I conceived and created Footwork magazine a literary/art publication at Passaic County Community College in 1977 while working there as an adjunct. Don Kommit was the art editor. He drew the front and back covers and his artwork is sprinkled throughout the first issue.
Footwork’s legacy begins with H.L. Menckin, founder/editor of the American Mercury, a powerful voice in American literature where Mencken influenced writers like Sinclair Lewis, F. Scot Fitzgerald, and Theodore Dreiser.
My first Creative Writing teacher was Menckin’s assistant editor, Charles Angoff, 1968 at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Rutherford. Angoff was an excellent teacher who fascinated his students with stories like walking the streets of New York City with John Steinbeck, pointing out buildings where he worked as a bricklayer. Or taking F. Scott Fitzgerald to a hospital to have his stomach pumped for consumption of inordinate amounts of alcohol.
My second teacher and major influence was Jim Klein, whom I met as an adjunct instructor and M. A. candidate at the Rutherford campus in 1975. That same year Klein began Lunch, a seminal literary/art magazine.
I was one of the first contributors to Lunch. Michael O’Brian and Robert Qautrone were also powerful influences. Quatrone edited the magazine for several issues where he featured Manhattan poet Robert LaGuardia and artist Chrstopher St. David (Lester Strous).
In 1977, I become an adjunct instructor at Passaic County Community College, where I decided to start my own magazine. When I asked Klein what to name it, he said “organic, as you go.”
I remembered how he had named Lunch after throwing his lunch bag up in the air while we walked to the cafeteria. So after doing all that is necessary in starting a magazine, I named it Footwork.
Don Kommit, Emily Williams (William Carlos Williams’grand- daughter) and I launched Footwork before the Great Falls of Paterson in May of 1977.
Some of the first edition’s writers include: Jim Klein, Robert and Richard Quatrone (founder of the Passaic Review, through whom I met Allen Ginsberg), assistant editor Maria Gillen, Laura Boss, Pulitzer Prize winner Margeret Coit, and Angela Costa.
I left PCCC in 1977. Maria Gillen took over as editor, changed Footwork’s name to The Paterson Literary Review and built a poetry empire. Laura Boss began Lips magazine and The Laura Boss Foundation. Lunch eventually evolved into The Rutherford Red Wheelbarrow, and I went to the Bronx where I taught for thirty years while writing ten books and recording thirteen CDs of original songs, all available at GeogePereny.com.
After retirement I started Pompton Poets at the Pompton Lakes: Library. We featured Don Kommit, the legendary artist, The Count of Passaic County, in 2017. The Bergen Record featured Don with a front- page story:
THE BEAT GOES ON
Paterson artist Kommit keeps the spirit of Ginsberg, Kerouac alive, by Christopher Maag
George Pereny is a writer, songwriter and musician based in New Jersey. A former English teacher, he shared his expertise with high schools and colleges for more than thirty years, and developed an inovative method for teaching his students — rapping. His decades-long relationship with fellow musician Lou Leo, has resulted in dozens of albums and musical collaborations across the country.
