Little Light

Susan Cataldo
New York City

Nos. 1­–6 (1980–1984).

Covers by Tina Swanson, Louise Hamlin, Steve Levine, and others.

Little Light, no. 2. 1980.

Named after the poem “Little Light” by Jim Brodey, Susan Cataldo’s Little Light, alongside magazines like Blue Smoke, Telephone, and Tangerine, was one of the little magazines that carried on the tradition of mimeograph publishing into the early and mid 1980s. By publishing a higher percentage of women poets per issue than many peer publications, Cataldo’s magazine also offers a more equitable view of the community of poets who had grown up around The Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church in the 1970s and were then taking on vital leadership roles in maintaining and supporting that community.

With striking covers by Tina Swanson, Louise Hamlin, Steve Levine, and others, each issue of the magazine begins with a significant portfolio of work by a featured poet, including Eileen Myles, Susie Timmons, and Jim Brodey. Other contributors include Alice Notley, Rochelle Kraut, Daniel Krakauer, Kathy Foley, Hannah Weiner, Helena Hughes, and a young Edmund Berrigan. Ted Berrigan’s In A Blue River was published by Little Light Books in 1981 with cover art by Cataldo.

— Nick Sturm, Atlanta, May 2021

Little Light, no. 4. 1981.