Coffee Coffee

Aram Saroyan's "minimal" poems of the 1960s demonstrated a completely unprecedented handling of words-often single words-that combined astounding economy with palpable textural warmth. Untitled poems that read in their entirety "eyeye" and "lobstee" evinced a pleasure in words that everybody could recognize-except Senator Jesse Helms, who publicly objected to Saroyan's poem "lighght" when its author received an NEA award-but which nobody else (except perhaps Gertrude Stein) had quite nailed until Aram Saroyan came along. In every one of Saroyan's page acts, the sound of typewriter keys inscribing blank paper are as audible to the mind's ear as the words themselves. Coffee Coffee was published as a mimeograph edition by Vito Acconci and Bernadette Mayer's 0 To 9 imprint in 1967, and was one of Saroyan's earliest collections, containing such gems as "guarantee," "added" and "rinse." Acconci has since recorded his admiration for these works: "In the late sixties, when I called myself a poet, Aram was the poet I envied."