Suntree, Philip

Broadside: Nuclear Waste

Saluda, NC: New Native Press, 1980. Limited First Edition. Single Sheet. “Philip actually studied with Galway Kinnell and Robert Bly before moving to the San Francisco Bay Area. He had many mentors who were influential. A very literary and intelligent person, he soaked up everything he could get his hands on. He lived in Berkeley during the 1970s but often came to San Francisco, and I used to go over to Berkeley frequently to see him and his family and to hang out with the “Street Poets” scene that was going on over there then. He was more interested in the Beat/Baby Beat scene in San Francisco and so joined forces with us in North Beach and became one of the rotating editors of Beatitude Magazine for Beatitude No. 26, which he co-edited with Ken Wainio. Eventually we became best friends and he was the one who introduced me to Gary Snyder and the Kuksu community up on the San Juan Ridge, which is where I ended up after leaving San Francisco. We have remained close friends ever since, and I published his collection of poems Celtic Blood: Selected Poems 1968-1994 (Cullowhee, NC: New Native Press, 1995). He was a major player to the Beatitude cadre and acted as MC for the 1st Annual San Francisco Poetry Festival. He has a poetic voice like no one else I know.”—Thomas Rain Crowe, Thomas Rain Crowe Archive, pg 29. Offered today is the 1980 broadside poem, Nuclear Waste by Philip Suntree (b. 1942), a.k.a. Philip Daughtry. Dark, visceral, steeped in an almost old-testament-esque lyricism, and an admixture of Cormac McCarthy meets Charles Bukowski on absinthe, Nuclear Waste is a poem that is at once apocalyptic, while at the same time tightly composed and contemplative. Suntree’s poetic voice comes roaring off the page with all the urgency of a street-corner-doom-crier while maintaining the clarity and focus of the most studied of poets. Nuclear Waste also features, at the top of the broadside, the Stanislaus Szukalski (1893-1987) piece “Death” from 1919. The piece is evocative of the Soviet-style brutalist-futurism that has come to be associated with the art/propaganda of the USSR; harsh blacks against white negative space shows a figure tackling another in what seems to be reminiscent of a primal rage and desire to conquer the other and annihilate them. “Death” was also featured in the 2018 Netflix documentary “Struggle: The Life and Lost Art of Szukalski” directed by Irek Dobrowolski, and produced by Leonardo DiCaprio (b. 1974) and his father George DiCaprio (b. 1943). Nuclear Waste is Suntree at his most dark and magnetic! From the archive of Thomas Rain Crowe (b. 1949), 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 #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. Broadside (approx. 10 & 1/2” x 17”). Limited First Edition "200 copies printed in Saluda, N.C. for New Native Press in the Spring of 1980" as stated at colophon. In Very fine condition with only the slightest wear to fine edges. Very Fine. [Item #7824]

Price: $60.00