A rare exhibition of nearly half a century of Ed Sanders’ glyph-poems produced between 1962 and 2009 will be on display at The Arm in Williamsburg from July 10 through July 31. An opening reception will be held on July 10th from 6PM.

Building on a long history of utilising a highly visible language that continues into the present, Sanders’s glyph-poems fuse image with text, and image as text. Political, personal, ephemeral, historical, uncanny, and humorous— the glyph-poems on display at The Arm appear in several different mediums, including original drawings, collages, mimeographed pages from Fuck You/ A Magazine of the Arts (1962-’65), plus a number of collages, and an artist’s book. Over 200 Glyph-works will be featured in the show.

In addition, Glyphs 1962-2009 will feature new letterpress prints and a limited edition catalogue produced on location at The Arm.

Edward Sanders is a poet, historian and musician. He is at work, since 1998, on a 9-volume America, a History in Verse. The first five volumes, tracing the history of the 20th century, have been completed and published in a fully indexed CD format, over 2,000 pages in length, by Blake Route Press.

Another recent writing project is Poems for New Orleans, a book and CD on the history of that great city, and its tribulations during and after hurricane Katrina. He has been granted a Guggenheim fellowship in poetry, a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship in verse, an American Book Award for his collected poems, and other awards for his writing.

Other books in print include Tales of Beatnik Glory (4 volumes published in a single edition), 1968, a History in Verse; The Poetry and Life of Allen Ginsberg, The Family, a history of the Charles Manson murder group, and Chekhov, a biography in verse of Anton Chekhov. Sanders was the founder of the satiric folk/rock group, The Fugs, which has released many albums and CDs during its 45 year history.

The Fugs have recently completed a CD, Be Free, The Fugs Final CD (Part I), featuring 14 new tunes. Be Free will be released in late summer.

Two of Sanders’ books, The Family and Tales of Beatnik Glory, are under option to be made into movies.

His selected poems, 1986-2008, Let’s Not Keep Fighting the Trojan War will be published by Coffee House Press in the fall of 2009.

He lives in Woodstock, New York with his wife, the essayist and painter Miriam Sanders, and both are active in environmental and other social issues.

Sanders will perform a section of America, the 17th Century, tracing the voyage of Henry Hudson up the Hudson River in 1609, at the Byrdcliffe Art Colony in Woodstock on August 8, as part of the 400th anniversary celebration of Hudson’s discoveries.