Bardo Matrix Press

Angus MacLise, Ira Cohen, John Chick, and Dana Young
Kathmandu, Nepal

ca. 1972–1979. Ting Pa, nos. 1–3 (1972–1973).

Sagaraya. [Falk, Jane]. The Witch Speaks. Snake Tongue, 1976.

Kathmandu, Nepal, was a vibrant expatriate center for a community of poets, musicians, artists, and spiritual seekers in the 1970s, in large part due to the Bardo Matrix collective—a group that began in Boulder, Colorado as The Experimental Cinema Group. In Kathmandu, the collective initially included Angus MacLise, John Chick, Dana Young, and Ira Cohen.

Bardo Matrix Press, and especially the Starstreams Poetry Series, generated collaborations between Beat and countercultural poets and local artisans to produce books informed by Nepali and Tibetan traditions.

Around 1971, Ian Alsop, Francis Brooks, and Simon White became involved making woodblock prints to sell to tourists, and Ira Cohen notes they “were to play an important role in the development of small press publications by myself, my old friend and comrade, poet-calligrapher, Angus MacLise, and other poets who quickly formed a community in the Kathmandu Valley.” MacLise’s work with Piero Heliczer and his press, the dead language, “making unique books from treebark or fashioning long horizontal handmade books after the Tibetan or Indian style,” proved influential: it was Angus who, “working with local craftsmen and woodblock artists, really began the great rice paper adventure” (Ira Cohen, “The Great Rice Paper Adventure: Kathmandu, 1971–1977.” New Observations no. 106, May/June 1995. Online at Big Bridge, no. 5.).

To sell these books and prints, John Chick opened a bookshop named The Spirit Catcher on so-called “Freak Street” or Jhocchen Tole. The shop was open from about 1972–1979, and provided a weekly forum for poetry readings, music, and community that attracted both tourists and locals (Prawash Gautam, “How a used bookstore in Kathmandu’s Jhochhen captured the spirit of the hippie movement,” The Kathmandu Post, Dec. 18, 2018). Bardo Matrix produced flyers and ephemera to be sold at the shop, including woodblock prints of traditional Nepali and Tibetan Buddhist designs, as well as broadsides, flyers advertising readings, inventory, and more.

During this period, Angus MacLise edited Ting Pa, a literary magazine printed on handmade paper folios that sought to share the writing of both the expatriate and local community. Published over three issues from 1972 to 1973, contributors included Hetty MacLise, Olivia de Haulleville, Francis Brooks, Anje, Angus MacLise, Bill Barker, Petra Vogt, T. V. Kapali Sastry, Ira Cohen, Karma Samde Drolma, and others.

Unique in part because of its use of handmade papers and traditional non-Western (Nepali and Tibetan specifically) printing techniques and production, Bardo Matrix publications continue to influence small press publishing. Shivastan Publishing, based in Woodstock, New York, is one such venture inspired by Bardo Matrix that prints on handmade papers in Nepal, keeping the “Great Rice Paper Adventure” alive.

BOOKS 

Bowles, Paul. Next to Nothing. Bardo Matrix, 1976.

Cohen, Ira and Dana Young. Opium Elementals. Bardo Matrix, 1976.

Cohen, Ira. 7 Marvels. Bardo Matrix, 1975.

Cohen, Ira. Gilded Splinters. Bardo Matrix, 1977.

Cohen, Ira. Poems from The Cosmic Crypt. Kali Press / Bardo Matrix, 1976.

Cohen, Ira. Poem for La Malinche. Bardo Matrix, [1974?].

Corso, Gregory. Way Out: A Poem in Discord. Bardo Matrix, 1974.

di Prima, Diane. Loba Part II. Eidolon Editions, 1976.

Falk, Jane. Ckrowww. Bardo Matrix, 1977.

Ford, Charles Henri. 7 Poems. Bardo Matrix, 1974.

Gaynor, Iris M. Exits. Bardo Matrix, 1977.

MacLise, Angus and Mahaprasad Shresta. Swayambhu Underground: The Maps & Key to the Secret Chambers: The Legend. Dreamweapon, 1975.

MacLise, Angus. The Subliminal Report. Bardo Matrix, 1975.

MacLise, Angus. The Cloud Doctrine. Dreamweapon Press, 1974.

Sagaraya. [Falk, Jane]. The Witch Speaks. Snake Tongue, 1976.

Valenza, Roberto Francisco. The Clearing Stage. Bardo Matrix, 1976.

Valenza, Roberto Francisco. Lost Contact. Bardo Matrix, 1977.