I let someone write the letters to the poets I’d chosen for publication. After some discussion I told her I’d give her editorial credit to help with future job searches, provided she gave me her word she would never represent herself as an editor elsewhere. When it became clear she had led one author to believe she had the power of acceptance I stopped giving her the credit.
Prior, she asked me to write her final English paper, edit some poems of hers, and also re-write those I published in one issue, Terraplane. The third time I asked her if she’d read the Fountainhead, and I gave her a lecture on overblown ambition.
At some point I suggested that she prepare to do her work.
She’d also asked me to agree to let her start her own projects using the Annex name and to encourage her I gave her temporary permissions. But directly afterward I rescinded it (see new information below) and she agreed to cease and desist representing herself as Annex Press or using the name, or applying for grants with it. She agreed to find another name and start her own business completely separate. And why was that so difficult, she had a print shop to work in, help from printers, and sufficient funding.
To ensure that she’d break clean I offered her the Annex publications she had in her possession.
Armed with a large number of my publications and a now defunct permission, the appropriation of the Annex Press began.
This path ignored the fact that she’d complained to others about having made the agreement, about having to find her own publishing name to exploit, and had already begun work under a different name.
It ignores the fact that having a valid fiscal-business intertwining stemming from a permission would require an ongoing relationship of some kind, like a mutual bank account which I had access to, and got reports on, like books that were made available for me to inspect at some point, like the necessity of fore warning me if she went after a major grant so that no duplication occurred. Anything short of that, of complete transparence, is the start of a lie. I never heard about the money she made on selling my books after or prior to the agreement to desist, no notice of grants, no offer to let me inspect the books. Since her doings went unreported discovery of what was happening with the Annex name came late and unexpectedly.
She used my publications to obtain a major grant without informing me, and without my permission. News of this grant came from the NEA - "We already granted your publications for another proposal"....thus the authors she printed were drawn into the confusion. She distributed the works I’d given her to cease exploiting the Annex name as if she was Annex- small press distributors believed that she was and refused to do business. She told a friend that she’d been the main editor of Annex. Hearing that confirmed the fact that she was purposely deceiving others.
What sort of person would do this? Wouldn't their sense of pride drive them to do their own editing and art work before asking for funding?
If integrity means nothing, one might be tempted to write the whole matter off, as youthful folly, but the effect was exactly like identity theft : someone using your name, doing some sort of business with it, making it impossible for you to get credit, appropriating – in this case- credit for your work and spending it on themselves.
I knew that something was was going on when I talked to the NEA, I suspected she was making other claims to justify the use of my work, but it was a long time before anyone corroborated it.
Why use the name Annex, names grow on lexicons.
Once you've established a new press name, why go back to play games with someone else's? I thought it would end when her new press got established or when common sense replaced egotism. It did not end.
Instead, I am told it continues to this day. There are a lot of ways to interpret this, but the first one that comes to mind is : continued use is meant to wax seal the past against the future. The bigger the lie the harder to get around it.
It's harder to keep a lie alive than to leave it behind, but not if one lives in the lie and feels naked without it. Imagining you did someone else's work or should have credit for it could be a pleasant form of reverie. Trying to make the dream look real is more likely the stuff of nightmares.
The mistake was to hang out the shingle...the lie is now in plain sight.
c. Kabza 2008
These 3 images show the beginning of an appropriation of Annex Press books . Both Flora Danica and TERRAPLANE were edited by Kabza, without a second editor. The credit was there to assist, not to support an appropriation.
Proof - statements of associates who knew BOTH bergland and Kabza in Ann Arbor in the 1970's, make it clear, Ms. Bergland worked on most of the early Annex magazines, but not as an editor, she wrote letters, and helped in many ways, but not as Editor. The appropriation evident in the Segue catalogue, which was later enlarged upon, made distribution of Annex books impossible in the 80’s. ANNEX works were the larger part of what Bergland turned in to the NEA for a grant (per NEA). My response has been measured, even gentlemanly- up to now, when it is no longer possible to tolerate the lie.
“Holding a flaming stick, I entered the hut where six fingered falsehood lies…” O. Mandelstham ) august, 1931
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letter to an unknown editor, 2017
[….] It took me many years to uncover this [ ongoing use of Annex Press, false claims.]
I had it in pieces, one by one. Though I understood after seeing the Segue 1980 catalogue published on Jacket 2 recently that Bergland obtained her friends authorization and support.
When Bergland / Segue / Bernstein / Aweda listed all my publications as works by her press they listed two items I put her name on as editor to help her get work. She was not an editor of Terraplane, but when listing in Segue 1980 she eliminated my name from the listing. She left hers.
Bernstein ‘edited’ this catalogue so he knew the score. One has to suppose that he inquired about the significant changes and accepted them.
****
In the late 1970’s I asked Bergland to solicit work for a book from Bruce Andrews.
She handed me his MS. of over 100 pages when I arrived in Vermont. I ripped it down to a good pamphlet of high quality work and laid it out, specifying format, paper color, ink color and a cover design (very similar to what was later used. )I wanted to make a small woodcut design in Russian style for the back cover and described it. I left soon after.
Andrew's JEOPARDY got printed as an Awede book without my assent. It was solicited by Annex. She gave me no credit in the book for editing it. -She never gave Annex’s publication of Keith Waldrop’s translation of Anne-Marie Albiach’s work proper mention inside the book ‘Etat’. A very minor point, but her consistency is important. “Mine, all mine.”
When I told Brita Bergland I’d had enough (she’d begun exhibiting my work in NYC without my permission or knowledge) I asked her to agree to go her own way, start a new press with it, and do her own work… she agreed. I did this because she could not be trusted.
I have 2 very clear proofs (one later on) : I spoke with Bergland twice, (the second time with a friend present who could hear both sides of the conversation) Bergland agreed not to exploit the name Annex Press. She agreed not to pursue grants for Annex materials, work with her own materials do the intellectual work first.
Instead she did a stealth take-over of Annex. James Sherry allowed her lie about existing credits, and Bernstein, unfortunately, same deal. Neither contacted to ask permission or seek corrections from me.
(Years later Bergland’s friend informed me that Brita once explained how she had
wanted to design a small wood cut design for the back cover but hadn't. She also said she had actually done the editing on the Annex books and magazines. To cover herself she uses Annex name as a commercial press in Vermont. This further denigrates.
See these portions of emails on the subject:
Wed. Oct 3, 2007
“BB also told me (sadly) that mean old you wouldn’t let her use the name Annex anymore so she’d agreed to take on a new name ‘Awede’.
Sat. Sep 29, 2007
“The memory of B telling me about the little stamp [on back cover of Jeopardy] that she didn't put on the back of the book is complete with visuals tho mostly the sound of her voice but it took a jar to get it open. Its odd tho that it never worked that way for language, the good memory that is. …”
“ I knew that B was applying for the NEA grant for work that you had done. When I was reading again what you said about g. grass it kind
of floated into my mind, her telling me / talking to me about it.
Although I'm pretty sure that she presented it as her work but that you
wouldn't agree. However I do feel complicit on some level. I think I
could have told you before it happened. But I didn't. I have felt like
I harmed you in some way. Perhaps this is why.”
(name withheld)
---
I had spoken with the NEA in the early 80’s, they informed me in full.
When I told Charles in the early 80’s that I was aware of just one part of Bergland’s doings, he closed off, a total lawyer like shutdown. From which he never recovered.
The lie Bergland set in motion won’t stand scrutiny and there was no one present then to start the reappraisal.
1. I was geographically distant.
2. Her claims tend to reverse the truth, people who’ve swallowed it may be stuck with the lies, but if she actually edited all those books and pamphlets, why was my name there as editor in books she claimed as the work of her press ‘Awede’ in the Segue catalogue? (Her claim apparently based on my lending her credit for two publications.)
3. I had no money for a lawyer.
4. People tend to side with money or (connections to) existing power. Anyone who has ever taken on an existing power, even minor ones, knows the difficulty aka impossibility of setting things straight. Vested interests.
I saw wasting time on her non-productive.
My solution: ‘The lies will eat her up, eventually. I don’t have to bother cauterizing this.’
With a few NEW books I printed I got a round of refusals…”We already deal with Annex Press.”
Both Sherry and Bernstein have led comparatively privileged lives, (like Bergland herself ) and one is at pains to imagine why anyone assisted Brita Bergland in her vendetta of Primitive Accumulation.
Bernstein in particular is a let down in this respect, ethics of : passing credits for Annex Press to his acolyte (I’d once refused a piece of his work) and soon to be publisher of two of his books. Perhaps he supports Ms Bergland, and has accepted the risk of supporting her claim without checking. Bernstein removed the two pages showing the misrepresentation of Annex Press as ‘awede’ from Jacket 2 site. They are a proof, if proof was ever needed. Good that someone archived it. I suggest you can put them back up now, Charles.
* An open site expressed desire to publish this letter. The dissemination would be very wide and would result in scandal. I wonder what the ideal way to treat this, after so many years, after such impressive lies you’d have to impress people not just inform them. Bernstein and Segue / Sherry have contributed, written, edited, are part of the community of writers and artists, but they allowed themselves to be used in an appropriative scam (monetary profit and status.) I pity the perp. She needs to stop use of the Annex Press name. Now aware of how the lie was launched long ago, I’ve added this afterword. -Annex Press.
