Touch of the Whip

Lewis Warsh (1944-2020) was a writer, editor, visual artist, educator and the author of over thirty volumes of poetry, fiction, and autobiography, including THE ORIGIN OF THE WORLD (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2005), Inseparable: Poems 1995-2005 (2008), A Place in the Sun (2010), One Foot Out the Door: Collected Stories (2014), ALIEN ABDUCTION (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2015), OUT OF THE QUESTION: SELECTED POEMS 1963- 2003 (Station Hill Press, 2017), PIECE OF CAKE (Station Hill Press, 2020), and ELIXIR (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2022). He was co-founder, with Bernadette Mayer, of United Artists Magazine and Books, and co-founder and editor, with Anne Waldman, of Angel Hair Books and Magazine and The Angel Hair Anthology (2001). Mimeo Mimeo #7 (2012) was devoted to his poetry, fiction and collages, and to a bibliography of his work as a publisher and editor. He was a recipient of grants from The National Endowment for the Arts, The American Poetry Review, and The Poetry Foundation. He taught at Naropa University, The Poetry Project, Pace University, The New School, Bowery Poetry Club, and SUNY Albany. A longtime member of the English Department faculty at Long Island University (Brooklyn), he was also the founding director of their MFA Program in Creative Writing (2007-13).