[Item #4835] The Name Encanyoned River. Clayton Eshleman.
The Name Encanyoned River
The Name Encanyoned River

The Name Encanyoned River

ISBN: 0916258068
n/p (Warwick, RI?): The Woodbine Press, 1977. Limited First Softcover Edition. Softcover. An oblong chapbook containing the single title poem by Clayton Eshleman (1935-2021), the award-winning American poet, editor, translator & academician. We were honored to have Eshleman as our friend & mentor, we enjoyed enlightening conversations with him & his beloved wife Caryl at their home near us in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Highly learned, deep, dense & intense, Eshleman's prolific writings exude what this writer has termed "Blood-Spattered Erudition." As Eshleman explains in an introductory note, this work was inspired by the great Peruvian poet Cesar Vallejo (1892-1938) whose poems he was translating, & this is effectively an elegy to Vallejo in the impassioned Eshleman style. Small oblong chapbook, one of 400 hand-numbered softcover copies per colophon, this is copy No. 324/400. From the collection of Erin Black Matson, the artist-poet who, along with her then-husband the acclaimed poet & educator Clive Matson, was a member of the Beat Generation as it morphed into the hippie counterculture during the 1960s. The Matsons were protégés & colleagues (in lifestyle as well as literature) of Herbert Huncke, Bonnie & Ray Bremser, Diane di Prima et al. We found & have retained, between blank rear endpaper & inner back cover, a Trailways bus schedule for New York State used by Erin "On the Road," so to speak. See also our item No. 2575- a lettered, signed hardcover edition of this volume- & our many other Eshleman rarities, solo & in contribution with many signed, by writing his name into our search engine. A most desirable Eshleman collectible in its near-rarest form & with distinguished provenance. The relatively good-to-near-fine condition of this copy reflects its long ownership & use by Erin, who was a tried-&-true Beat-Bohemian to the end: Moderate rubbing, scratching, occasional spotting & spot-staining to front, back covers & spine; mild wear & some tiny bumps, creases at edges & corners of same; short, mostly closed tear at upper spine, spine-edge & corners with minimal loss of paper; moderate rubbing & browning to edges of text block. Interior near-fine with card-size rectangular browning-impression esp. at blank inner front cover, extending decreasingly onto next two blank leaves; small red stains at lower edge of inner back cover; occasional minor rubbing, faint creasing & spotting mostly to blank margins of some page leaves; tiny bumps at corners of some of same. Ephemera fine, larger-sized card printed on both sides with mild rubbing, spotting to one side. Good- Near Fine. [Item #4835]

Price: $20.00

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