The Third Rail Papers

This collection is comprised of the papers of the poetry magazine and review of the arts Third Rail, founded by  poets Uri hertz and Doren Robbins, and published in 9 issues between 1975 and 1988. It includes correspondence, manuscript drafts and submissions, artwork, distribution and administrative materials, and material for layout and design assembled by the magazine’s editor Uri Hertz. Contributors to Third Rail included Henry Miller, Allen Ginsberg, Tadeusz Kantor, Jack Hirschman, Ira Cohen, Kenneth Rexroth, Kazuko Shiraishi, Judith Malina and Julian Beck, Raul Zurita, and numerous other writers, artists, dancers, musicians and film-makers. The magazine was particularly known for its emphasis on literature in translation, featuring poetry from at least 6 languages, and an especially sustained engagement with the poetry of Latin-America and Japan. Along with interviews with contemporary figures from across the arts, from Robert Bresson to William Burroughs, it also included a number of in-depth features and festschrifts on artists and writers of the previous generation, gathering interviews, tributes, and memoirs of figures like Wallace Berman and Kenneth Rexroth.