Here’s another of Anton Romatka’s curious publications. This one is A History of Versification, 16 pages of a meticulously lettered, rather eccentrically written, history of poetry. I’ll give you the front cover, first page, and back cover, the last of these an ad for Romatka’s other publications. The “Merit” at the top of the cover is a bit of a puzzle; I suspect he used a border meant for a school prize, bought from a stationery store. His densely lettered pages were printed at 8 1/2 by 11 inches; please click to enlarge them.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

Instrumentarium is now available from Black Scat Books! This delightful volume collects the drawings of imaginary musical instruments I contributed monthly to Le Scat Noir, plus many previously unpublished. Among the 180 selected here are such inventions as the Painpipes, the Sprinkler Trombone, the Flugelflute, and the Cavalry Harmonium.

As our culture grows ever more reductive and conformist, this celestial orchestra brings to you the almost forgotten pleasures of musical variety. Available from Black Scat Books or Amazon.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

And here follow the last four pages of Calligraphs, a small hand-lettered poetry magazine published by Anton Romatka in 1935. The last two pages advertise Romatka’s services as publisher, editor, teacher, and calligrapher. Googling reveals little about Max Berman or Gussie Perlman, but turned up the interesting fact that Harvey W. Flink contributed his poems fairly regularly to Weird Tales.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

We continue our examination of Anton Romatka, who led a curious bohemian existence providing poetry, writing workshops, and calligraphy in Greenwich Village in the ’30s and ’40s. Here are the next four pages of his hand-lettered magazine Calligraphs, from 1935. They include one poem by Romatka, and an acrostic on his name by Richard Zeydel. A quick Googling reveals that the N.Y. Daily News called Zeydel the “unofficial poet laureate of New York’s transit system” (7/14/57). Further searches show that the others were also active: Gertrude Callaghan, for example, published several collections, including Witch Girl and Inheritance; Mario Speracio sold poems to the pulp magazine Love Story.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

Here are the next four pages of Calligraphs, Anton Romatka’s curious little hand-lettered poetry magazine from 1935. One of the poems is by Romatka himself, and another about his “poetry forum”; the others, I assume, are representative of the Greenwich Village esthetic of the time.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

Anton Romatka published a number of poetry magazines in Greenwich Village, in the ’30s and ’40s. Calligraphs, from 1935, was small in both size and page count, being only 4 1/4″ x 5 1/2″ and sixteen pages. Like his other publications, it was flamboyantly written and meticulously hand lettered. Here are the first four pages.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

I’ll be part of the lineup for Profane Illuminations, a day of talks at NYU organized by Mark Pilkington of Strange Attractor Press. I’ll present my talk “Music from Elsewhere,” discussing and playing music attributed to fairies, trowies, banshees, aliens, spirits, and angels; as well as music from alchemists, occultists, Cathars, cryptographers, secret societies, and dreams. Other speakers include Erik Davis, Peter Bebergal and Gareth Branwyn, Amy Hale, Kristen Gallerneaux, and Dave Tompkins.

It’s on Saturday, April 27, at Einstein Auditorium (34 Stuyvesant St., at 9th St., between 2nd and 3rd Avenues), NYC, and it’s free. The talks run from 12 to 8 pm; I’ll be on at about 3:30. More info here.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

Upside-Down Stories is now available from Black Scat Books!

Charles Cros and Émile Goudeau were quintessential Bohemian poets of the 1880s. Cros also experimented with the phonograph and color photography; Goudeau founded the Hydropathes, who met to declaim poetry while not drinking water. Cros and Goudeau’s only collaboration was a series of five exuberant stories published in 1880, which satirized such hot topics as divorce and capital punishment with bawdy humor and wild flights of fancy. All five stories are included here, plus four solo stories by Cros that complete the series, translated and annotated by Doug Skinner. These dense and nutty gems will surprise you!

Available from Amazon or Black Scat Books.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

Romatka made a meager and undependable living as a teacher and editor of poetry. He published this curious broadside about his unpleasant interactions with his clients, written as usual in his tiny meticulous calligraphy. The two columns are one sheet (letter size); I scanned them separately to make them easier to read.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

Anton Romatka was a poet, editor, publisher, calligrapher, and teacher, who held forth in Greenwich Village in the 1930s and ’40s. He died in 1948; his body was discovered by the writer John Keel, then a young Village poet himself, working on a magazine with Romatka. You can read the story here.

I found very little about Romatka on the web. It’s a pity, since he seems to have been a sympathetic and eccentric character, and somewhat of a Village institution. Keel kept many of Romatka’s publications, which included poetry, poetry magazines, and instructional manuals on poetic technique, usually lettered in his distinctive calligraphy. Here are two poems printed on cards, both 6 x 8 1/2″, from 1939 and 1945. I suspect they were meant for the annual exhibit by the Ravens Poetry Circle, in which poems were pinned to the fence outside Judson Church, on Washington Square, and offered for sale.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)