[Item #3036] No Sleep Till Gloucester...Searching For Charles Olson. Charles Olson, James [Jed Birmingham.
No Sleep Till Gloucester...Searching For Charles Olson
No Sleep Till Gloucester...Searching For Charles Olson

No Sleep Till Gloucester...Searching For Charles Olson

Coventry, England: Beat Scene Press, March 2017. Limited Edition (#38/125). Stapled Wrappers. Jed Birmingham, perhaps best known for his exceptional site on all things William S. Burroughs, the Mimeograph Revolution and beyond, here has composed a brilliant essay on Charles Olson, the Black Mountain-affiliated mid-century poetic giant (literally and figuratively) and details his trip to the Ralph Maud/Charles Olson Library and his experience at the Charles Olson Memorial Lecture. The lecture the year Birmingham attended was given by Hettie Jones, former wife of LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka. Hettie played an absolutely invaluable role in the formation and publication of YUGEN magazine. Although her ex-husband may have gotten more press for his controversiality (especially later in his career with his increasingly militant stance), Hettie's role in the Mimeo Rev and the role of her close friend Helene Dorn (wife of Ed) have been largely neglected and forgotten save the info revealed in Hettie's exceptional memoir "How I Became Hettie Jones" and the recently released "Love, H: The Letters of Helene Dorn and Hettie Jones." For his part, Kevin Ring (publisher of Beat Scene Press) has made an excellent attempt to bring to light more of these two women's stories, but Hettie in particular has been evasive and challenging to reach--which makes her appearance at the Olson memorial lecture and Birmingham's recollections all the more valuable. As is the case with Birmingham, he serendipitiously ran into a few people at local Gloucester bars who color the story in a way even Birmingham could not have foresaw. He tells the story of these encounters and of his observations of the Maud/Olson library--and what the library tells about Olson and Maud, himself--with the consummate clarity and scholastic specificity that only a Mount Rushmore scholar like Birmingham could. If you are interested in Olson, Ralph Maud, Ted Berrigan, or Hettie Jones, this publication is for you. Book in as new condition. As New. [Item #3036]

Price: $35.00