About the Magazine
Image and text appearing at the end of an issue of Kayak Magazine
George Hitchcock's Kayak Magazine is a landmark of the surrealist poetry scene. The magazine lasted for twenty years (from 1964 to 1984) and published 64 issues. Its numerous contributors include poets such as Margaret Atwood, Charles Simic, and Robert Bly, names anyone familiar with contemporary surrealism will recognize. Kayak not only included an excellent selection of surrealist and imagist poetry, but also "vehement or ribald articles on te subject of modern poetry", and eventually grew to include poetry in translation, found poetry, and correspondance to its editor George Hitchcock, all of which created a sense of conversation and collective discovery. Hitchcock aimed not only to display the best poems, he also wanted his audience to seriously engage with the state of modern poetry, push its boundaries, and work towards creating better and better writing.
Kayak was important to small press in general as well. The magazine was celebrated for creating new readerships for emerging writers and for contributing greatly to American art, as demonstrated by the announcement on the bottom left of this page.
The magazine also has a very distinctive style, both in terms of appearence and general attitude. Almost all of the images are chosen by Hitchcock from 19th century engravings, which he pairs with poems, often with very clever or ironic effects. The whole magazine has a subtle, cheeky, annd sometimes subversive sense of humor, even down to its famous rejection slips. This only serves to enrich the magazine and make for a very enjoyable reading experience.
Continue through the exhibit to see examples of art and writing from the magazine.