Liner, Amon

Marstower

Charlotte, NC: Red Clay Publishers, 1972. First Edition. Stapled Wrappers. The first of only two collections published during the short lifetime of Amon Liner (1940-1976), the North Carolinian true "Poet's Poet" whose name & work live on among kindred poets & aficionados. Divided into three sections, "Auschwitz & Other Artifacts" with ten poems; "Darkside of the Sun" with nineteen poems; & "Boswash" with just that title poem. Liner's style & format varies throughout, from traditional stanzas to prose-poetry to what to us begin to resemble a hybrid between the cut-up writings of William S. Burroughs & the stream-of-consciousness wordplay of James Joyce, as in this passage from "The Children of Ferocity" (pg. 32): "...and the hawks of nightflesh dance through the plateglass chains/ relics of Nieman Marcus Welby's wife's broken pelvis dance through the/ situation riot comedic fishy leap upward through the stratifications/...". Full of intensity, passion & a macabre sensibility, Liner's evocative poems are a tour-de-force. Large-format chapbook style production by the publishing arm of Red Clay Reader, the acclaimed Southern-rooted literary journal for which liner was an editor, & in which some of these poems first appeared as noted on copyright page. Original copies of this first collection are very scarce, we have encountered no others. A foundational collectible in the canon of this inspired & influential poet. In good-to-near-fine condition with moderate-to-more-significant rubbing, scratching & creasing to front, back covers & stapled spine; moderate wear, small bumps & creasing at edges & corners of same; one short, closed horizontal tear at upper right edge of front cover; staples beginning to rust with very slight bleeding to interior; mild rubbing, spotting & browning to edges of text block. Interior fine with only slightest bleeding noted above; small creases at blank upper margins-edges of some page leaves; tiny bumps at corners of a few of same. Good-Near Fine. [Item #3583]

Price: $60.00 save 20% $48.00