Various (Antin, David; Duncan, Robert; Eshleman, Clayton; Ginsberg, Allen; Goll, Yvon; Harrison, Jim; Laughlin, James; Milosz, Czeslaw; Olson, Charles; Parra, Nicanor; Paz, Octavio; Pound, Ezra; Rothenberg, Jerome; Rukeyser, Muriel; Schwerner, Armand; Snyder, Gary; Wieners, John; Williams, William Carlos et al.

Stony Brook 1/2 (Fall 1968)

New York, NY: Stony Brook Poetics Foundation, 1968. First Printing. Softcover. Signed by & From the Library of Clayton Eshleman, Award-Winning Poet & Groundbreaking Scholar. A strikingly ambitious journal, STONY BROOK 1/2 is not only a Texas-Sized T-bone Steak of a "little mag," but offers one hell of a roster. We have Beats, badge-donning "New York" poets, Objectivists like Carl Rakosi, categories-unto-themselves like the enigmatic Robert Duncan, Grandfather-Modernist to the Beats William Carlos Williams, light-a-fire-under-your-ass testy poet-scholars like the ever present Ezra Pound and the notoriously cagey Edward Dahlberg--all under the same "roof" of this magazine. A funny thought is the absolute truth that if--in some comic manipulation of space and time--these poets were to ever be housed under the same roof, a barroom brawl of epic proportions would undoubtedly ensue. Stony Brook is "ambitious" because it clearly intends two things: first, to be a Tastemaker. It's intentionally edited to show what the editors (and many of the poets) feel is "good poetry." Second, it places what were then contemporary poets--some in the ascendancy, some already world-famous--right alongside those who had already carved their place in the history books--Pound & Williams come to mind, here. Also with the "first movement" of the poem "The Book of Niemonjima" by Clayton Eshleman, the noted poet, Guggenheim Fellow and groundbreaking scholar of the Prehistoric Cave Paintings of France, among many, many other specialties (pgs. 65-69). First signature is a previous owner's signature in blue felt-pen ink, dated "(?) / NYC / 10/69," coinciding with Eshleman's legendary New York period (take this anecdote: three years earlier, Eshleman slept on Fire Island the same night the accident which resulted in Frank O'Hara's death took place--his distinguished career is filled with such uncanny anecdotes). Eshleman himself has hand-written his signature in black felt-pen ink on the second Contributor page, with signature reading: "Clayton Eshleman." Book in fine condition with minute shelf-wear to fine-edges; modest crease at spine; small spotting at topmost fine-edge of same. Near Fine. [Item #3645]

Price: $25.00