[Item #3666] Old Man Rubbing His Eyes. Robert Bly.
Old Man Rubbing His Eyes
Old Man Rubbing His Eyes
Old Man Rubbing His Eyes

Old Man Rubbing His Eyes

ISBN: 0877750343
Greensboro, NC: Unicorn Press, 1975. Second Edition, First Edition Thus. Softcover. Inscribed & signed by Robert Bly to Thomas Rain Crowe on the Occasion of the legendary First San Francisco Poetry Festival in 1976. "All day wind had called me,/ oceans, a yellow line streaking/ across the sky,/ bones thrown out of graves." ("Sitting in Fall Grass," first stanza, pg. 19) A collection of poems by Robert Bly, the great canonical American poet. Opposite each poem is a reproduction of an exquisite, untitled pencil drawing by Franz Allbert Richter. As noted in colophon, this is the second edition produced in September 1975 by the venerable Unicorn Press. We have seen references to a limited hardcover edition that preceded this earlier the same year; & believe this is therefore a first edition thus. Interestingly, the title page refers to the year 1975, while the year indicated on copyright page is 1974. Trade-format softcover in sewn binding. On blank front endpaper, Bly has hand-written & signed: "For Tom Dawson/ As a memento of the/ First Annual San Francisco/ Poetry Festival. / please do/ many more!/ When I write of moral things/ the clouds boil/ blackly-.-./ Yours/ (signed) Robert Bly/ Nov(ember) 30, 76." "Tom Dawson" is Thomas Rain Crowe, the acclaimed poet & publisher whose given birth name was Thomas Dawson. Crowe was at the center of the Baby Beat Generation/ Second San Francisco Renaissance during the 1970s, & at this time & place he was a major impresario who organized the first San Francisco Poetry Festival earlier that year (1976) at which Bly read, & which he refers to in this inscription. See our book, Starting from San Francisco: Thomas Rain Crowe in Conversation With Third Mind Books (item No. 3071, Deluxe Edition No. 3075), in which the Festival is discussed at length by Crowe among many other topics. The three lines beginning with "When I write..." in Bly's inscription are a manuscript of part of the second stanza of the poem "Writing Again" on page 15 of this volume. An extraordinary Bly collectible with the most significant association & provenance. In fine condition with mild rubbing & browning to front, back covers & spine; mild wear & a few tiny bumps, short creases at edges & corners of same; one very short, closed vertical tear at upper left edge of back cover; mild rubbing & spotting to edges of text block. Interior very fine with only tiny bumps at corners of some page leaves. Fine. [Item #3666]

Price: $100.00

See all items in Poetry, San Francisco Renaissance
See all items by