The Executioner's Song
Mailer's poem in Ed Sanders's Fuck You/A Magazine of the Arts no. 5 (September 1964) — the issue is 83 pages, reproduced typescript on sheets of various colors, unbound, stapled. Edited by Ed Sanders (founder of The Fugs, described in 68.8); contains poems by Allen Ginsberg, Robert Creeley, William Burroughs, Charles Olson, Michael McClure, Judith Malina, Gary Snyder, and several others. Mailer later used the poem's title for chapter 15 of The Fight (75.12), and for The Executioner's Song (79.14). Reprinted in Cannibals and Christians (66.11; with slight changes and mistitled 'The Executioners' in acknowledgments).
“The Executioner’s Song.” Fuck You/A Magazine of the Arts 7 (no. 5), September [23–25] 1964. Poem.
The magazine — 83 pages, reproduced typescript on sheets of various colors, unbound, stapled — is edited by Ed Sanders (founder of The Fugs, described in The Armies of the Night, 68.8). The September 1964 no. 5 issue contains poems by Allen Ginsberg, Robert Creeley, William Burroughs, Charles Olson, Michael McClure, Judith Malina, Gary Snyder, and several others.
Title genealogy
Mailer later used the poem’s title for:
- Chapter 15 of The Fight (1975, 75.12) — Mailer’s account of the Ali–Foreman Rumble in the Jungle.
- The Executioner’s Song (1979, 79.14) — Mailer’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book on Gary Gilmore.
This 1964 Fuck You poem is the lexical origin of one of Mailer’s most famous book titles.
Reprinting
Rpt: Cannibals and Christians (66.11) — with slight changes and mistitled “The Executioners” in acknowledgments.
Related pages
- 1964 | Ed Sanders | The Fight | The Executioner's Song
- The Armies of the Night: History as a Novel, The Novel as History (68.8) | Cannibals and Christians (66.11)