Crowe, Thomas Rain

The Personified Street, with: Publisher's Ephemera

ISBN: 1883197015
Sylva, NC: New Native Press, 1993. First Printing. Softcover. Containing Ephemera with Inscriptions by Thomas Rain Crowe, the Co-Authorial Founder of the Second San Francisco Renaissance. “I first met Thomas Crowe (the later adopted continental-american name, literally taken from the name Dawson by which he was known to me for four years on the streets of North Beach, S.F. He asked after my work and I directed him to my most 'painterly' of books, Aur Sea. From there, Tom became, for three years, an important part of what was to become and to be known as the Beatitude cadre: traveling to the Folsom Prison Creative Writers Workshop together, the northcoastal headlands, and in and around the S. F. Bay Area on various literary jaunts and missions; he edited the very important 25th issue of Beatitude magazine--the international texts of which are a credit to both the streets of San Francisco and the motherland of revolution in general; and, perhaps most energetically, it was he who virtually single-handedly sustained the "menial" and organizational homework for the Beatitude-City Lights readings, various social and political rallies and readings such as the Proposition 15 benefit (the California referendum initiative concerning nuclear safeguards), and Beatitude books and magazines, and later the S.F. International Poetry Festival of which he was founder and director-coordinator in 1976. Collusions both personal and poetic drove him away from the street and to the land which his Carolina boyhood continually evoked, but his work for the Beatitude group and for the poetry and socio-political community in northern California certainly is not forgotten” (Jack Hirschman [1933-2021]). “Not forgotten,” indeed — as was ‘proven’ (or, put more accurately, ‘further explicated’) by Your Very Own Vice President & President of Third Mind Books (through TMB’s [further referenced below] Starting from San Francisco: Thomas Rain Crowe in Conversation with Third Mind Books) — the first work of Beat literary scholarship in America to recognize the work of the Second San Francisco Renaissance and Baby Beat Generation. These poems, written by Thomas Rain Crowe — (“the co-authorial founder of the Second San Francisco Renaissance,” as he’s come to be known) — during (& slightly beyond) the period Hirschman here refers to were compiled & published by Crowe’s New Native Press in 1993. The result is the book offered here: The Personified Street, published by TRC’s New Native Press in 1993. Since NNP is Crowe’s own imprint, this lot forms both an “Author Copy” & “Publisher Copy,” — and, as such, is further endowed by the presence of several pieces of ephemera that would naturally be retained by an author-publisher. Note: all pieces of ephemera are grouped under a single heading (“[2]” in the condition grading below), but contain the following four elements: [2a], a publisher’s mock-up of the book’s front & back covers; [2b] & [2c], two publisher’s mock-ups of the front cover only, with one featuring the notation (by Crowe, in thin, black pen ink, reading: “Cover for / TRC’s SF poems / pub. 1993); & [2d], the small author photo to which we likewise refer, below. 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: 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. [1]: Trade-format softcover original: “First Edition,” as stated on copyright page; First Printing, though not indicated as such thereon. Book in very fine condition with only minute-to-mild shelf-wear to fine-edges & corners of recto & verso sides; otherwise, clean. [2]: (bundle of publisher’s mock-ups) in equally pristine condition, with one folded at spine-edge (“as issued,” or ‘in the exact same format it was initially sent to Crowe in) & both second and third copies (featuring recto only), as well as the small, square cut-out featuring Crowe’s author photograph also in very fine condition — virtually as new. A capstone Crowe rarity for both the curious and serious Beat/SSFR collector. Very Fine. [Item #7499]

Price: $45.00