Various (McBride, John (Editor); Vangelisti, Paul (Editor); Baraka, Amiri; Buckley, Cardona-Hine, Alvaro; Christopher; Cherkovski, Neeli; Dybeck, Stuart; Hirschman, Jack; Eshleman, Clayton; Kicknosway, Faye; Montgomery, John; Norse, Harold; Spicer, Jack; Vallejo, Cesar et al.)

Invisible City No.s 18-20 (October 1976)

Fairfax, CA: The Red Hill Press, 1976. First Edition. Folded Sheets. “Many of us writers, who are experiencing atrocities of Fascism and are outraged by them, have not yet understood this doctrine [i.e., ‘that the roots of all evil lie in our property relations.’] and have not yet discovered the root of brutality that outrages them. For them the danger exists of treating the horrors of Fascism as unnecessary horrors. They hold to their property relations because they believe that the horrors of Fascism are not necessary in order to defend them. But the maintenance of the dominant property relations does require cruelty. Here the Fascists are not lying. They are telling the truth. Those of our friends who are as outraged as we are by the horrors of Fascism, but wish to maintain existing property relations or are indifferent whether they are maintained or not, cannot carry on the struggle against this spreading barbarism long enough or strongly enough because they cannot specify and help bring about the social conditions that will make barbarism superfluous. Those on the other hand whose search for the roots of the evil has led them in the direction of property relations, have plunged deeper and deeper, through an inferno of deeper, and deeper lying atrocity, until they have reached the place where a small section of humanity has anchored its pitiless dominion. It has anchored it in that form of individual property which involves the exploitation of their fellow men and which they defend with tooth and claw. In the process they are quite willing to sacrifice a culture which no longer helps to defend them and is no longer any use to them, and to sacrifice utterly all those laws of human co-existence for which a despairing humanity has struggled so long and so bravely. Comrades, let us talk of property relations.”--Bertolt Brecht, from back cover. Offered today is a three issue edition of the rare literary journal, Invisible City. A collection of poetry, translations and reviews Invisible City was a journal that, while not as ubiquitous and well known as say The Paris Review, was an important staple in the literary scenes throughout California and the greater West Coast. The issue presented here, Invisible City Nos. 18-20: October 1976 feature many great contributions including: a number of poems from Hard Facts (1975) by Amiri Baraka, the great American poet, novelist, essayist, critic, and Marxist; poems from Ken Wainio, the avant garde-surrealist poet & novelist; a few poems from great surrealist poet, Marxist, and member of the Second San Francisco Renaissance/Baby Beat Generation, Jack Hirschman (1933-2021); prose piece “Translating Vallejo (Caesar)” by Clayton Eshleman (1935-2021) poet, translator, Eastern Michigan University professor Emeritus of English & our dear friend; poetry by the peerless poet, Neeli Cherkovski (1945-2024); and a number of poems and prose pieces by editors Paul Vangelisti (b. 1945) and John McBride among many other contributions and contributors. From the archive of Thomas Rain Crowe (b.1945), 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. Large-format journal (approx. 11.5" x 17,5"). First & presumably only printing. In relatively fine-to-very-fine condition with moderate wear to fine edges, some creasing/wear at spine, and spotting/staining/smudging to front and back covers. Fine-Very Fine. [Item #7801]

Price: $40.00