Ruggles, Eugene

Broadside: Masses

San Francisco, CA: Quarter Press, 1976. Limited First Edition. Single Sheet. "...We are living in it | without even knowing | the right wood, | the cloth from the grain, | the hours tighten overhead | with song in its place | among the roots. | These wires | through this world. | Their jobs. | The human brick." (last stanza of "Masses", Eugene Ruggles). For your reading and viewing pleasure today, we have a beautiful broadside of "Masses" by the noted American poet, Eugene Ruggles (1935-2004). Ruggles, despite being affiliated with the Beat Generation (and with the San Francisco & Marin Co. scenes, respectively), was born in Pontiac, MI, and grew up on a dairy farm in the surrounding area. Ruggles was saved from this world when a happy twist of fate whisked his family, whole cloth, to sunny California at the dawn of the 1960s. This twist of fate led him to a kinship with poets and Second San Francisco stalwarts Thomas Rain Crowe (b. 1949) and Ken Wainio (1952-2006), (see pgs. 77-78 & 188 in Starting from San Francisco: Thomas Rain Crowe in Conversation with Third Mind Books, Item No. 3071 for more insights to their relationships) a Pulitzer Prize nomination & long career as a poet. City Lights Books founder and Second San Francisco aficionado Lawrence Ferlinghetti (1919-2021) is quoted saying about Ruggles: "Gene's most astounding characteristic is his heart. He really empathizes with the downtrodden and the down-and-out." Ruggles demonstrated a skill with figurative language throughout his life as an itinerant poet who eventually washed up near the Petaluma River near San Francisco, and "Masses" is a true iteration of that. A beautiful sunset orange chain link graphic vertically hugs the poem at its left side. 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. Single sheet (approx. 16" x 6"): First edition though not explicated as such, first printing as stated at copyright/colophon; One of 300 copies printed as stated at same. A most-collectible piece of ephemera in the Ruggles/Second San Francisco Renaissance canon enriched by its distinguished provenance. In relatively fine condition with moderate staining, some rubbing and scratching to front; slight age-toning mostly to edges/blank margins of same; two torn posting holes at left/right of top edge; three miniscule posting holes at left/right/center bottom edge; indeterminable tear marks at left/right side of front/back; minor rubbing, age-toning & some staining with residual tape marks to back, mostly at top and bottom edges. Fine. [Item #7834]

Price: $60.00