Various (Menebroker, Ann (Editor); Odam, Joyce (Editor); Crews, Judson; Winans, A.D. et al.

Wine Rings Vol. 1 No. 2 (1975)

Sacramento, CA: Wine Rings Magazine, 1975. First Edition. Stapled Sheets. "All that blue. / All that breakable personage. / Her right shoulder / caught by the post office cancellation. All of us stamped somewhere along the way, / postage due” (“Emily Dickinson Poses on a Blue Postcard,” by Ann Menebroker [1936-2016]). Offered here is Volume 1, Issue No. 2 of the hilariously titled Wine Rings magazine: a scarce, short-lived addition to the Second San Francisco Renaissance gestalt. Approximately two years before this issue of Wine Rings first appeared, Ann Menebroker somewhat eponymously featured in an anthology titled Six Poets. This anthology, published in 1973 by John Bennett’s (b. 1938) Vagabond Press, notably featured portraits of each poet by Charles Bukowski (1920-1994). Of the six, Bukowski took special interest in Menebroker and her verse: even going as far as to dedicate a book of his short stories, South of No North, to the Sacramento, CA-based poetess that same year. While little-to-no information is available on most of Wine Rings’ contributors, we find the fact that this magazine was both published by, & teeming with women writers from Sacramento to be worth pausing on for a moment. These aren’t Brian Wilson’s “California Girls,” — they’re Joan Didion’s (1934-2021). Admirers of Didion’s Slouching Towards Bethlehem may remember the opening essay of that work’s third section, “Notes from a Native Daughter” (1965). In it, Sacramento sits at the essay’s topical center; & the strange imprint it leaves on its daughters, is ruminated upon. The psychological impact of the Santa Ana winds, for example, is discussed. Most of the women writers from Sacramento published in Wine Rings were either direct contemporaries of Didion or slightly younger, — and yet we’re not aware of any scholarship existing that links (stylistically or otherwise) Didion’s essay of 1965 to the “Sacramento Girls” mentioned here (Menebroker; and also, Joyce Odam, the co-editor, along with Menebroker, of Wine Rings magazine). Lastly, we’ll note the presence of San Francisco stalwart, A.D. Winans [b. 1936], a direct contemporary of Menebroker & the poet-publisher behind Second Coming Press; and the enigmatic Judson Crews (1917-2010). Crews published under pseudonyms frequently, and many in his circle believed that “Mason Jordan Mason”—a frequently-published and anthologized African-American poet of the 1950s and 60s, was another of Crews’ literary hijinks. If true, it’s Crews’ most wild & successful ruse — because “Mason Jordan Mason” was recognized in writing by both LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka (1934-2014), & the great Harlem Renaissance master, Langston Hughes (1901-1967). Winans appears with a playful, short, imaginative poem titled “For Jill,” and Crews with an even shorter untitled poem that reads: “Where / It’s put / together; / that’s / Where / it’s / likely / to come a- / part.” Demonstrably unique within the larger context of the Second San Francisco Renaissance publications, Wine Rings is an odd desert flower of the Mimeo Rev’s second act, and a first-rate Menebroker collectible. 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. Literary magazine in stapled sheets: the first and only printing of this issue (Vol. 1, No. 2) of Wine Rings. In Fair-Good condition with minute-to-enunciated shelf-wear to fine-edges & corners of front, back covers & spine-edge; some light bumping, related bump-creasing, & a few exhibits of generally mild-to-enunciated staining at two places (topmost fine-edge; bottommost fine-edge) of recto side; related manifestations of age-toning (yellowing, foxing, & variations similar) alternately present throughout; contained light rusting (as well as some light bleeding) to staples at exterior & interior; lastly, there are various small, since-flattened creases throughout the magazine, & a since-flattened vertical crease running through the length of front cover at center-middle; otherwise, generally clean. Fair-Good. [Item #7668]

Price: $125.00