alpha Beat Press published several little magazines, which often took various titles and formats throughout their publication. Periodical publications included Alpha Beat Soup, Bouillabaisse, Cokefishing in Alpha Beat Soup, and Shoes.
The press also published a broadside series and chapbooks from contributors such as Michael Basinski, Jeffery Beam, Alan Catlin, Ed Gailing, Douglas Holder, Ruth Moon Kempher, Jack Powers, T. Kilgore Splake, Joseph Verrilli, and Joy Walsh.