Bly, Robert

The Teeth-Mother Naked At Last

San Francisco, CA: City Lights Books, 1970. First Printing. Softcover. Signed with drawing by Robert Bly. "In 1966 Robert Bly and David Ray founded AMERICAN WRITERS AGAINST THE VIETNAM WAR, which organized the first series of "read-ins" against the war, in which most of the poets in the country took part. Last spring he read this long poem, then unfinished, at various halls across the country, in which he and Ed Sanders, Robert Creeley, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Allen Ginsberg and others read together in benefit readings put together for the Resistance." (from back cover) Among the most circulated & influential poems of the countercultural anti-Vietnam War movement during the later 1960s- early 1970s, by the great American Master Poet Robert Bly, still with us & active at age 92 as of this writing. This is the first complete edition, published by Lawrence Ferllinghetti's City Lights Books as Number Twenty-Six in its iconic Pocket Poets Series. First printing from an edition of 5000 published in September 1970, with blue-&-white cover & no reference to subsequent printings (Cook, No. 84, pg. 90). On the title page, Bly has hand-written his signature below his printed name, connected to & surrounded by a hand-drawing of a dragon-genie-like figure (the "Teeth Mother" herself?) that encompasses most of the page, all in light blue ink. With (characteristically overwrought) complimentary blurb by Kenneth Rexroth on back cover. A tour-de-force whose disturbing power & relevance has not abated over half a century; & a key collectible in the Bly as well as classic protest canons, especially with the poet's bold signature-drawing. In fine condition with only moderate rubbing, browning & a few small stains to front, back covers & spine; mild wear & a few tiny bumps at edges & corners of same; a few tiny spots with loss of paper in blank blue area of front cover illustration; mild rubbing, browning & occasional spotting to edges of text block. Interior with thick card stock mostly very fine with only slight loosening-creasing of inner binding between pages 16-17; small, light spots in mostly blank areas of a few pages; tiny bumps at corners of some page leaves. Fine. [Item #3310]

Price: $100.00