Various (Ferlinghetti, Lawrence (Editor); McClure, Michael (Editor); Meltzer, David (Editor); Snyder, Gary (Editor); Creeley, Robert; Ginsberg, Allen; Kerouac, Jack; Waldman, Anne et al.)

The CoEvolution Quarterly No. 19, Fall 1978 (Journal for the Protection of All Beings)

San Francisco, CA: City Lights Books & The CoEvolution Quarterly, 1978. First Printing. Softcover. (Morgan C397, p. 212). “My approach to this issue was more fixated on real politik. If we are not to be forced to live in outer space, it seemed to me urgent that our military-industrial perplex in both its capitalist and Communist forms be dismantled. Not many took me seriously. What we have here (with some great exceptions) is somewhat visionary, vaguely revolutionary, certainly not very insurgent. In this revisionist decade Revolution in America has dropped its R. We have ‘evolved,’ and this is an exciting issue” (Lawrence Ferlinghetti, from this issue’s four-part, multi-author ‘Introduction’). Co-edited by Lawrence Ferlinghetti (1919-2021), Gary Snyder (b. 1930), Michael McClure (1932-2020) & David Meltzer (1937-2016), this issue of the CoEvolution Quarterly comprises essentially an issue-long San Francisco Renaissance “takeover” of Stewart Brand’s (b. 1938) CoEvolution Quarterly, an offshoot of the Whole Earth Catalog (WEC), an American counterculture magazine that began in 1968 & ran with varying regularity till 1998. Primarily focused on ecology, alternative education, and matters similar, its early readers included Apple co-founder, Steve Jobs, who once called it “a sort of Google in paperback form, before Google came along.” This issue of the Quarterly is essentially half-takeover, half-redux — with the “redux” portion referring, of course, to the Journal for the Protection of All Beings, a legendary publication issued by City Lights Books at the dawn of the Sixties. In essence, it was a very early bridge from the Beats to the later counterculture of the 1960s. Its presentation of political/existential themes alongside City Lights’ usual quotient of groundbreaking “New American Poetry” (of the Beat-&-SFR persuasion[s]) was prophetic, as it were. It spoke directly to concerns that would occupy the decade, and did so at its dawn. Four contributors to the original issue of 1960 — Ferlinghetti; Snyder; McClure; & Meltzer — here align forces, editorially, and attempt to refashion (it to better address the American political climate of the 1970s). The ambitious offering spans 144 pages, so you can bet the editorial imprimatur of each aforementioned co-editors is on full display, here. While it’s impossible to list the contents in full in the body of this curation, here are a few exemplary selections: along with work by the editors, also featured is Ishmael Reed (from “The Final Appeal”); Bertholt Brecht (from “To Later Generations”); Henry David Thoreau (“Salmon Brook”); Vachel Lindsay (from “The Gospel of Beauty”); Antonin Artaud (from “Last Texts”); Robert Creeley (“Desultory Days”); Peter Orlovsky (“America, Give a Shit!”) & much, much more. To the best of our knowledge, no scholar has yet to really examine this magazine and make sense of it in a piece of Beat scholarship, so it’s really a great opportunity for anyone looking to write on something like that (as well as an anthological goldmine for the Beat-reader or enthusiast, generally speaking). You really can’t go wrong, here: as there’s something for everyone in a [Mid-Century American] literary buffet like this! From the collection 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: Thomas Rain Crowe in Conversation with Third Mind Books (Item No. 3071) & the catalog for the Crowe archive (Item No. 1010), which contains several excerpts and quotations from the book as well as a full listing of the archive’s contents, which are now being offered for sale individually on the Third Mind Books site. Large, magazine-format perfect-bound softcover, printed economically on newsprint: the First-&-only-Edition of the “Journal for All Beings” redux-takeover of the CoEvolution Quarterly. In strong near fine condition with only slight-to-moderate shelf-wear, age-toning, rubbing & bumping to fine-edges & corners of front, back covers & spine-edge; a few scattered nicks & scuffs to same, otherwise clean. Fine. [Item #7287]

Price: $35.00