Kohav, Alexander; Stettner, Irving

Resolutions in Spring

New York, NY: Stroker Magazine, 1977. First Printing. Stapled Wrappers. Signed by Alexander Kohav & Irvin Stettner. "Alexandr [sic] Kohav was the discovery and the translation partner of Jack Hirschman. He showed up in San Francisco in 1975, I think. He and Jack began working on translations of various Russian Futurist poets, as well as translating Kohav's poems into English and some of Jack's poems into Russian. From the time that he appeared at the Trieste Caffe that year, he was a constant participant in what we were doing with "Beatitude" (Magazine) and otherwise. He and Jack did joint bilingual readings in venues all over town and in Berkeley--and Alexandr [sic] appeared at various Beatitude-sponsored readings, including the 1st Annual San Francisco Poetry Festival. His poems and translations also appeared in the pages of "Beatitude Magazine." Kohav was a bona-fide Futurist poet from Moscow and in the tradition of Khlebnikov, Burlyuk, Kamensky, and even Mayakovsky and Pasternak. He himself was a "Baby Futurist," so to speak, who had immigrated to the U.S. to be liberated from the confines of censorship in the Soviet Union and to find literary freedom in the free media environment of the U.S. He added a true international flavor if not gene pool to the whole Bay Area scene and Kohav helped influence younger poets like myself to pursue the art of translation in whatever additional languages we were proficient in." (The Thomas Rain Crowe Archive, pg. 53). This book, Resolutions in Spring is a testament to all the virtues ascribed to Kohav by Crowe and Hirschman, but was published — interestingly enough — by NYC St. Marks Place underground denizen, Irving Stettner (1922-2004) of Stroker Magazine fame. This is unique among Second San Francisco Renaissance publications because there was an explicit anti-NY bent that was almost universally shared among movement participants. This, because they viewed NYC as the home of literary publishing’s corporate moloch — a perfect antonymic, oppositional embodiment to themselves in a very real sense — and the reason why what they were doing in SF was not only necessary but possible. This work contains excerpts of TMB Item No. 7198, Emigroarium: A Roaratory! alongside ink drawings by Stettner, — who also designed the cover — and the resulting formation is a most-Beat Russian Futurist shriek. Dig it! From the archive of Thomas Rain Crowe, the legendary American poet and co-authorial founder of the Second San Francisco Renaissance. For more information on the Thomas Rain Crowe archive (assembled & curated by Third Mind Books), see our book Starting From San Francisco (Item No. 3071) or consult the above -quoted catalog for the Thomas Rain Crowe archive (Item No. 1010) which contains a full listing of the archive’s contents (which are now being offered for sale individually on the Third Mind Books site). Large-format softcover in stapled wrappers with over-wraps: “First Edition with printing [sic] limited to 200 copies,” per copyright page. This printed notation is succeeded by a hand-numbered limitation and both author signatures. The limitation and accompanying signature, in black, medium-bold, felt pen ink, reads: “#39 — Irving Stettner.” Kohav’s signature, in the same black felt pen ink — (though executed in a manner both wider and bolder than Stettner) — reads: “Alex / ander / Kohav.” In Very Good condition with only moderate-to-enunciated shelf-wear, bumping, & mild horizontal, as well as vertical creasing to, at & near fine-edges & corners of front, back covers & spine-edge; age-toning, yellowing & artifacts similar to these occurring throughout in low-impact clusters; minor-to-enunciated exhibits of rusting, bleeding to staples at interior & exterior; some low-impact constellations of rubbing & related wear throughout, though all generally low-impact; otherwise clean. Very Good. [Item #7225]

Price: $45.00