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Donald Merriam Allen (Iowa, 1912 –San Francisco, August 29, 2004) was an Americaneditor, publisher and translator of American literature.[1][2] He is best known for his projectThe New American Poetry 1945-1960 (1960), one of the anthologies of contemporary American writing he released.[3]
Allen began his working life as a Japanese translator within the US military, serving during WWII.[2]
After his service ended, Allen became an editor atGrove Press, where he worked for 16 years.[2] He was one of the first translators of the Romanian-FrenchAbsurdist playwrightEugène Ionesco, and Allen's 1958 volumeFour Plays of Eugène Ionesco helped to introduce the playwright to American audiences in the 1960s.
Along with editing works byLew Welch, Allen editedFrank O'Hara, includingCollected Poems (1971; 1991) andSelected Poems (1974). He is referred to directly in O'Hara's "Personal Poem" which is inLunch Poems, a book Allen also edited. O'Hara writes, in reference to a conversation he had withLeRoi Jones, "we don't like Lionel Trilling/we decide, we like Don Allen."John Rechy records in his memoirs that Allen offered him the contract to publishCity of Night.[4]
In 1960, Allen moved from New York to San Francisco, where he established Grey Fox Press and the Four Seasons Foundation, two literary presses where he continued to publish works from Beat, San Francisco Renaissance, Black Mountain, and New York School writers. As theCEO of Grey Fox Press, he published works byJack Spicer, along withEnough Said (1980) byPhilip Whalen, andI Remain (1980), a collection of Welch's letters. Other authors published by Grey Fox Press includedRichard Brautigan,Robert Duncan,Jack Kerouac,Joanne Kyger,Philip Lamantia,Charles Olson,John Rechy,Michael Rumaker,Aaron Shurin, andGary Snyder.
Also in 1960, Allen edited the anthologyThe New American Poetry. In that book, released through Grey Fox Press, Allen included "Statements of Poetics," which was an experimental aesthetics discussion fromLawrence Ferlinghetti, Whalen, Snyder,Michael McClure, Jones,John Wieners, along with Kerouac andAllen Ginsberg.[5]
While working with the Four Seasons Foundation, Allen also assisted in the publication of (among others):Interviews (1980) byEdward Dorn,A Quick Graph: Collected Notes and Essays (1970) byRobert Creeley, andThe Graces (1983) byAaron Shurin. In 1997, Allen helped edit, along with Benjamin Friedlander, theCollected Prose ofCharles Olson (University of California Press).
Grey Fox Press and Four Seasons Foundation were among the many emerging presses thatCity Lights distributed in the late 1960s, and when Don Allen began thinking about retirement, City Lights offered to acquire the backlists. Today, City Lights publishes the significant works from these presses in their City Lights/Grey Fox series.[6]
The Donald Allen Collection, processed in 1991 for a special collection series at theUC San Diego library, contains materials which Allen published through the Four Seasons Foundation and Grey Fox Press. The papers document Allen's editing and publishing works dating from 1957 to 1975, although some material is from the 1930s.[7]
