Maskaleris, Thanasis

Poems & Translations with: Ephemera

San Francisco, CA: Kayak: A Magazine of Modern Poetry, 1969. Limited First Edition. Softcover. "My body is stretched across the Atlantic-/ my feet buried in the oak forests of Pan,/ my arms frozen in the air of aluminum spirits./ From the black foam rises a voice of gorgons:/ "Man is dead. His gods have killed him..."/ (they were the female surplus of war, thrown into/ the sea to dream of killed men turning to dolphins.)" ("Chronicle," first stanza, pg. 10) a collection of original & translated poems by Thanasis Maskaleris (1930-2017), the esteemed Greek-American poet, translator & academician. With Maskaleris' own poems in English, full of classical Greek Mythological references as above; & those of acclaimed Greek poets including Konstantine Kavafis (a/k/a C.P. Cavafy) translated by him into English. With illustrations on front cover & throughout by Koney Kim Eng. From the collection of Erin Black Matson, the late artist-poet who, along with her then-husband the acclaimed poet & educator Clive Matson, was a member of the Beat Generation- morphing into the hippie counterculture during the 1960s. The Matsons were colleagues & protégés (in lifestyle as much as literature) of Herbert Huncke, Bonnie Bremser et al. We have found some interesting pieces of Erin-phemera (so to speak) & left them between the pages where they have loosely rested for many decades (pgs. 22-23, 32-33), as perhaps these pages were of particular interest to her: Two empty folded sheets, one lined & one blank, & a postcard-note postmarked December 15, 1971, with an affectionate note addressed to Erin from "Love/ M.P." in brown felt-tip cursive writing regarding the obtainment of a loom & discussion of thread types. A most interesting & desirable Maskaleris collectible with distinguished contemporary provenance & ephemera. In relatively good-to-near-fine condition as befits its long ownership & use by Erin, who was a tried-&-true Beat-Bohemian to the end: Mild-to-moderate rubbing, browning & occasional spotting/ spot-staining to front, back covers & spine; mild wear & some tiny bumps, creases at edges & corners of same; upper & esp. lower right edges & corners of spine with mostly closed tears incl. slight loss of paper; creasing across spine; one very small green-ink mark at blank area between author & title at same; moderate rubbing, browning & spotting to edges of text block. Interior near-fine with a hint of browning mostly to blank margins of page leaves; mild spotting at mostly blank surfaces of a few of same; very small creases, tiny bumps at corners of some of same; "spine-cracking" loosening of a few leaves, esp. pgs. 31-34, but binding intact with no fully-loose leaves. Postcard ephemera near-fine with several spots, spot-stains on both sides not substantially effecting legibility; mild wear & a few tiny bumps, creases at edges & corners. Good- Near Fine. [Item #4778]

Price: $20.00 save 20% $16.00