Various (Blackburn, Paul; Bukowski, Charles; Burroughs Jr., William S.; Cherkovski, Neeli; Crowe, Thomas Rain; Daughtry, Philip; Di Prima, Diane; Ferlinghetti, Lawrence; Ginsberg, Allen; Hirschman, Jack; Kaufman, Bob; McDonough, Kaye; Meltzer, David; Micheline, Jack; Mueller, Jack; Nicosia, Gerald; Sanders, Ed; Snyder, Gary; Waldman, Anne; Walker, Eric; Wieners, John; Winans, A.D. et al.)

Beatitude: Golden Anniversary (1959-2009)

San Francisco, CA: Latif Harris, 2009. First Edition. Softcover. Signed by Contributor, Gerald Nicosia. “It was 1959, the year of the first ‘Beatitude,’ and I was 18 years old. When I arrived in San Francisco, you could rent a room for 30 dollars a month and eat well on a couple of dollars a day. I could catch a street car or trolley for 15 cents and take a round trip to anywhere in the city. I ended up living in a room at 444 Columbus, in the heart of North Beach,” writes Lateef Harris, the contemplative editor-compiler responsible for this buffet of poesy, this transcendent omnibus of “West Coast Rhythms.” There are, if I’ve counted correctly, 160 contributors — yes, you read that right — to the “Golden Anniversary” issue-anthology whose origins may seem curious, even "unauthorized." “Why on earth would one think such a thing, Mr. Curator?” Gather round, and I’ll tell you. Yes, it's true the city of San Francisco is--to the history of Beatitude Magazine, and the development of mid-century American literature, writ large—categorically inseparable. To the short-lived, founding tenure of the Magazine — "Beatitude" as published by Bob Kaufman— the "Golden Anthology" could not be more different. Why, then, are 160 poets included here? Who's idea was that? Lateef's reasoning follows a thread something like this: because many of the poets here anthologized learned directly or tangentially from that first generation of San Francisco Renaissance poets [that together comprised the 'roster' of the early Beatitudes. The "Golden Anniversary" omnibus-anthology is made valuable not by a scholarly collation of fragments as they initially appeared in those cardinal, groundbreaking issues from the late 1950s. The claim it makes, instead, is one that makes the Golden Anniversary more of a massive family reunion than an anthology in conventional terms. "There are still saints who tending the ancient flame," the placement of poets still living beside the magazine's true founder seems to say, -- and WE are those dudes." More than anything else, then, this book is a testament to the Beat Generation’s sociocultural persistence, and the maintenance of the movement as represented by the comings and goings of literary California, in totality. The BGA is further endowed by its having been signed by Gerry Nicosia, a major American literary biographer (and contributor to this volume) who enjoys a third-order specialization of being quite literally among the last of an endangered breed. The "breed" of which I speak is the now wildly short list of Beat biographer-historians whose books enjoyed the approval of their subjects, the essence of whose very lives, after all, these biographers sought to relay. The example first to the minds of Burroughsians, in this regard, might be WSB's resounding approval of Nicosia’s biography of Kerouac, “Memory Babe." At any rate, Nicosia delightfully inscribed & signed this copy, prospective future owners of this girthy omnibus will be correspondingly delighted to find. Nicosia signature, in thin, black pen ink, reads: “For Sue Fox — / my new friend in / TEXAS! / See my section / pp. 291-293 / Best always, / Gerry Nicosia / Corte Madeira, CAL / Sept. 26, 2020.” In very fine condition with only slightest shelf-wear to fine-edges & corners of front, back covers; otherwise, pristine. An extra handling charge will be added for shipping due to the weight of this item. Near Fine. [Item #5322]

Price: $30.00