This issue of Shantih, titled The Literature of SoHo , is an astonishing document of the writing coming out of SoHo’s art community in the early eighties. Guest editor Richard Kostelanetz contributes an introduction which makes a persuasive argument for “SoHo literature” as an entity separate from other New York literary scenes. Kostelanetz argues because zoning ordinances “restricted residence [in SoHo] to ‘certified’ artists [who could] justify the need for larger loft spaces,” few conventional writers were able to move to the neighborhood. Instead, writing coming out of SoHo was practiced by artists working in a range of media, and characterized by heavy cross pollination with visual arts, film, music, choreography, and performance. This magazine issue includes poems by Jackson Mac Low, a group of John Cage’s mesostic poems and a textual score by Tom Johnson.
Other contributors: Vito Acconci, Frances Alenikoff, Roberta Allen, Michael Andre, Dotty Attie, Peter H. Barnett, George Breitbart, Rosemarie Castoro, David Cole, Agnes Denes, Richard Foreman, Peter Frank, Kenneth Friedman, Spalding Gray, Dick Higgins, Jamake Highwater, Kenneth King, Michael Kirby, Alison Knowles, Lucy R. Lippard, Stephen Paul Miller, Manfred Mohr, Robert Morris, Donald Porter, Erika Rothenberg, Lawrence Weiner, Robert Wilson, and Paul Zelevansky.
