Rothenberg, Jerome

Pre-Faces & Other Writings

ISBN: 0811207854
New York, NY: New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1981. First Edition. Hardcover. "Poets shape their worlds through their poems- & that might in itself seem sufficient means. But the world we share, & our interplay with it, calls again & again for discourse: in the case of poets, the setting forth of a poetics. I have found myself involved with that also...discovering ways suited to my own temperament & to the sense I have that the discourse, like the poetry, must in all events resist rigidity & closure...I've attempted, like other poets so engaged, to create a new & coherent poetics for our time." (from author's "Pre-Face to Pre-Faces," pg. 3) A collection of prose writings over two decades by Jerome Rothenberg, the venerable & prolific poet who "Almost single-handedly founded the interdisciplinary field of "ethnopoetics"- both as the investigation of poetry across the full range of human cultures and its practice in relation to our own." (from front flap) With introductions to major anthologies of his own & many others' poetry across the ages, titled "Pre-Faces"; essays; letters etc. This copy is from the first hardcover edition published by James Laughlin's fabled New Directions imprint. An essential item for the Rothenberg collector-scholar, in its most original form. Book in very fine condition with only a few tiny spots & discolorations at lower edge & right corner of front cover cloth; mild spotting at edges of text block; otherwise virtually mint inside & out. Dust jacket in very fine condition with only the slightest wear at edges & corners; a few short, faint creases & the slightest rubbing to dark surfaces of front, back cover & spine. Very Fine / Very Fine. [Item #3110]

Price: $20.00 save 20% $16.00