Matson, Clive

Mainline to the Heart and Other Poems

Berkeley, CA: Regent Press, 2009 (1966). First Edition Thus. Softcover. Signed by Clive Matson to Illustrator, Erin Matson. Initially published in 1966, Clive Matson’s (b. 1941) “Mainline to the Heart” objectively enjoys a "Howl-ean" / Ginsberg-ian legacy of its own, as it was seized by British customs in 1968--not altogether different from the objectively similar seizures that "Howl and Other Poems" itself endured. It was eventually released in Britain -- "...a few months later," as the back cover blurb relates, but the authorities did designate the work as "borderline pornographic." Matson's early work was not limited to praise from his notable, historic mentors Diane Di Prima and Herbert Huncke, alone--luminaries such as John Wieners, Cleveland's d.a.levy, and San Francisco's Robert Duncan were likewise quick to notice the burgeoning genius bubbling beneath even Matson's earliest verse. Wieners himself contributes the unabashedly lyrical, though focused Introduction to the work, titled "An Introduction to Clive Matson's Poems sitting with Diane di Prima in the twilight on a country road." Softcover Original/First Edition Thus of this lost classic, despite not being explicated as such on copyright page; the first and only printing of the Regent Press reissue of Matson's debut work. [ISBN: 978-1-58790-139-3]. The copy offered here is a supremely significant association copy, as it is signed by Clive Matson to his former wife and creative collaborator, artist-poet Erin Matson, who illustrated this very volume (the original and the reissue). Clive's inscription-&-signature, in thin black fountain pen ink, reads: "For Erin with Thanks / for the drawings, / provocative and / beautiful all these / years -- with love, / Clive Matson / March 4, 2009." From the collection of Erin Black Matson, the late artist-poet who with her then-husband, the acclaimed poet & educator Clive Matson, were bona fide members of the Beat Generation as it morphed 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. Book in very fine condition with only slightest shelf-wear to fine-edges of front, back covers & spine, else virtually as new. Very Fine. [Item #4796]

Price: $30.00 save 20% $24.00