Poet, publisher Allan Kornblum dies at age 65

When Allan Kornblum arrived in Iowa City in 1970, he already had plans for founding a literary magazine — one he hoped would feature poets every bit as lively as the ones he knew in New York City. Kornblum even had picked out the name, Toothpaste — inspired by some 6-foot-tall paintings of toothbrushes that he had seen in an exhibit of Jim Dine’s work at the Whitney Museum.

According to his unpublished memoir, “From Gilgamesh to Gutenberg to Google,” Kornblum quickly met and began collecting work from Iowa City poets such as Darrell Gray, George Mattingly, Dave Morice, Morty Sklar, Patricia Hampl and Jim Moore. And before he knew it, he had enough poetry to crank his first issue of Toothpaste Magazine.

Little did the Actualist poet and future publisher of Coffee House Press — who died Sunday in St. Paul, Minn., at age 65 — know then he had begun a grand artistic journey that would encompass the rest of his life.

“He is a giant in the world of contemporary literature, mainly because of the fantastic job he did with creating this small, underground, publishing industry on his own,” said longtime Iowa City poet Dave Morice.

And it was Kornblum, along with his wife, Cinda, who helped provide a home for the development of Iowa City’s only native poetry movement, the Actualists, which emerged both in opposition to and in dialogue with the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.

“The most appealing thing for me about the Actualists was the democratizing, egalitarian view they took of writing,” John Keyon, executive director of the Iowa City UNESCO City of Literature organization, wrote in an email Monday. “Ultimately, it was about getting writing into the hands of readers, whether through conventional or unconventional means. Kornblum did that from the start with chapbooks, broadsides, pamphlets and readings under the Toothpaste Press banner, and later with his efforts through Coffee House Press in Minneapolis. His was a tireless undertaking, offering a platform to new voices who might not otherwise be heard.”

Cinda Wormley, in fact, had been one of Kornblum’s first customers. The poet had seen her working in a food-stand barrel in front of a taco restaurant. He asked her out after selling her a copy of the magazine, and he married her two years later.

The couple eventually settled into a house in West Branch that had been owned by Kornblum’s mentor, Harry Duncan, and for the next decade, their closed-in-porch pressroom became the new home for the Toothpaste Press. The authors and poets they published included Robert Creeley, William S. Burroughs, Donald Barthelme, Charles Bukowski, Diane Di Prima, John Barth and Margaret Atwood.

“We’d go out there and Allan would be hosting a new writer — new to us, anyway,” Paul Ingram, book buyer for Prairie Lights Books, posted on his Facebook site. “We’d sit around on the floor and someone would hold forth, sometimes they’d be wonderful — other times just earnest. Allan hosted beautifully, and his wonderful wife, Cinda, would beam, delighted to have us all there. Everyone had skills, and Allan would make certain everyone had a chance to show off a bit. No one left without feeling like a poet, an artist, a part of a scene, and Allan would nod, pleased to be the proprietor of this literary pub.”

In 1984, the Kornblums put their West Branch home on the market and moved to the Twin Cities, where they incorporated Coffee House Press as a Minnesota nonprofit. Over the next three decades, that nonprofit has become well-known for its blend of top-notch literary talent and pleasing graphic design. It now stands in good company with other small, literary presses such as Graywolf, Copper Canyon and Milkweed.

“Not only was he a passionate publisher, he related to just about everybody,” said Morty Sklar, an Actualist poet and fellow publisher who now lives in New York City. “Allan was inclusive both in his taste for poetry and for people.”

Kornblum was diagnosed with leukemia in 2006. His webpage on caringbridge.org is filled with remembrances of friends and colleagues, and selections from his memoir are scheduled to be published in a new book on the Actualists being compiled by Sklar, Cinda Kornblum and local writer Joe Michaud.

Reporter Jeff Charis-Carlson can be contacted at 319-887-5435 or jcharisc@press-citizen.com.