Crowe, Thomas Rain

Iris: Poems: 3/1988 - 11/1988

Cullowhee, NC: New Native Press, 1998. First Printing. Coil-Bound. “Like candles near the corpse of / wales [sic] and caitlin screaming at / the mad wake of dylan gone gone / gone to ring bells now in / Kathmandu…” (from “Like Candles,” the ninth poem in this unpaginated collection). Composed over an eight-month period in 1988, this impressive, mid-period work by Thomas Rain Crowe (b. 1949) — best known to Beat-&-Beyond scholars for his generative association with the Second San Francisco Renaissance — will delight and surprise its readers by turn. For example, the poems of Iris showcase Crowe’s deep engagement with poets like Dylan Thomas (1914-1953), whose boathouse in Laugharne, Wales Crowe himself both stayed in and wrote poems from. All in all, a splendid, overlooked work by Crowe that shows his poetic maturity near ten years after the close of the Second San Francisco Renaissance. 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. Letter-sized single sheets in coil binding: the first and only printing of this mid-period Crowe collectible. In strong near fine condition with only minute-to-moderate shelf-wear, light bumping to fine-edges & corners of front, back covers & spine-edge; some light rubbing & age-toning throughout; otherwise, clean. Near Fine. [Item #7753]

Price: $30.00