Desperado

Desperado magazine was first published in October, 1969. Edited by poet Kell Robertson and printed by Ben Hiatt, who edited the Grande Ronde Review, Desperado published many of the writers now associated with the San Francisco Renaissance of poetry of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Among these were Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Roberty Bly, Jack Micheline, Jerry Kamstra, and Roxy Gordon.

In 1993, Robertson published a Desperado in Raton, New Mexico – work dedicated to the American West. Poets included Keith Wilson, poet laureate of New Mexico.

In 2002, Desperado # 12 was published in Fort Worth Texas. With Kell’s direction and McCook’s editing, the work includes noted poets from San Francisco to Santa Fe and on down to Fort Worth. From Jerry Kamstra in Santa Cruz to Argos MacCallum in Santa Fe to Tammy Gomez in Texas.

Click here to view information about the poems and contributors.

To Buy a copy of Desperado, please click here.

Click here to view selected readings from Desperado on YouTube.

Joe Armstrong’s review in Hard Row to Hoe calls Desperado “an attractively presented eclectic collection of prose and poetry…Kendall and Kell have once against done the tradition proud.”

Click here to read and download the review.

Introduction by Kell Roberston, Publisher

LOOKING BACK AT MY DESPERADO WITH LOVE AND A SILLY GRIN

(by Kell Roberston)

“Very luckily for you and me, the uncivilized sun mysteriously shines on ‘good’ and ‘bad’ alike. He is an artist.”

e.e. cummings

Foreword to an Exhibit

Copies of the first issue of DESPERADO were delivered to me in San Francisco in October 1969 by my old friend Ben Hiatt who had volunteered to print it for me. Ben was, and still is, a poet and small press editor. His magazine, Grande Ronde Review, was one of the better magazines that appeared on that Small Press revolution front, in the late fifties and early sixties. It was the time of 8 1/2 by 11 mimeo and it produced some amazing work.

DESPERADO went through a lot of changes and so did I, of course, over the years. I got my very own mimeo and cranked each issue out myself from a basement apartment in San Francisco’s Mission district to the streets of El Paso and the rains of Eastern Oregon.

ABOUT THIS ONE

A few years back, my good friend and fellow writer, Kendall McCook suggested that we do another DESPERADO. We did that. Kendall wanted to edit an issue and I thought it a fine idea. It took a few years but here it is. I just read the manuscript and find it in the old DESPERADO tradition with Kendall’s own take on things.

Kendall, who has written some of the best short stories about the West I’ve ever read and whose performances in various venues are attracting critical praise, has put together a fine piece of work here. A magazine is, after all, an anthology with its own point of view. Something to keep around your house, go on the bookshelf with the rest of the books. It’s not a disposable item, like the daily paper or Time magazine, but should last for years.

This issue of DESPERADO, qualifies.

I am proud of Kendall and glad for this piece of work.

Note…TODAY I HAVE ATE THE LAST BUFFALO by the late Roxy Gordon first appeared in Desperado 7 in 1971. When we lost Roxy we lost one of the genuine voices of the American West.

Kell Robertson