Interview with Richard Friedman

I want to thank co-founder and editor of the Yellow Press, Richard Friedman, for allowing me the opportunity to speak with him and giving me insight to his experiences with the Yellow Press and Milk Quarterly.¹

“We would hang out at Ted’s house and he encouraged us to strike out on our own and not wait for a poetry magazine and The New Yorker to accept your work. Just put it out there!”

“Milk Quarterly was a pause on milk and making fun of famous literary journals like The Hudson Review or Amherst Quarterly.”

“Yellow Press, we wanted a pun to the Yellow Press from William Randolph Hearst’s time which was stirring up trouble politically, it’s a beautiful color, but we wanted to be seen as rabble-rousers.”

“We never wanted to make any money for ourselves, we just wanted to put out the work.”

“And because Ted asked them, they would come to town.”

“In our reading series and our book, we really wanted it to be diverse. Whether that men or women, black or white.”

“We started out and we were doing everything mimeograph and ditto, primitive forms of reproduction.”

“We were eager, I don’t know if we were smart or talented, but we were eager.”

(1) Friedman, Richard. Interview. By Ani Benge. 10 Apr. 2019.