VORT #1 by ALPERT, Barry (Editor). [DORN, Ed] and [Tom Raworth]

(Silver Spring, MD): Barry Alpert, 1972. First edition. 59 pp. 4to, original printed wrappers. Side-stapled. Very good with light soil and rusting to staples. Some mild staining. Vort followed the same pattern in its plain, large-format issues, creating a little critical universe for each of two authors. [Clay and Phillips 245]. The editorial note on the last page states that Vort will feature two writers who have had an impact on each other. Alpert quotes Ezra Pound when he urged, “Zone the barstuds,” [sic] in 1931 but points out that Pounds’ principles for a science of groups does not apply to a time when, as Harold Rosenberg notes, “Avant-gardes and ideologies are dead, and the only force for the new in art is the individual in his erratic communion with other individuals.” Therefore, Alpert states that he will avoid meaningless groupings (Black Mountain, New American, New York) and focus on individuals that interest him who have not had much critical attention. As to the name of his magazine, Alpert explains that Pound once addressed Wyndham Lewis as Ol’ Vort and that he hopes to invoke their original energies while circumventing the pretentiousness of Vortex. (See item 7).