ROOF XI – 50th Anniversary

From the Preface

"For 10 issues (1976-79), Roof magazine published anthologies of new writing. Roof XI celebrates those issues with a collection of current work by some of the writers it published. Looking to the future we have also included some new Roof authors. On the back cover of this 50th anniversary issue, there’s a complete listing of all authors in Roof magazine.

Fifty years ago, at Naropa Institute in the summer of 1976, Tom Savage and I started Roof magazine with political support from Allen Ginsberg and Anne Waldman: Issues 1-3 were co-edited with Savage, issues 3-5 with Vicky Hudspith, and issues 6-10 with Michael Gottlieb. You can see the full list of contributors on the back cover. Lee Sherry designed Roof’s iconic covers, and Deborah Thomas has echoed that design in this current Roof XI anniversary issue.

As the selections of each poet’s work increased in length, the magazine grew until I decided that the longer works implied that we publish books by these authors. So I began Roof Books (roofbooks.com), currently publishing six titles a year from the range of avant-garde, experimental and exploratory writing strategies that have emerged since the 1970s including Language Writing, New Narrative, Flarf, Conceptual Writing, and Ecological Poetry and Poetics.

To fund the publications, I began The Segue Foundation, Inc. in 1977 as a tax-exempt organization that continues to support Roof Books, the Segue Reading Series, Poetry Hell, Inter Poets Theater and other projects (seguefoundation.com)."

– James Sherry 2026

Contributors:

Will Alexander, Bruce Andrews, Rae Armantrout, Steve Benson, Charles Bernstein, Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, Sol Cabrini, Lonely Christopher, Cody-Rose Clevidence, Clark Coolidge, Alan Davies, Michael Gottlieb, Robert Grenier, Carla Harryman, erica kaufman, Michael Lally, Ann Lauterbach, Douglas Messerli, Charles North, Jena Osman, Bob Perelman, Nick Piombino, Kit Robinson, Phyllis Rosenzweig, James Sherry, Ron Silliman, Brian Kim Stefans, Anne Waldman, Rosmarie Waldrop, Diane Ward, Barrett Watten, Bernard Welt, John Yau, Kamelya Omayma Youssef, Amie Zimmerman

This is a limited edition of 200 copies, each copy is numbered.

Readings & fundraising events for Roof XI take place on December 5th and December 12th at Artists Space, NYC.

Live events @ Artists Space: 11 Cortlandt Alley NYC
Zoom ID: 893 9594 7519 – Launch Zoom Webinar