User:Radh/Cold Turkey Press

Cold Turkey Press, based in Rotterdam, was a small Dutch publisher of modern and underground literature from outside the Netherlands. After the group of friends who brought out the Bukowski book broke up, it was run by Gerard Bellaart (* 1946), who edited and translated avant-garde English-language, mainly produced by the Beat Generation, such as Charles Bukowski and Allen Ginsberg, but also including modernist work by Garcia Lorca and César Vallejo. In 1975 William Levy, veteran London underground editor of the 'International Times, The Frantic and Amsterdam' first european sexpaper SUCK, edited and printed certain Radio Speeches of Ezra Pound''. These Radio Rome broadcasts from the 1940s. Most of the Cold Turkey books had a limited print-run of 250 copies in Gestetner Mimeograph format.

Bellaart was born in Dordrecht, on April 10, 1946. He studied the fine arts at the Hague, Amsterdam and Rotterdam academies. There he learned drawing and painting, but also printmaking. Art has been his profession, since the press closed down.

Spending time on the greek island Hydra in 1965, he chanced upon the scene around around Leonard Cohen: Harold Norse, Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, the Durch poet Marko Fondse. Carl Weissner published some texts of Bellaart's in his little magazine Klactoveedsedsteen and he and Bellaart in 1972 are joint editors of a Lp from the Rotterdam Poetry Festival (Rotterdam Arts Foundation).

In 1969 Bellaart choose some Bukowski poems from the Outsider magazine and financial help from photographer Wouter Berger and fellow artists and poets Hans Wap, Kees Spermon, Evert Malianghay, published Dronken mirakels & andere offers, the first book of Cold Turkey Press. A book composed of texts from Harold Norse, Ed Sanders and Carl Weissner followed, then Sinclair Beiles's poem Deliria and a William S. Burroughs anthology including Roosevelt after Inauguration and the Dan Georgakas interview with the writer, Rapping on Revolutionary Techniques, also D. A. Levy's last essay and Beiles' madhouse poetry Sacred Fix, texts written in psychiatric treatment. Bellaart had met Beiles in Greece in 1967. Ira Cohen had two books with photos and poems published.

In 2006 Ben Schot, the publisher of Sea Urchid Editions, curated an exhibition of some of the rare books and archival material of Cold Turkey Press at the Historisch Museum Het Schieldandhuis in Rotterdam (May, 16 - July, 16). The material then went to the Labadie Collection at the University of Michigan.

Dicscography

 * Gerard Belart [!], Carl Weissner (eds.): Cold Turkey Press/Klacto Present. Poetry International Festival, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, June, 20-24, 1972. Cold Turkey Press, Lp No. 6802 944. 33 1/3 rpm, 12". 500 copies. Rotterdam 1972.
 * 12 Great Americans. Sea Urchin Editions. The old Lp with additional material.

Weblinks

 * Gerard Bellaart's website
 * Fred DeVries: Beat Archives in France
 * Fred DeVries: Lees Passionate! Part 2