Chilled Green – Signed by Charles Bukowski (1970)

Published in 1970, Chilled Green was printed by Alternative Press in Detroit back in 1970.

Signed by Charles Bukowski, the broadside features a short Charles Bukowski poem.

Although there was no signed edition, you’ll occasionally see one show up on the market.

This is 1 of only 400 that were printed. It measures 4” x 6.5”, the size of a postcard – because that’s what it is.

It has a Marbled bottom edge, a little of which bleeds to the blank portion on back. There were many different versions of the marbled portion, with a few completely marbled.

This copy is in Fine condition

Alternative Press was founded by Detroit natives Ken and Ann Mikolowski. In the late 1960s they become part of the artistic community that was centered in the Cass Corridor in Detroit. They purchased a letterpress and began to experiment in the basement of their house.

The following is an excerpt from an essay by Ken Mikolowski in 2017 that provides some insight on what led to the creation of the postcard.

“The Alternative Press began its thirty-year run in a Detroit inner city basement in 1969. Ann Mikolowski, an artist, and myself, a poet, were the recent purchasers of a 1904 Chandler & Price hand-set letterpress. We had never printed before. For us it was the cheapest, but not easiest, way to publish the work of our friends, the poets and artists of Detroit. We provided the labor and all that needed to be bought was paper and ink. But the 1,500-pound press was an intimidating presence and demanded we quickly get up to speed...

After more than a bit of trial and plenty of error we established our functional format of broadsides, postcards, bookmarks, and bumper stickers.

Until, one day, we upped the ante. We found an easy answer to our printing labors: we turned artists and poets loose with 500 blank postcards each, to do with as they pleased. Each card was handmade and unique, no two alike: poems, paintings, collages, photographs, even metal works and ceramics. Everyone brought whatever they had and gave everything they had.”

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