Vangelisti, Paul

Broadside: Elegance for Doda

San Francisco, CA: Malvina Coffee, 1975. First Printing. Single Sheet. “even the sidewalk / discovers your breast / and if you were old / you are young / and if you were lost / you are found / buried tomorrow / in your snapshot of bones / own token of flesh / to the tips of your toes / the mountain crows / the sun shakes / even a tree knows / the moon speaks but once / and like sand flows / through the eyes of the dead” (from “Elegance for Doda”). Offered here is a unique piece of Bay Area local history: Elegance for Doda, a poem by the Los Angeles-based American poet and broadcaster, Paul Vangelisti (b. 1949) regarding Carol Doda (1937-2015), the first topless dancer in the United States. Doda was born in Vallejo, CA and grew up in San Francisco where her talents first emerged. A documentary, titled “Carol Doda Topless at the Condor,” was released in 2023 about the birth of topless dance in San Francisco, and interested Beat-&-Beyonders can learn more about Doda and her legacy there. Vangelisti’s memorializing poem thus provides a glimpse into what Doda meant for the boundary-breaking community of Californians that in the 1960s helped pioneer the Sexual Revolution in this country. 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. In strong near fine condition with only minute-to-moderate age-toning (yellowing, foxing), light bumping, & some vertical creasing to fine-edges & corners of recto & verso sides; & lone, slightly more pronounced bump-crease to bottom left-hand corner of recto/bottom right-hand corner of verso; otherwise, clean. Near Fine. [Item #7622]

Price: $35.00