Hirschman, Jack

The Bottom Line

ISBN: 0915306735
Williamantic, CT: Curbstone Press, 1988. First Edition. Signed by Jack Hirschman to Thomas Rain Crowe. “The Red Army fears not the trials of the March, / Holding light ten thousand crags and torrents. / The Five Ridges wind like gentle ripples / And the majestic Wumeng roll by, globules of clay. / Warm the steep cliffs lapped by the waters of Golden Sand, / Cold the iron chains spanning tha Tatu River. / Minshan’s thousand li of snow joyously crossed, / The three Armies march on, each face glowing.”--Mao Zedong, “The Long March,” Mao Zedong Poems, pg 19. There are few writers who, over the course of their lives, have been as in-touch with and contributed to a scene as much as Jack Hirschman (1933–2021). Hirschman was a New York-born poet and activist who wrote more than 100 volumes of poetry and essays that exemplified the “fuck you” attitude of the Beat Generation; his poetic predecessors. Hirschman earned degrees from City College of New York and Indiana University, where he studied comparative literature. After attaining his degree, he went on to become a wildly innovative and popular professor at UCLA in the 1970s, before he was fired for participating in anti-war protest and speaking out against American imperialism in Vietnam. Hirschman lived in California ever since, making an artistic and political home in the North Beach district of San Francisco. He is known for his radical engagement with both poetry and politics: he was a member of the Union of Street Poets, a group that distributed leaflets of poems to people on the streets. He was also instrumental in the formation of the Union of Left Writers of San Francisco. The former poet laureate of San Francisco, Hirschman’s style was compared to poets ranging from Walt Whitman (1819-1892) to Hart Crane (1899-1932) to Dylan Thomas (1914-1953), and Beat poets such as Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997). His poems’ commitment to leftist politics draws comparisons to Vachel Lindsay (1879-1931) and Pablo Neruda (1904-1973). A communist since 1980, Hirschman told Contemporary Authors, “It is vitally important at this time that all poets and artists collectivize and form strong socialist cadres in relation to working-class cultural internationalism.” Offered today is the 1988 collection of poetry The Bottom Line, a compilation of some of Hirschman’s most important poetic works. The Bottom Line spans 25 years of Hirschman’s poetic career, in one landmark volume. Sharp, concise, unabashedly political, and continuously analysing and vivisecting the contradictions of society The Bottom Line is passionate, tender, witty, and dripping with pathos. Signed by Jack Hirschman in thick black ink at first paste-down page an inscription reads: “For Tom Tungjatjeta! Long Life! [indiscernible cyrillic] Always a comrade! Jack.” 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 #3071) & the catalog for the Crowe archive (see item #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. Softcover. First edition as stated at copyright page, presumed first printing though not explicated as such thereon. In very fine condition with only the slighted wear to fine edges and minimal smudging to front and back covers. Very Fine. [Item #7434]

Price: $200.00