Mel Weisburd: Secret Engineer of the Non-Existent City

Abstract

ABSTRACT Recent attention to the literary history of Los Angeles has increasingly recognized the importance of the 1950s poets affiliated with Thomas McGrath. Building on those insights, this article argues that the accomplishments of that circle depended in no small part on the largely unsung efforts of the poet, editor, and environmentalist Mel Weisburd, who was responsible for, among many other things, cofounding and editing the durable little magazine known as Coastlines. A collection of Weisburd’s papers and audio recordings, only recently made available at California State University, Los Angeles, well illustrates the contributions of this complicated figure whose double life—environmental warrior by day, poet by night—sited him at two twinned nubs from which the cultural identity of modern Los Angeles would grow. Study of this collection helps to decenter a literary community often seen as anchored by the literary celebrity of singular figures such as McGrath and exposes the more complex and collective dynamics of literary productivity that prevailed in the so-called “non-existent city” of mid-century Los Angeles.