21 out of a total of 22 issues published in 19 fascicules (lacking issue no. 10) of the literature and poetry magazine with a varying slate of editors including Mel Weisburd, Gene Frumkin, Bard Dahl, Tom Viertel, Lachlan MacDonald, Robert Eskew, Stanley Kiesel, Alvaro Cardona-Hine, Peter Yates, Alexandra Garrett, Barbara Harris, and Eleanor Edelstein. Octavo (8 x 6 5/8 inches to 9 x 6 inches). Original side-stapled illustrated wrappers. Light wear and soiling, several issues with institutional stamps to front covers, overall excellent. Los Angeles and Santa Monica: Coastlines, 1955-1964. The opening editorial in the first issue of Coastlines introduces the magazine as "the result of a fortunate meeting between these workers, who, having on their hands a collection of poems, had no magazine, and the editors, who, attempting to found a magazine, had no material...The need for Coastlines becomes quite obvious when it is realized that Los Angeles is undergoing a vast social revolution whose shape, although sometimes causing despair, is not yet altogether clear...We are particularly interested in the new writer, the promising writer who has already had his start, and the writer who is maturing, or is discovering for himself new directions. We are interested in works which define the cultural problems of our world and era, as well as those of this region."
Coastlines served as somewhat of the epicenter of the Los Angeles poetry movement and was one of the most influential regional literary magazines of the time. It published the works of numerous noted writers and radical poets of the time, along with several nonfiction and travel articles. Several of the issues carried their own subtitles or focused topics, including "Los Angeles: The Non-Existent City" (no. 14/15), the "Anti-War Issue" (no. 19), and "Final Issue: Los Angeles Writers" (no. 21/22).
Coastlines published works of fiction by Bard Dahl, Gene Frumkin, Rita Mosher, William Norton, Chester Aaron, Curtis Zahn, Robert Eskew, Vahan K. Gregory, George Garrett, Lloyd Zimpel, Lachlan MacDonald, Duane Jones, James Comorthoon, Sylvia Jarrico, J.D. Koerner, Paul Bartlett, David Bunch, Tom Poots, Ramon Sepulveda, Rex Burns, and others.
The issues overflow with poetry from Don Gordon, Gene Frumkin, Tom Viertel, Edwin Rolfe, Bert Meyers, Lawrence Lipton, Naomi Replansky, Curtis Zahn, Mel Weisburd, Henri Coulette, Thomas McGrath, Peter Yates, Vahan K. Gregory, Winfield Townley Scott, Wallace Rena, George Bluestone, Jack Anderson, Bert Meyers, Lori Petri, Harry Hooton, Philip Whalen, Richard Ashman, Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, Stanley Kiesel, Judson Jerome, John Ciardi, Charles Bukowski, Barbara Harris, Helen Sorrells, and many other writers.
A seminal publication from the Los Angeles poetry movement of the 1950s and 1960s.
