Blue Cloud, Peter

Autograph Letter to Thomas Rain Crowe on Akwesasne Notes Letterhead Stationary

Roosevelt Town, NY: n/p, 1984. Original Manuscript. Inscribed & signed by Peter Blue Cloud to Thomas Rain Crowe. “Peter was of Iroquois Native American descent, of the Beat-era generation, and was a descendant of a tribe in Southern Canada. He was living up on the San Juan Ridge in the community surrounding Gary Snyder and the Kuksu group of poets. He had married a younger woman who was part of that community and they had two children. I got to know Peter quite well as we worked side by side for a number of months building a house on the property on which I was living at the time. Peter was a serious student of American literature and an accomplished poet. I would consider him an original–with regard to both style and content. He was one of the earliest Native American poets to have their work published alongside the other literary dignitaries of the day. His work was particularly embraced by Snyder and Ferlinghetti and was published in more than one City Lights Anthology. I especially enjoyed Peter’s sense of irony and humor in his poems and personal demeanor. Like many of the Beats, he was an experimenter with style, format, and turns of phrase. He would certainly have to be considered one of the most important Native American poets of the last seventy-five years, if not one of the more important American poets in general from this time period.”--Thomas Rain Crowe, Thomas Rain Crowe Archive, pg 9. Peter Blue Cloud (1933-2011) was a Canadian-American poet and folklorist of Kahnawakeronon (Turtle clan of the Mohawk Nation) descent. Immersed, and deeply interested in/concerned with his First Nation heritage, Blue Cloud’s work was very concerned about pantribal awareness and indigenous rights, and his work stood as a symbol of Native rights in opposition to European colonization. Blue Cloud was as prolific as he was accomplished, some of his works include; “Sketches in Winter, With Crows” (1984); “Clans of Many Nations” (1969-1994), “Back Then Tomorrow” (1978) which won the American Book Award in 1981, and “Elderberry Flute Song” (1982) just to name a few. Offered today is a unique rarity, Original Letter to Thomas Rain Crowe on Mohawk Nation Letterhead (c. 1984). This handwritten letter from Blue Cloud to Thomas Rain Crowe (b. 1949), his close friend and fellow Second San Francisco Renaissance/Baby Beat Generation contemporary, seems to be a brief check-in to keep TRC updated on the immediate goings-on in Blue Cloud’s life. Written in thin black ink the letter reads: “Tom, / Yeah, home after many yrs. / My new book Sketches of Winter only available thru Strawberry Press. / No poetry, boxes still in storage maybe send something in winter. / 2 newspapers, a lit. journal & etc. Lots of work / Peter.” From the archive of Thomas Rain Crowe (b. 1949), scholar, writer and co-founding member of the Baby Beat Generation. 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. Single sheet. Original handwritten letter. In very fine condition with only the slightest wear to fine edges and horizontal crease across middle where once folded. Fine-Very Fine. [Item #7702]

Price: $75.00