Michael Andre

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Michael Andre (born August 31, 1946) is a Canadian poet, critic and editor living in New York City. He is well-known as the editor of Unmuzzled OX, an occasional magazine of poetry, art and politics. He edited and published two books by Gregory Corso, Earth Egg and Writings from OX. His opera, Orfreo, with music by Elodie Lauten, premiered at Merkin Hall in 2004; they also collaborated on Sex and Pre-anti-post-modernism and S.O.S. W.T.C. He has two widely-available Selected Poems: Studying the Ground for Holes (1978) and Experiments in Banal Living (1998). After graduating from McGill University he wrote film criticism for the Montreal Gazette, then in New York extensive art criticism for Art News, Art in America and the Village Voice. His autobiography, published by Gale Research in 1991, concerns neither literature nor celebrity but love.

"Canada takes over the New York School," wrote Robert Creeley, "single-handed--clapping." But sometimes Andre appears as a Catholic homme de gauche. "A jackrabbit, if it could read [Andre's poetry]", according to Daniel Berrigan, poet and Catholic Worker, "would jump for glee. And if it could talk to itself, wd. undoubtedly be heard saying, 'Demme, wish I'd thought of that!'"

[edit] Life

Andre was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia to a civil engineer doing wartime work on a military hospital. His mother's father was a newspaperman, Eyton Warburton; he died when Andre was an infant. Andre was raised in Kingston, Ontario. After McGill, he obtained degrees from the University of Chicago and Columbia University. He hosted radio shows in Chicago and New York. He interviewed, published, and occasionally socialized with W.H. Auden and Eugene McCarthy, Beats like Corso, William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, and homosexual esthetes like John Cage and Andy Warhol. Andre had been educated by Jesuits in Kingston, but in New York the Jesuit he preferred was Daniel Berrigan, poet and jailbird. He is divorced from Erika Rothenberg, an artist, and Jane Adler, a flautist and sign-language interpreter. He has a son, Benjamin Eyton Andre. His mother and sister now live in Greater Sudbury, Ontario, home of Laurentian University and the site of a collection of his work. Other papers may be found at the University of Tulsa and at Yale University.

[edit] Books of Poetry

Michael Andre Xmas Present (Mimeo, New York, 1974)
Michael Andre My Regrets cover drawing of author by Gregory Corso (Minneapolis, Pentagram, 1975)
Michael Andre Studying the Ground for Holes photograph of author by Gerard Malanga (Release Press, Brooklyn, 1978)
Michael Andre Letters Home cover by Ray Johnson (Cross Country Press, Montreal & New York, 1979)
Michael Andre Jabbing the Asshole is High Comedy (Print Center, Brooklyn, 1981)
Michael Andre It as It illustrated by Brian Buzcak (Money for Food Press, New York, 1990)
Michael Andre Experiments in Banal Living (Empyreal Press, Montreal, 1998)
Michael Andre Unmuzzled in Paris (Matthew Rose, Paris, 2004) for a reading at eof galerie
Michael Andre Scratched Lens (Cycle Press, Key West, 2006)