Charles Plymell (born April 26, 1935, in Holcomb, Kansas) is a poet, novelist, and small press publisher. Plymell has been published widely, collaborated with, and published many poets, writers, and artists, including principals of the Beat Generation.
He has published, printed, and designed many underground magazines and books with his wife Pamela Beach, a namesake in avant-garde publishing. He published former prisoner Ray Bremser and Herbert Huncke, whom he identified with from the hipster 1950s. He was influential in the underground comix scene, first printing Zap Comix artists such as Robert Crumb and S. Clay Wilson, whom he first published in Lawrence, Kansas.
Plymell received a citation for being a distinguished poet by Governor Joan Finney of Kansas and was cited in the 1976 World Book Encyclopedia as a most promising poet.
Biography Early life Charley Douglass Plymell was born in Finney County, Kansas during the worst dust storms of that time. He was born in a converted chicken coop near Holcomb. His grandfather, Charley Plymell, was deeded a homestead in Apache Palo lands by President Grover Cleveland. The stage line began in Plymell, a few miles south of Garden City where now stands the Plymell Union Church and Pierceville-Plymell Elementary School. Like many, his face was covered by wet rags as his mother went out to shoot jackrabbits and gather cacti for meals.
His father and mother were later divorced, and his father bought a home for Charles and his sisters so they could attend school in Wichita while his father traveled. In Wichita in the 1950s Plymell dropped out of his first year at Wichita North High School, lied about his age, traveled the western states in a new car his father bought him, working on pipelines, dams, factories and riding bareback broncs and Brahma bulls in rodeos.
Returning to Wichita he became a hipster, taking peyote, marijuana, and benzedrine, the drugs of the day. He listened to jazz, R&B, and “Race music” across the tracks in Wichita. He worked at factories and took courses at Wichita State University. Allen Ginsberg credited him with creating the "Wichita Vortex."A version of which later appeared in Evergreen Review, November 1968. Plymell's Vortex in his own words does not relate to Ginsberg's "Wichita Vortex Sutra" but took place west of Wichita near the center of the U.S. at Space Needle Crossing in the Chalk Pyramids. His Vortex is spiritual/mythical and based on when he heard the Voice of the Game Lord, which he later authenticated through his mentor and influence, Loren Eiseley. His other influences included Hart Crane, Ezra Pound, Robert Ronnie Branaman (1933–2024), and Samuel Coleridge. He did not meet the Beats until 1963 when associated with Ginsberg, Neal Cassady, and William S. Burroughs. His Vortex is written about in his Tent Shaker Vortex Voice. Before that he considered himself a hipster and outsider.
Career Plymell moved to a quiet Russian neighborhood in 1962 at the corner of Haight and Ashbury in San Francisco.Also published in Ginsberg's book T.V. Baby Poems, London: Cape Goliart Press, 1967. After the neighborhood filled with hippies and was taken over, Plymell moved to a famous flat, 1403 Gough Street. It was there at Plymell's LSD party that the Beats met the Hippies. Promptly Allen Ginsberg and Neal Cassady moved in with him where Plymell played Bob Dylan to Ginsberg for the first time.Ginsberg quote from the Martin Scorsese documentary film about Dylan, No Direction Home. It was during that time Plymell made two films that were shown at the Ann Arbor Film Festival and his collages, which opened at the "Batman Gallery" where fellow Wichitans Bob Branaman and Bruce Conner had shown. Plymell's show sold out except for a few pieces that ended up in Australia. Billy "Batman" Jahrmarkt gave Plymell his classic 1951 MGTD.Collected in his Notes of a Dirty Old Man, reprinted from the Los Angeles-based underground journal Open City.Ginsberg quote from the Martin Scorsese documentary film about Dylan, No Direction Home. His work Robert Ronnie Branaman, published in 1964, is credited with being an early example of underground comix.Kennedy, Jay. The Official Underground and Newave Comix Price Guide. Boatner Norton Press, 1982.
Recently Plymell's book Benzedrine Highway was published by Norton Records/Kicks Books. He has been writing poems used as songs by Andrea Schroeder (Berlin); Mike Watt & Sam Dook (U.K.) They recently featured one of his songs on their CUZ tour. He has also written songs for Clubberlanggang, and is working on a book with his poems for Neal Cassady and Bob Branaman put to rockabilly by Bloodshot Bill of Norton Records. Plymell holds an M.A. Degree in Arts and Sciences from Johns Hopkins University.Philadelphia Area Archives. Charles Plymell manuscripts. Philadelphia Area Archives, 1970-79.
In 1967, Plymell created The Last Times, a tabloid underground newspaper published in San Francisco. It lasted only two issues, but included work by William Burroughs, Claude Pelieu, Allen Ginsberg, and Charles Bukowski. The Last Times featured William Burroughs' text Day the Records Went Up, Claude Pelieu's Do It Yourself & Dig It, Allen Ginsberg's poem "Television Was A Baby Crawling Toward that Deathchamber", and a Charles Bukowski column. The Last Times #1 and 2 also contained articles by French avant-gardist Jean-Jacques Lebel and Man Suicided by Society by Antonin Artaud, translated by Mary Beach, Plymell's mother-in-law. Issue #1 also contains the first Plymell printed work of R. Crumb that Plymell had "lifted" from the second issue of Yarrowstalks (a Philadelphia-based underground newspaper).
Plymell subsequently earned a bit of immortality in the underground press by publishing only the first printing of Robert Crumb's Zap Comix #1,Zap Comix entry at the Grand Comics Database. Accessed October 27, 2009. which Don Donahue took over from Plymell when he purchased his Multilith 1250 printing press soon after.Crumb, R. "Minds Are Made to be Blown," The Complete Crumb Comics - Volume 4 (Fantagraphics, 1988). Archived on Crumb on Crumb (official R. Crumb website).
Notes
Books Apocalypse Rose, Auerhahn Press, 1967 Neon Poems, Atom Mind Publications, 1970 The Last of the Moccasins, City Lights Books, 1971; Mother Road Publications, 1996 The Trashing of America Phase 1, Tuvoti, 1973 Over the Stage of Kansas, Telephone Books, 1973 The Trashing of America, Kulchur Foundation, 1975 Blue Orchid Numero Uno, Telephone Books, 1977 Are you a Kid?, Cherry Valley Editions, 1977 Moccasins Ein Be*Cut Here, at-Kaleidoskop, Europaverlag, 1980 Panik in Dodge City, Expanded Media Editions, 1983 The Harder They Come, Am Here Books 1985 Forever Wider, 1954–1984, Scarecrow Press, 1985 Was Poe Afraid?, Bogg Publications, 1990. journals of Lysidia, Synesthesia Press, 1999 Reefer Madness in the Age of Apostasy, Butcher Shop Press 2000. Hand on the Doorknob, Water Row Books, 2000 in Memory of My Father, Cherry Valley Editions, 2003 Cut Here, 12 Gauge Press, 2002 Song for Neal Cassady, 12 Gauge Press, 2002 Bennies From Heaven, 12 Gauge Press, 2002 Rabid Ronnie Rap Back Jive Kansas, 1955, 12 Gauge Press, 2002 Some Mothers' Sons, Cherry Valley Editions, 2004 Neal and Anne on Gough Street, The Beat Scene Press, 2007 News, Glass Eye Books, 2007 Beginning Millenium: No More Vinyl Bush War, Glass Eye Books, 2008 The Lost Poems of Charley Plymell, M Press, 2010 Eat Not Thy Mind, Eye Books Ecstatic Peace Library, 2010 Curricula Me Vita, Glass Eye Books/Ecstatic Peace/Cherry Valley Editions 2011 Animal Light, Verlag Peter Engstler, 2012 Tent Shaker Vortex Voice, Bottle of Smoke Press, 2012 Benzedrine Highway, Kicks Books, 2013 Planet Chernobyl, Verlag Peter Engstler, 2015 Apocalypse Rose, Lenka Lente, 2015 Incognito, Ergo Sum, Ragged Lion Press, 2016 Over the Stage of Kansas: New & Selected Poems 1966-2023, Bottle of Smoke Press, 2024
Discography Rod McKuen Reads in Memory of My Father, Cherry Valley Editions, Vinyl, 1978. Man Overboard, Charles Plymell (Voice), The Clubber Lang Gang, CD, 2012. Blackbird by Andrea Schroeder, "Bebop Blues", Glitterhouse Records, Berlin, 2012 Where The Wild Oceans End by Andrea Schroeder, "The Rattlesnake", Glitterhouse Records, Berlin, 2014 Tamatebako by CUZ, "Sand and Bones", bleeding heart recordings, UK, 2014. Cuz, Mike Watt & Sam Dook, Bad Veronica, Charles Plymell (Voice), UK, 2015. Animal Light, Charles Plymell (Voice), Verlag Peter Engstler, CD, 2015 Planet Chernobyl, Charles Plymell (Voice), Verlag Peter Engstler, Germany, CD, 2015 Void by Andrea Schroeder, "Was Poe Afraid?" Glitterhouse Records, Berlin, 2016 Apocalypse Rose, poem bilingual text; music CD by Bill Nace, Lenka Lente, Nantes, France, 2016. Bloodshot Bill Sings Charles Plymell, Feeding Tube Records and Bottle of Smoke Press, 2017. Apocalypse Rose, Charles Plymell (Voice), Bill Nace (music), openmouthrecords, 2017
Anthologies Mark in Time, New Glide Publications, San Francisco, CA, 1971. And The Roses Race Around Her Name, Stonehill, NYC, 1975. Turpentin on the Rocks, Maro Verlag, Augsburg, W. Germany, 1978. A Quois Bon, Le Soleil Noir, Paris, France, 1978. Planet Detroit, Anthology of Urban Poetry, Detroit, MI, 1983. Second Coming Anthology, Second Coming Press, San Francisco, CA, 1984. The World, Crown Publishers, 1991. Editors' Choice III, The Spirit That Moves Us, New York, 1992. The Age of Koestler, The Spirit of the Wind Press, Kalamazoo, MI, 1990. Found & Lost Magascene, Vol. 1 / No. 0 & 1 [Contributor], Back Room/Temple of Man, 2010
References
External links Cherry Valley Edition Website Charles Plymell, from Kansa, Land of the Wind People, Autobiographical sketch, 12/02 Charley Plymell, from Last of the Moccasins, Vortex excerpt Charles Plymell Collection, Wichita State University Libraries Two Charles Plymell collections (MS 137 in Special Collections and RH MS P760 in the Kansas Collection) are housed at the Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas Charley Plymell portrait by Gerard Malanga, May 2010 Wichita Vortex, KTPS, Documentary, 26 February 2016 Beat Generation Poets & Artists, City Lights bookstore, August 1963, San Francisco; Photograph by Charley Plymell includes Pat Cassidy, Philip Whalen, Robert Branaman, Alan Russo, Ann Buchanan, Bob Kaufman, Allen Ginsberg, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Interviews An outsider’s inside history of the Beat Generation, as told by Charles Plymell by Jon Randall Interview by Catfish McDaris Charles Plymell : The Benzedrine Highway by Paul Hawkins Benzedrine Highway revised especially for RealityStudio, the interview now contains additional material about Plymell and William S. Burroughs by Paul Hawkins Charles Plymell and ‘Now‘, Reality Studio blog Charley Plymell: Zap and S. Clay Wilson