Hirschman, Jack

The Ulitsea Arcane

San Francisco, CA: Privately Published, n/d. Informal Advance Review Copy. Report Folio. “The U.S. imperialists are expanding their war against national independence and peace in Vietnam. They are committing monstrous atrocities and crimes more odious than the Hitlerite fascists.”--Ho Chi Minh. 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 a unique/DIY-esque rarity The Ulitsea Arcane. A part of Hirschman’s magnum opus, The Arcanes, The Ulitsea Arcane is very classic Hirschman. Surreal, bizarre, unflinchingly forward in its avant-garde “fuck you” attitude, and infused with Hirschman’s Marxist zeal, The Ulitsea Arcane is as Hirschman as it gets--this particular item also features handwriting in thin blue ink (presumably from Thomas Rain Crowe) reading "Jack Hirschman (after Joyce." 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. Letter-sized single sheets in report-binding. An informal “Advance Review Copy” likely printed out and subsequently bound by Crowe. In near fine condition with moderate wear to fine edges, several small pieces of tape to front and back covers, light fading to text block, and slight discoloration due to age. Near Fine. [Item #7743]

Price: $50.00