Cummings, E.E.

XLI Poems

New York, NY: The Dial Press, 1925. First Edition. Hardcover. (Firmage A5, p. 11-12). “Picasso / you give us Things / which / bulge:grunting lungs pumped full of sharp thick mind / you make us shrill / presents always / shut in the sumptuous screech of / simplicity / (out of the / black unbunged / Something gushes vaguely a squeak of planes / or / between squeals of / Nothing grabbed with circular shrieking tightness / solid screams whisper.) / Lumberman of The Distinct / your brain’s axe only chops hugest inherent / Trees of Ego, from whose living and biggest / bodies lopped / of every / prettiness / you hew form truly” (“Portraits III, p. 27).” “XLI Poems” is an extremely early offering from the great American Modernist poet, e.e. cummings, whose inimitable sui generis style is equaled perhaps only by Stein in its boundary-breaking, convention-defying aspects. While certainly an acquired taste, cummings, taken wholistically is a tour de force: his poetics are bound together by an undying will to innovate; he composes “wild, undisciplined, pure, coming in from under, crazier the better,” as Kerouac might say. The work in “XLI Poems” is one early testament to this, and its five parts (“Songs I-XII”; “Chansons Innocentes”; “Portraits”; and “Sonnets”) concertize delightfully. Hardcover without the virtually unobtainable dust-jacket: first edition (“Copyright 1925 / by E. E. Cummings” with Jacobs Polytpe Press of New York printer’s notation) as indicated on copyright page. From the collection of Stanley Hurwick Levy (1926-2020) — legendarily precocious Princetonian (where he walked and talked and studied with the likes of Albert Einstein, among others) — before embarking upon a prodigious, near mythic seventy-year career as a practicing physician, during which he collected prolifically. In strong near fine condition with only minor-to-moderate shelf-wear, bumping, rubbing to front, back covers & spine-edge; slightly more enunciated bump-crease to bottom right-hand corner of front cover; understandable age-toning to pages of this nearly 100-year-old book, else generally pristine. Near Fine. [Item #6115]

Price: $150.00